Since dualism cannot exist without thought; since Time is an effect of dualism; and since any reincarnation must inevitably be subject to Time, it follows that whatever could reincarnate must be capable of thought. This finds confirmation in the universal belief that those who have transcended the thinking process are thereby liberated and for ever free from the process of reincarnation. But thought requires a somatic apparatus by means of which to find expression, so that what is involved in reincarnation can only be the principle of thought, which expresses itself via one and then another somatic apparatus of genetic origin.
What do we understand by the principle of thought? It is evidently an element of what we term the psyche, an element that is not normally recognisable apart from other elements. It should be responsible for memory, since but for memory it is doubtful if Time could be experienced. I think we may be certain also that it should be responsible for desire, which we sometimes call 'will', and this is supported by the frequent statement that desire is responsible for reincarnation.
Further we may assume that the principle of thought operates as what we now recognise as a force-field, of an electronic nature, and that its manifestation in the physical universe is by means of what we know as vibrations, probably of a high frequency.
Such a principle might be capable of carrying over reflections or echoes of past mundane experience, nostalgias, tendencies, prophetic knowledge of 'future' mundane experience, eagerness for them or dread of them, and even physical reminiscences or anticipations that find expression via the somatic structure! But the most important baggage element in each successive transfer would seem to be what is called karma - the residue in a time-context of the resultants of all actions performed during a 'life'.
The principle of thought should be the controlling factor of the psyche, but an influence rather than an entity, in fact just what we have called it - a principle, and it cannot have in itself anything resembling what we recognise as a personality or individuality, since it is by definition a principle only. In the perspective of Reality it is merely a concept, an object in Consciousness, and it has no absolute existence.
Let us rest content for the present with the term Principle of Thought that is associated with a series of specific psycho-somatic apparatuses, and the term for the transformation itself, if it exists, should not be 'Reincarnation' but 'Transmigration'.
