Two Altruistic Lives, Possibly of the Same Soul
 
 
Catherine Meyes
 
 
 
Évariste Galois (1811 – 1832) could be the previous incarnation of Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
 
 
 
A 2014 Editorial Note:
 
First published in the Indian magazine “The Theosophist”[1], the following article suggests the idea that Albert Einstein could be a quick reincarnation of French mathematician Évariste Galois.
 
There is a scarce difference of a few decades between the death of Galois and the birth of Einstein.  According to the original teachings of theosophy, the average distance between two lives of the same monad or higher self varies from 1,000 to 3,000 or 4,000 years. This is clearly stated in “The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett”. However, the same Letters explain that there are various groups of exceptions to this general rule.
 
Individuals who die too young are part of one group of exceptions, and E. Galois died at twenty. On the other hand, Galois had a high degree of Buddhic, or higher self consciousness, which could entitle him to another group of exceptions – that of advanced souls.
 
H. P. Blavatsky gave a few examples in her books and writings of advanced souls who may have quick reincarnations. One of them refers to Western men of science. H.P.B. suggested that Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was an immediate rebirth of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464).
 
She wrote:  
 
“As an instance of an Adept who enjoyed the first mentioned power some mediaeval Kabalists cite a well-known personage of the fifteenth century – Cardinal de Cusa; Karma, due to his wonderful devotion to Esoteric study and the Kabalah, led the suffering Adept to seek intellectual recuperation and rest from ecclesiastical tyranny in the body of Copernicus. Se non é vero é ben trovato [If it is not true, it is cleverly invented]; and the perusal of the lives of the two men might easily lead a believer in such powers to a ready acceptance of the alleged fact.” [2]
 
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was born some 47 years after the death of Évariste Galois. Besides being a scientific genius, Einstein defended peace and liberty while teaching a planetary consciousness. He was a student of “The Secret Doctrine” [3] and had a vision of life with many a point in common with modern Theosophy.
 
As to Galois, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1967 edition, says:
 
“GALOIS, ÉVARISTE (1811 – 1832). French mathematician famous for his contributions to higher algebra, gave his name to the Galois theory of groups. He was born Oct. 25, 1811, at Bourg-la-Reine, where his father was mayor (….).  In 1831 he was arrested for a threatening speech against King Louis Philippe but was acquitted; then shortly afterward he was sentenced to six months in jail for illegally wearing a uniform and carrying weapons. He died May 31, 1832, when only 20 years old, from wounds received in a duel, possibly with an agent provocateur of the police. Galois published only a few small papers; three larger works on the theory of equations were refused by the French Academy. Knowledge of his mathematical achievements stems mainly from a letter to his friend Auguste Chevalier written on the eve of his fatal duel and from posthumous manuscripts. Nevertheless, the Galois theory of groups has become one of the most penetrating concepts of modern mathematics. (….) In the letter to Chevalier, published in the Revue Encyclopédique, Sept. 1832, Galois outlines the content of three mathematical treatises. (….)  Galois emphasizes the use of domains of rationality to which all roots of the given equation have been adjoined, now called Galois fields. Next he introduces the fundamental concept of the (Galois) group of an equation, consisting of all the permutations of the roots which may be applied to any existing rational relations between them. In modern form this leads to the one-to-one correspondence between the subfields of the Galois field and the subgroups of the Galois group. Galois applies the theory to express a general condition for the solvability of equations by radical expressions. Among other concepts associated with Galois’s name are the Galois imaginaries, now usually considered as the elements of finite fields.”
 
The 1972 article by Catherine Meyes shows some central events in Galois’ life and its affinity with the life of Albert Einstein. Examining the article should not lead one to mere belief, but to an open-minded reflection and research, instead.
 
The topic of quick rebirth in the case of advanced souls is examined, for instance, in the book “H.P. Blavatsky, Tibet and Tulku”, by Geoffrey A. Barborka (TPH).
 
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
 
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E. Galois and A. Einstein
 
Catherine Meyes
 
One of the greatest tragedies of the world of Science was the death at twenty of the great mathematical genius Évariste Galois.
 
Galois was one of those who, like the Pharaoh Akhnaton, Galileo and many others of the great leaders of thought in this world, had the misfortune to be born before their time: something this world can never forgive. They are destined to be a shining light to generations yet to be born, but their lives are almost inevitably lives of frustration and suffering. 
 
Galois was a perfect example of this, though, as the world moves ahead so much more rapidly now, recognition was not so long in coming. Yet it came many years after his death. 
 
Born in 1811, he was the son of Nicolas Galois, a man of kindly and philosophical bent, headmaster of a boarding school and later Mayor of his small village, Bourg-la-Reine, who was much loved by his son, Évariste. The young Galois inherited from his father an intense dislike of all forms of tyranny and, with it, sympathy and concern for the downtrodden and exploited members of the human race.
 
It was the time of the brief restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and, as might have been expected, both father and son were revolutionaries and Republicans.
 
At fourteen young Galois was sent to the Academy of Louis-le-Grand, which had many drawbacks as a school in some ways but which at least gave him a scholastic background. In 1823 the Revolution was still very much in men’s heart and minds. The young Galois had a keen sense of right and wrong and a passion for justice. At school he was not much interested in the classics but he came across Legendre’s book on geometry and it awakened his mathematical genius. He completely absorbed it in two days instead of the two years of study it usually took. Algebra as taught in the schools bored him but he mastered for himself the works of Lagrange and Abel and knew himself without a doubt as the great mathematical genius that he was. This, at the age of fifteen. 
 
Of course, he did not get on well at the school or with the masters who, as always with the mediocre, could not understand his genius. He failed in the examination for l’Ecole Polytechnique because of the stupidity of the examiners. This embittered him for life.
 
Meantime, his full genius began to flower and he sent in a paper to the great mathematician Cauchy who was nearing the end of his days and was old and tired. As it came from a school which was not distinguished for advanced work Cauchy paid little or no attention to it and it probably ended up in his scrap basket. Anyway, nothing more was ever heard of it. Galois went on, treading more and more new ground in his researches into Higher Mathematics, notably algebra and geometry, where his extraordinary genius was beginning to reach its full stature.
 
Meanwhile, the riots and disturbances of the political world became more and more pronounced and he shared his passion for mathematics with his wholehearted protest against the tyranny of the Establishment both in Church and State.
 
At seventeen he was making discoveries in the theory of equations which are still being studied today. Yet all this could not prevail against the crass stupidity of the examiners who again refused him for the Polytechnique. This and the carelessness and indifference of the aging Cauchy formed an impassable barrier. In the last attempt at recognition he sent his great paper, now known as “The Galois Theory,” to the Academy of Sciences where, being so far ahead of the times, it was labeled “incomprehensible” and rejected. At nineteen he was finally admitted to University standing after innumerable encounters with stupidity and ignorance. It was this year that he composed three immortal papers on algebraic equations which broke completely new ground. These were sent to the Academy of Sciences but again Fate stepped in. The Secretary died suddenly and the papers were lost.
 
To add to Galois’ bitterness his much loved father, while still Mayor of Bourg-la-Reine, had incurred the wrath of the Establishment, both of Church and State, for his liberal views. It was decided to get rid of him and verses were forged, couched in violent and obscene language and bearing his name, attacking various individuals and hints were circulated that he had become insane.[4]
 
The ugliness of all this was too much for the gentle and high-minded philosopher and he was driven to suicide.
 
The young Galois found this almost unbearable and he threw himself heart and soul into the revolution of 1830. He joined the National Guard, a revolutionary organization, and also did considerable speaking. Impassioned, dynamic, magnetic, he was considered a danger, while his fellow students were mostly ignored, and means were sought to remove him from the political scene. At a student banquet charges were trumped up against him that he had drunk the health of Louis Philippe while brandishing a dagger. He was arrested and kept some time in prison but a friendly jury acquitted him when his trial came up.
 
He carried on as usual, breaking new ground in algebra and geometry, still unrecognized and going on with his revolutionary activities, making the authorities more and more determined to “get him”. He was arrested again, this time on a charge of having illegally worn the uniform of the now defunct National Guard. Three months in “protective custody” under dreadful prison conditions and a sentence, finally, of six months did not remove him for long enough and plans were laid to eliminate him entirely. To this end a young woman was hired to gain his confidence and affection, which scheme she probably inaugurated by professing sympathy with his ideas and ideals, and thus to manoeuvre him into a position where he could be forced into a duel in which, of course, his adversary would be an accomplished and experienced duellist against whom he would have no chance. The unsophisticated and youthful Galois was an easy prey to such a plot. He entered into the one and only liaison of his life with the wretched girl who was to betray him to his death. And all went as planned. Galois knew from the first that he had no chance of surviving the duel forced upon him, set for the following day.
 
Of that last night of his life he spent all the hours writing down as much as he could of his great legacy to mankind, a legacy which is more and more honored by the scientific world as the years go by. Like William Blake, he is more honored one hundred years after his death than at any previous time, the work of both having a quality of immortality. He wrote frantically, ignoring increasing exhaustion. Finally came the knock on the door announcing daybreak. He wrote “there is no time” and opened the door. The duellists faced each other and Galois fell, mortally wounded and not having fired a shot. He lived some twenty-four hours, long enough to entrust his priceless work to his brother, incomplete, but all he had time for.
 
So died Galois. A life dedicated to the freedom of mankind and to the advancement of the science of Mathematics – that science which is the basic of nearly all the other sciences. That physical brain which was the instrument of the greatest mathematical mind the world had ever known became dust in an unknown grave. A light of learning, which might have shone with increasing splendor for decades to come, was extinguished in the darkness of a world not yet ready for it, its greatest gifts not yet given. There was no time.
 
Forty-seven years after the death of Galois a child was born – Albert Einstein, who had seventy-six years of life ahead of him and all the resources of the greatest institutions of learning in the United States and many other nations at his disposal. By his supreme genius he earned, and richly deserved, the acclaim not only of the scientific world but that of all people of education who hailed him as the greatest mathematician of all time. Not only for his mathematical genius was he honored but because of his love of liberty, his hatred of all tyranny and oppression and his concern for the downtrodden and exploited members of the human race, of whatever nationality.
 
It was his love of liberty which caused him to leave his native land of Germany and seek refuge in the United States of America to which he brought his priceless gift of genius. As all the world knows it was his immortal equation which ushered in the New Age, whether one calls it the Nuclear Age, the Space Age, or the Aquarian Age. It was a very great grief to him that the first use of atomic power was the hideous destruction and loss of human life caused by the atom bomb, for the loathed all violence in every form. A man of great simplicity, he evaded, as far as possible, all honors and publicity although he was always ready to speak out in defence of the under-dog and in the denunciation of tyranny in all its forms. His was a life of fulfillment in every way, not only as a transcendent genius but as a great human being. People who had no conception of his theories loved him for what he was. His was the only figure of living man carved over the entrance of the magnificent Riverside Church in New York, among the greatest of the world’s saints, scientists and philosophers. 
 
His domestic happiness was fulfilled in the serene tranquility of his marriage in his later years to his wife and cousin, the devoted Elsa. One of his outstanding characteristics was that special gift of the gods, that rare, magnetic quality which irresistibly draws the attention and awakens the imagination of people so that, though it is not consciously exercized, it lends a special impact to anything said or done by the person possessing it. It was this quality in Galois which made him such a danger to the authorities and singled him out for death.
 
There are contrasts, correspondences, fulfilments between the lives of these two great men. Curiously enough there is a little portrait on a family cup of Einstein at the age of six which might well be an earlier version of the picture of Galois at sixteen. There was a certain simplicity and unworldliness about the two men, neither was concerned with his personal self but completely dedicated to mathematics and welfare of mankind; most of all, to the hatred of tyranny in all its forms and to the concern for and sympathy with the sufferings of mankind. There were in Einstein fulfilments of the heart, mind and spirit never accomplished, though latent, in young Galois. Perhaps there are enough of these to make those of us who believe in reincarnation as part of Divine Plan pause and wonder.
 
Could this thing have been?
Was Einstein Galois?
Was there time after all? 
 
NOTES:
 
[1] The article is reproduced from “The Theosophist” magazine, Adyar, India, January 1972 edition, pp. 225-230. (CCA)
 
[2] “Collected Writings”, H.P. Blavatsky, TPH, volume XIV, pp. 377-379. (CCA)
 
[3] On Einstein studying “The Secret Doctrine”, see the book “HPB”, by Sylvia Cranston, G.P. Putnam Sons, New York, USA, 1994, 648 pp., p. XX and pp. 557-558. (CCA)
 
[4] The same traditional  trick of forging absurd  texts and ascribing them to  an opponent, in order to discredit the opponent’s views and teachings, was used by the Christian Churches against Helena Blavatsky and the theosophical movement a few decades after that. The movement survived.  (CCA)
 
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On the role of the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
 
 
Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
 
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