metempsychosis

Dictionary: me·tem·psy·cho·sis (mə-tĕm'sĭ-kō'sĭs, mĕt'əm-sī-) pronunciation

n., pl., -ses (-sēz).
Reincarnation.

[Late Latin metempsȳchōsis, from Greek metempsūkhōsis, from metempsūkhousthai, to transmigrate : meta-, meta- + empsūkhos, animate (en, in; see en-² + psūkhē, soul).]

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Encyclopedia of Judaism: Transmigration of Souls

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The concept of the soul's reappearance after death and entry into a new body is first found as a positive idea in a Jewish context in the early works of the Kabbalah, from the late 12th century. It is absent in ancient Judaism, while the early Jewish medieval philosophers who mention it do so to condemn it (Saadiah Gaon, Abraham bar Ḥiyya). The earliest work of the Kabbalah, the Book of Bahir, presents it as God's way of giving man another opportunity to atone for his sins and attain salvation after spending his first life as a wicked person. R. Isaac the Blind, the leading kabbalist in Provence in the late 12th-early 13th century, was reputed to be able to distinguish between an "old" and "new" soul, knowing the history of each through his supernatural powers. Almost all kabbalist literature from the 13th century, including the Zohar, used the concept in many ways and developed a specific terminology for it, the most common term being gilgul (an abbreviation of gilgul-neshamot).

The use of the concept in kabbalistic literature reached a peak in the 16th century, after the expulsion from Spain, in the kabbalistic center in Safed. The anonymous author of Galya Raza ("Revealer of Secrets") forcefully underscored the element of the process of transmigration of souls as punishment for sins---the being into which one is transformed being determined by the nature of one's sins. The idea that man's soul can reappear in animals became common and Isaac Luria even identified a certain fornicator in a large black dog in Safed.

The most systematic treatment of the subject is found in the works of R. Ḥayyim Vital, Luria's disciple. In Vital's psychological system, each of the five parts of the soul migrates from body to body independently; thus every soul is a combination of elements which have lived several times in the past in different places and circumstances, requiring needing some form of tikkun (rectification). The influence of Vital's works made the concept of transmigration common in early modern Jewish mystical thought, including Shabbateanism (see Shabbetai Tsevi). (See also Dibbuk for a related, though different, concept.)

Philosophy Dictionary: metempsychosis

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The transmigration of the soul, whereby upon death the soul takes up residence in a new body. The doctrine is embedded in the Indian notion of samsara, and in the western tradition is especially associated with Pythagoras and Empedocles, and frequently supported by appeals to memories of past lives.

Columbia Encyclopedia: transmigration of souls

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transmigration of souls or metempsychosis (mətĕm'səkō'sĭs) [Gr.,=change of soul], a belief common to many cultures, in which the soul passes from one body to another, either human, animal, or inanimate. The Australian aborigines believe that an infant is a reincarnation of deceased ancestors and that the soul is continually reborn. Some Indonesian peoples hold that ancestral souls reside in sacred animals, sometimes in preparation for a new incarnation. Similarly, several tribes in western Amazonia avoid eating certain animals, such as deer, because they believe ancestral souls have entered the animals' bodies.

Metempsychosis is a fundamental doctrine of several religions originating in India. In Hinduism, the individual soul enters a new existence after the death of the body. The sum total of past moral conduct, or karma, determines the condition of the soul and the quality of its rebirth. The cycle of rebirth is eternal unless the soul is released by knowledge or arduous effort (see yoga). This release (moksha or mukti) is a form of salvation, and is possible only for the most devout. Buddhist doctrine does not accept the soul or transmigration as such, treating both as illusory. Rather, there is an eternal, undifferentiated stream of being (samsara). Out of this, existences are produced and prolonged according to karma, or past actions. The individual is not a separate entity, but rather a grouping of elements. They revert to the original primal stream when desire, the cause of the transmigratory cycle, ceases. Only devout Buddhists or saints (i.e., those who abandon all desire) are able to realize this oneness.

The Celtic version of metempsychosis does not have the ethical aspect of its Indian counterpart. The Druids of Gaul supposedly taught that after death the soul left one body to enter another, but the second body was not necessarily earthly; little else is known of their beliefs. Examples of metempsychosis in pre-Christian Irish legends indicate that these transmigrations occurred only in the lifetime of heroes. The belief in transmigration was rare in ancient Egypt, although occasional instances occur of a soul uniting with a god, a soul entering an animal for a lifetime, or a voluntary metamorphosis of a person into another form for his own benefit.

The Greek version, an indigenous product, appeared in the Orphic Mysteries, but its best-known proponent was Pythagoras. He believed that souls were reincarnated in various bodily shapes. Empedocles, in his poem Purification, accepted Orphic and Pythagorean beliefs. Plato's views on metempsychosis are derived from these same sources. Plotinus believed that future destiny depended upon the life of the soul in previous incarnations. It is possible that these beliefs were influenced by contact with Indian religion.

Jewish treatment of metempsychosis, as found in the kabbalah, was limited by the need to conform to orthodox scriptures, and the theory of transmigration was tolerated rather than approved. The Jewish theories, derived mainly from Gnostic, Manichaean, and Neoplatonic sources, teach that man has absolute free will, but that his soul is tied and sullied by contact with matter. Demon (imperfect) souls try to prevent the fulfillment of the finite divine plan. To act out this plan, the spotless souls descend from their original abode in heaven and are incarnated. Punishment and atonement for sins is achieved by another incarnation; but before this happens, the now impure soul flits about as a disembodied spirit. If the pious suffer, it is believed to be for sins committed in a previous existence. At the end of the cycles, when all the incarnated souls are once again pure, the Messianic period begins. No theories of transmigration are admitted into Christian religion.

Bibliography

See J. Head, ed., Reincarnation in World Thought (1967); J. Algeo, Reincarnation Explored (1987).

Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia: Metempsychosis

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From the Greek meta, "after," and empsychos, "to animate," the belief that after death, the soul passes into another body, either human or animal. In ancient Greece it was roughly equivalent to the idea of reincarnation.

The idea seems to have originated in Egypt but to have first been advocated by Pythagoras around 455 B.C.E. Diogenes Laertius noted that Pythagoras once recognized the soul of a departed friend in a dog that was being beaten. Plato picked up on the idea and expounded it in several of his Dialogues, most notably the Phaedo and Republic. According to the vision of truth that one attains, one will be born in the next life in a body suitable to that attainment, Plato said. The most enlightened will be reborn as a philosopher, musician, artist, or lover. At the lowest level, he placed tyrants. Once a soul has beheld true being, it will pass from animal into human form, he said. Plato also put forth the idea that a person chooses his next life, the very choice being a sign of his character.

The idea of metempsychosis was also held by some of the Gnostics, and it became a source of disagreement between them and the leaders of the Christian church. Irenaeus, the second century bishop of Lyons, wrote at length against the Gnostics in his pacesetting Contra Heresies and singled out metem-psychosis as an idea that was incompatible with Christianity. The church has essentially followed Irenaeus's lead in its consideration of metempsychosis and reincarnation. Origen, a Christian theologian of the third century with a platonic background, tried to defend some aspects of the metempsychosis doctrine, primarily the prior existence of the soul, but soon gave up, having found the idea contrary to the New Testament teachings.

Metempsychosis found its last great philosophical defender in Plotinus (205-270 C.E.), the Neoplatonic philosopher. He saw repeated births of the soul as a means for its education. By being in the body, the soul learns how desirable is the nonphysical existence, Plotinus taught.

The idea of reincarnation lingered in the West, passing through a succession of Gnostic groups, but experienced a re-birth in the twentieth century. It's current spread, however, has a basis in Indian and Oriental ideas of reincarnation, usually attached to the additional notion of karma.

Sources:

Crombie, I. M. Plato: The Midwife's Apprentice. London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul, 1964.

Ducasse, C. J. A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life after Death. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1961.

World of the Mind: metempsychosis

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When a living thing dies, its 'soul' or psyche takes up a new residence in some other body, which it thereby vivifies: for the psyche, bodily death means emigration, bodily birth immigration. That is the ancient doctrine of 'metempsychosis' or the transmigration of the soul.

Among the Greeks, the followers of Pythagoras were particularly associated with the doctrine — indeed it is one of the few beliefs that can confidently be ascribed to Pythagoras himself. (In Twelfth Night, 'Sir Topas' asks the imprisoned Malvolio: 'What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?' And Malvolio rightly answers: 'That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.') Empedocles, too, subscribed to the doctrine; one of his poems contained the following couplet:

For already have I once been a boy, and a girl, and a bush, and a fish that jumps from the sea as it swims

. (Bushes are living things, and therefore have a psyche. The jumping fish is the dolphin.)

Note that the psyche is a principle of individuality for living things: since Empedocles' psyche once inhabited a fish, Empedocles himself once was a fish — metempsychosis is about the personal survival of bodily death. We are told that Pythagoras 'passed a dog that was being whipped; he took pity on it and said: "Stop! don't beat it — it is the psyche of a friend of mine; I recognize him by his voice."'

Different thinkers composed variations on the metempsychotic theme: for some, the process of transmigration went on for ever; some imagined a cycle of incarnations; some spoke of a hierarchy of lives; in some versions of the theory, incarnations are separated by periods of non-corporeal existence, during which divine judgement may take place. The doctrine was sometimes associated with a theology or with a quasi-religious way of life; and Empedocles based a moral theory upon it: if one and the same psyche may animate now a man, now a lion, now an eagle, then living creatures are all akin; and we should have moral scruples about maltreating our psychic kinsmen. Empedocles denounced all bloodshed and advocated a form of vegetarianism, for if you kill and eat a sheep, you may be killing and eating your own father. ('Sir Topas' counsels Malvolio to 'fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam'.) Strictly speaking, if you eat a parsnip, you may be eating your father, but Empedocles did not have the strength of character to insist upon a wholly inanimate diet.

Metempsychosis may seem at best an irrational form of mysticism, at worst a risible piece of nonsense. To some Greeks, at least, it appeared to be an empirical theory; and its empirical basis lay in memory. Thus, according to Heraclides Ponticus, a pupil of Plato's, Pythagoras

says about himself that he was once Aithalides, and was deemed a son of Hermes; and Hermes told him to choose whatever he wanted except immortality: so he asked that, both alive and dead, he should remember what happened. Thus in his life he remembered everything, and when he died he retained the same memory. Some time later, he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus. ... And when Euphorbus died, his psyche passed into Hermotimus. ... And when Hermotimus died, he became Pyrrhus the Delian diver; and again, he remembered everything — how he had first been Aithalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus. And when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and he remembered all the events I have mentioned.

Pythagoras claimed to have memories of his earlier lives, and those memories supported the theory of metempsychosis — or at least, they constituted evidence that Pythagoras himself was a migratory psyche. Sceptical Greeks dared to doubt Pythagoras' claim to remember being wounded under the walls of Troy, but Pythagoras was prepared to back up his claim:

They say that, while staying at Argos, he saw a shield from the spoils of Troy nailed up, and burst into tears. When the Argives asked him the reason for his emotion, he said that he himself had carried that shield in Troy when he was Euphorbus. They didn't believe him, and thought he was mad; but he said he could provide a true sign that this was the case: on the inside of the shield they would find written in archaic letters: euphorbus'. Because of the extraordinary nature of his claim, they all urged him to take down the offering. And the inscription was found on it.

Thus transmigratory claims are supported by an appeal to memory, and memory claims are supported in their turn by practical demonstration. The stories about Pythagoras' abilities are doubtless apocryphal, but the moral they point is not: even in their most extravagant moments, the ancient Greek psychologists did not lose all touch with reason and empirical reality.

(Published 1987)

— Jonathan Barnes

Obscure Words: metempsychosis

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passing of the soul into another body

Word Tutor: metempsychosis

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IN BRIEF: Transition of the soul of a human being at death into another body, whether human or beast.

Some people believe in metempsychosis especially when they hear of a prodigy in music or mathematics.

Wikipedia: Metempsychosis

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2009)

Metempsychosis is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. It is a doctrine popular among a number of Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Druzism^[1] wherein an individual incarnates from one body to another, either human, animal, or plant.^[2] Generally the term is only used within the context of Greek Philosophy, but has also been used by modern philosophers such as Schopenhauer^[3] and Kurt Gödel^[4]; otherwise, the term "transmigration" is more appropriate. The word also plays a prominent role in James Joyce's Ulysses, and is associated also with Nietzsche.^[5] Another term sometimes used synonymously is Palingenesia.

1 In Greek philosophy
2 In literature after the Classical Era
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

In Greek philosophy

It is unclear how the doctrine of metempsychosis arose in Greece. It is easiest to assume that earlier ideas which had never been extinguished were utilized for religious and philosophic purposes. The Orphic religion, which held it, first appeared in Thrace upon the semi-barbarous north-eastern frontier. Orpheus, its legendary founder, is said to have taught that soul and body are united by a compact unequally binding on either; the soul is divine, immortal and aspires to freedom, while the body holds it in fetters as a prisoner. Death dissolves this compact, but only to re-imprison the liberated soul after a short time: for the wheel of birth revolves inexorably. Thus the soul continues its journey, alternating between a separate unrestrained existence and fresh reincarnation, round the wide circle of necessity, as the companion of many bodies of men and animals." To these unfortunate prisoners Orpheus proclaims the message of liberation, that they stand in need of the grace of redeeming gods and of Dionysus in particular, and calls them to turn to God by ascetic piety of life and self-purification: the purer their lives the higher will be their next reincarnation, until the soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny to live for ever as God from whom it comes. Such was the teaching of Orphism which appeared in Greece about the 6th century BC, organized itself into private and public mysteries at Eleusis and elsewhere, and produced a copious literature^{[citation needed]}.

The earliest Greek thinker with whom metempsychosis is connected is Pherecydes of Syros^[6]; but Pythagoras, who is said to have been his pupil, is its first famous philosophic exponent. Pythagoras probably neither invented the doctrine nor imported it from Egypt, but made his reputation by bringing Orphic doctrine from North-Eastern Hellas to Magna Graecia and by instituting societies for its diffusion.

The real weight and importance of metempsychosis in Western tradition is due to its adoption by Plato^{[citation needed]}. Had he not embodied it in some of his greatest works it would be merely a matter of curious investigation for the Western anthropologist and student of folk-lore. In the eschatological myth which closes the Republic he tells the story how Er, the son of Armenius, miraculously returned to life on the twelfth day after death and recounted the secrets of the other world. After death, he said, he went with others to the place of Judgment and saw the souls returning from heaven, and proceeded with them to a place where they chose new lives, human and animal. He saw the soul of Orpheus changing into a swan, Thamyras becoming a nightingale, musical birds choosing to be men, the soul of Atalanta choosing the honours of an athlete. Men were seen passing into animals and wild and tame animals changing into each other. After their choice the souls drank of Lethe and then shot away like stars to their birth. There are myths and theories to the same effect in other dialogues, the Phaedrus, Meno, Phaedo, Timaeus and Laws.^{[citation needed]} In Plato's view the number of souls was fixed; birth therefore is never the creation of a soul, but only a transmigration from one body to another.^[7] Plato's acceptance of the doctrine is characteristic of his sympathy with popular beliefs and desire to incorporate them in a purified form into his system.^{[citation needed]} Aristotle, a far less emotional and sympathetic mind, has a doctrine of immortality totally inconsistent with it.^{[citation needed]}

The extent of Plato's belief in metempsychosis has been debated by some scholars in modern times. Marsilio Ficino (Platonic Theology 17.3-4), for one, argued that Plato's references to metempsychosis were intended allegorically.

In later Greek literature the doctrine appears from time to time; it is mentioned in a fragment of Menander (the Inspired Woman) and satirized by Lucian (Gallus 18 seq.). In Roman literature it is found as early as Ennius, who in his Calabrian home must have been familiar with the Greek teachings which had descended to his times from the cities of Magna Graecia.^{[citation needed]} In a lost passage of his Annals, a Roman history in verse, Ennius told how he had seen Homer in a dream, who had assured him that the same soul which had animated both the poets had once belonged to a peacock. Persius in one of his satires (vi. 9) laughs at Ennius for this: it is referred to also by Lucretius (i. 124) and by Horace (Epist. II. i. 52). Virgil works the idea into his account of the Underworld in the sixth book of the Aeneid (vv. 724 sqq.). It persists in antiquity down to the latest classic thinkers, Plotinus and the other Neoplatonists.

In literature after the Classical Era

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

Metempsychosis is mentioned in Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1592). Anguished that his soul will be damned in hell forever, he prays for metempsychosis to be true so that his soul will be free.

"Metempsychosis" is the title of a longer work by the metaphysical poet John Donne, written in 1601. The poem, also known as the Infinitati Sacrum, consists of two parts, the "Epistle" and "The Progress of the Soule". In the first line of the latter part, Donne writes that he "sing[s] of the progresse of a deathlesse soule".

In the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), a character explains the idea as fact and as a rationale for the decriminalization of murder.

Metempsychosis is mentioned and is a key plot device in Edgar Allan Poe's 1832 short story, "Metzengerstein." Poe returns to metempsychosis again in "Morella" (1835) and "The Oval Portrait" (1842).

Metempsychosis is mentioned in chapter 98 of Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville. "Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild...".

Metempsychosis is referred to in Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves, (1865), discussing the transmigration of the soul from man into beast.

Also referred to in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1877) when Darya Alexandrovna's beliefs are contrasted with the catholic views of her family and friends. "She had her own strange religion of metampsychosis, in which she firmly believed, caring little for the dogmas of the Church."^[8]

The term is mentioned in the opening pages of Proust's Swann's Way (1913).

Metempsychosis is referred to and recurs as a theme in James Joyce's modernist novel, Ulysses (1920). ^[9]

In the 1996 David Foster Wallace novel Infinite Jest, the mysterious Joelle Van Dyne broadcasts from the MIT college radio station under the on-air name "Madame Psychosis," a play on the term appropriate to the character, who is described as being two different people before and after a freak disfiguring accident (and recovery from cocaine addiction).

There is a track entitled "Metempsychosis" on the eponymously named album by the band Arzachel,featuring a young Steve Hillage.

There is a poem in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves entitled "Pelican's Juvenile Metempsychosis."

Metempsychosis is also explored in Francis Ford Coppola's 2007 film Youth Without Youth.

References

^ Encyclopedia Britannica
^ Heart of Hinduism: Reincarnation and Samsara
^ Schopenhauer, A: "Parerga und Paralipomena" (Eduard Grisebach edition), On Religion, Section 177
^ Gödel Exhibition: Gödel's Century
^ Nietzsche and the Doctrine of Metempsychosis, in J. Urpeth & J. Lippitt, Nietzsche and the Divine, Manchester: Clinamen, 2000
^ Schibli, S., Hermann, Pherekydes of Syros, p. 104, Oxford Univ. Press 2001
^ "That is the conclusion, I said; and if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number." Republic X, 611. The Republic of Plato By Plato, Benjamin Jowett Edition: 3 Published by Clarendon press, 1888.
^ "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy, Section III, Part VIII
^ List of occurrences of Metempsychosis in Ulysses

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Translations: Metempsychosis

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n. - métempsycose

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n. - metempsicosis

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metempsychosis

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In Greek philosophy

In literature after the Classical Era

References

See also

External links