Metempsychosis is a philosophical term
in the Greek language referring to
transmigration of the soul, especially
its reincarnation after death.
Generally, the term is only used within
the context of Ancient Greek philosophy,
but has also been used by modern
philosophers such as Schopenhauer and
Kurt Gödel; otherwise, the term
"transmigration" is more appropriate.
The word plays a prominent role in James
Joyce's Ulysses, and is also associated
with Nietzsche. Another term sometimes
used synonymously is palingenesia.
Europe before the pre-Socratic
philosophers
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.
In Greek philosophy
The earliest Greek thinker with whom
metempsychosis is connected is
Pherecydes of Syros; 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. In the
eschatological myth which closes the
Republic he tells the myth 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. 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.
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. The extent of Plato's belief
in metempsychosis has been debated by
some scholars in modern times. Marsilio
Ficino, 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 and
satirized by Lucian. 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. 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
laughs at Ennius for this: it is
referred to also by Lucretius and by
Horace. Virgil works the idea into his
account of the Underworld in the sixth
book of the Aeneid. It persists in
antiquity down to the latest classic
thinkers, Plotinus and the other
Neoplatonists.
In literature after the Classical Era
"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".
Metempsychosis is a prominent theme in
Edgar Allan Poe's 1832 short story
"Metzengerstein". Poe returns to
metempsychosis again in "Morella" and
"The Oval Portrait".
Metempsychosis is referred to
prominently in the concluding paragraph
of Chapter 98, "Stowing Down and
Clearing Up", of Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick.
Herbert Giles uses the term
metempsychosis in his translation of the
butterfly dream from the Zhuangzi. The
use of this term is contested by
Hans-Georg Moller, though, who claims
that a better translation is “the
changing of things”. 
Metempsychosis is a recurring theme in
James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses.
In Joycean fashion, the word famously
appears, mispronounced by Molly Bloom,
as "met him pike hoses."
In Thomas Pynchon's 1963 premiere novel
V., metempsychosis is mentioned in
reference to the book "The Search for
Bridey Murphy" by Morey Bernstein, and
also later in chapter eight.
Metempsychosis is referenced in Don
DeLillo's 1982 novel The Names.
In David Foster Wallace's 1996 novel
Infinite Jest, the name of the character
Madame Psychosis is a pun that alludes
to metempsychosis.
Guy de Maupassant's story "Le docteur
Héraclius Gloss" is a fable about
metempsychosis.
In Marcel Proust's famous first
paragraph from A la recherche du temps
perdu, the narrator compares his
separation from the subject of a book to
the process of metempsychosis.
See also
Yazidi
Zalmoxis
Ya’furiyya Shia
Gilgul
Saṃsāra
References
External links
The Columbia Encyclopedia:
Transmigration of souls or
Metempsychosis
The Catholic Encyclopedia:
Metempsychosis
Jewish view of reincarnation
Did Plato Believe in Reincarnation?
