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Metempsychosis

This article is about the Greek conception of the transmigration of the soul. For the general concept, seeReincarnation.

Inphilosophy,metempsychosis(Greek:μετεμψύχωσις) is thetransmigrationof thesoul,especially itsreincarnationafter death. The term is derived fromancient Greek philosophy,and has been recontextualized by modern philosophers such asArthur Schopenhauer,[1]Kurt Gödel,[2]Mircea Eliade,[3]andMagdalena Villaba;[4]otherwise, the word "transmigration" is more appropriate. The word plays a prominent role inJames Joyce'sUlyssesand is also associated withNietzsche.[5]Another term sometimes used synonymously ispalingenesis.

A section ofMetempsychosis(1923) byYokoyama Taikan;a drop of water from the vapours in the sky transforms into a mountain stream, which flows into a great river and on into the sea, whence rises a dragon (pictured) that turns back to vapour;National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo(Important Cultural Property)[6]

Orphism

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TheOrphic religion,which believed in metempsychosis, first appeared inThraceon the northeastern frontier.Orpheus,its legendaryThracianfounder, is said to have taught that soul and body are united by a compact unequally binding on either. The soul is divine but immortal and aspires to freedom, while the body holds it in fetters as a prisoner. Death dissolves that contract but only to reimprison the liberated soul after a short time, for the wheel of birth revolves inexorably. Thus, the soul continues its journey and alternates between a separate unrestrained existence and a fresh reincarnation around the wide circle of necessity, as the companion of many bodies of men and animals. To those unfortunate prisoners, Orpheus proclaims the message of liberation, that they stand in need of the grace of redeeming gods,Dionysusin particular, and calls them to turn to the gods by ascetic piety and self-purification: the purer their lives, the higher their next reincarnation will be, until the soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny to live forever as a God from whom it comes. Such was the teaching of Orphism, which appeared in Greece about the 6th century BCE, organized itself into private and public mysteries atEleusisand elsewhere, and produced copious literature.[7][8][9]

Pre-Socratic philosophy

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The earliest Greek thinker with whom metempsychosis is connected isPherecydes of Syros,[10]butPythagoras,who is said to have been his pupil, is its first famous philosophic exponent.Walter Burkerthas argued that Pythagoras may have introduced metempsychosis to Orphism.[11]He suggests that modern scholarship's tendency to separate Orphism from early Pythagoreanism is a retrojection, possibly of Nietzschean ideas about the opposition of theApollonian(associated with Pythagoreanism) and theDionysian(associated with Orphism), whereas for the Greeks, Apollo and Dionysus were brothers and not so clearly differentiated. Pythagoras offered as evidence for metempsychosis his own recollection of past lives, a superhuman form of wisdom that contributed to his reputation as a prophet.[12]

Platonic philosophy

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The weight and importance of metempsychosis in the Western tradition are from its adoption byPlato.[13]In theeschatologicalmyth that closes theRepublic,he tells 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, and 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 ofLetheand then shot away like stars to their birth. There are myths and theories to the same effect in other dialogues, including thePhaedrus,Meno,Phaedo,Timaeus,andLaws.[citation needed]In Plato's view the number of souls was fixed; souls are never created or destroyed but only transmigrate from one body to another.[14]

Modern

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Scholars have debated the extent of Plato's belief in metempsychosis since at least theRenaissance.Marsilio Ficinoargued that Plato's references to metempsychosis were intended to be allegorical.[15]Modern scholars, including Chad Jorgensen and Gerard Naddaf, have tended to agree with Ficino.[16]

"Metempsychosis" is the title of a longer work by the metaphysical poetJohn Donne,written in 1601.[17]The poem, also known as theInfinitati Sacrum,[18]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".[18]

Metempsychosis is a recurring theme inJames Joyce'smodernistnovelUlysses(1922).[19]In Joycean fashion, the word famously appears inLeopold Bloom's inner monologue recalling how his wife,Molly Bloom,apparently mispronounced it earlier that day as "met him pike hoses."[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^Schopenhauer, A: "Parerga und Paralipomena" (Eduard Grisebach edition), On Religion, Section 177
  2. ^Gödel Exhibition: Gödel's Century
  3. ^Mircea Eliade (1957).The Sacred And The Profane.p. 109.
  4. ^Villaba, Magdalena (1976). "An Interpretation on the Doctrine of Transmigration".Philippiniana Sacra.
  5. ^Nietzsche and the Doctrine of Metempsychosis, in J. Urpeth & J. Lippitt,Nietzsche and the Divine,Manchester: Clinamen, 2000
  6. ^"Masterpieces".National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.Retrieved13 February2016.
  7. ^Linforth, Ivan M. (1941)The Arts of OrpheusArno Press, New York,OCLC514515
  8. ^Long, Herbert S. (1948)A Study of the doctrine of metempsychosis in Greece, from Pythagoras to Plato(Long's 1942 PhD dissertation) Princeton, New Jersey,OCLC1472399
  9. ^Long, Herbert S. (16 February 1948) "Plato's Doctrine of Metempsychosis and Its Source"The Classical Weekly41(10): pp. 149–155
  10. ^Schibli, S., Hermann, Pherekydes of Syros, p. 104, Oxford Univ. Press 2001
  11. ^Burkert, Walter (1972).Lore and science in ancient Pythagoreanism.Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. pp. 132–133.ISBN978-0-674-53918-1.
  12. ^Burkert, Walter (1972).Lore and science in ancient Pythagoreanism.Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. p. 137.ISBN978-0-674-53918-1.
  13. ^Plato.Republic, Book 10, section 620.
  14. ^"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.
  15. ^SeePlatonic Theology17.3–4.
  16. ^Jorgensen 2018: 199 says that Plato's eschatological accounts are "much better suited to a creative discourse aimed at capturing the imagination of a particular audience than to an attempt to describe an independently existing reality." See Jorgensen, Chad.The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Naddaf 2016: 113 says that this part of Plato's thinking can be represented "only by eschatological or cosmological myths. It is inaccessible to explanation." See Naddaf, Gerard. "Poetic Myths of the Afterlife: Plato's Last Song,"Reflections on Plato's Poetics: Essays from Beijing.Academic Printing and Publishing: Berrima, NSW, 2016, 111–136.
  17. ^Collins, Siobhán (2005) "Bodily Formations and Reading Strategies in John Donne'sMetempsychosis"Critical Studies26: pp. 191–208, page 191
  18. ^abfull text ofMetempsychosisorInfinitati Sacrumfrom Luminarium Editions
  19. ^"List of occurrences of Metempsychosis in Ulysses".Archived fromthe originalon 16 March 2012.Retrieved14 January2008.
  20. ^Cf. Joyce,Ulysses,§8LestrygoniansArchived7 June 2011 at theWayback Machine
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