Metempsychosis

The term is derived from ancient Greek philosophy, and has been recontextualized by modern philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer,[1] Kurt Gödel,[2] Mircea Eliade,[3] and Magdalena Villaba;[4] otherwise, the word "transmigration" is more appropriate.

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.

Such was the teaching of Orphism, which appeared in Greece about the 6th century BCE, organized itself into private and public mysteries at Eleusis and elsewhere, and produced copious literature.

[7][8][9] The earliest Greek thinker with whom metempsychosis is connected is Pherecydes of Syros,[10] but Pythagoras, who is said to have been his pupil, is its first famous philosophic exponent.

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.

[13] In the eschatological myth that closes the Republic, 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.