Metempsychosis

Metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις) is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to the transmigration or re-birth of the soul after death. 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. The importance of metempsychosis in Western tradition is largely due to its adoption by Plato. In his view the number of souls is fixed (not created at birth), and they transmigrate from one body to another. The idea persisted in antiquity down to the latest classic thinkers, Plotinus and the other Neoplatonists.

In the common interpretation, the phenomenon of metempsychosis includes the possibility of a human soul being reborn as an animal, or even a plant. This idea in the East is frequently known under the term of "transmigration".

In early Theosophical writings the term was used as a synonym of reincarnation. However, modern Theosophy opposes the idea that a human soul can be reborn in an animal or plant. This teaching is interpreted as being an allegory of the fact that if the personality indulges in animal tendencies, the Ego will be reincarnated in a new personality with "animal-like" characteristics. It also points out to the idea that, by attracting "atoms" in tune with the animal passions, after death they can be absorbed by animals, which produces undesirable karmic effects on the reincarnating Ego.

Use in Theosophical literature

In Isis Unveiled, H. P. Blavatsky used the word "metempsychosis" as a synonym for what later was known as reincarnation in the Theosophical literature. At first she did not employ the latter term because it was being used by the Spiritists to teach the re-birth of the personality, something that Mme. Blavatsky opposed.

However, the term metempsychosis was problematic since it had been traditionally associated to the idea of "transmigration of the human Soul into an animal form". Thus, after the publication of Isis Unveiled, the Theosophical teaching about "the rebirth of the same Ego in successive human bodies" was referred to as "reincarnation". In later writings she suggested the term "metempsychosis" should be applied to animals alone, probably referring to the successive overshadowing of the non-human Monad of different animal forms:

Metempsychosis. The progress of the soul from one stage of existence to another. Symbolized as and vulgarly believed to be rebirths in animal bodies. A term generally misunderstood by every class of European and American society, including many scientists. Metempsychosis should apply to animals alone.

Theosophical view

Mme. Blavatsky claimed that the "purely exoteric doctrine of transmigrations into animals" is "absurd, in philosophy". The reason why she rejected this theory was explained as follows:

Nature, propelled by Karma, never recedes, but strives ever forward in her work on the physical plane; that she may lodge a human soul in the body of a man, morally ten times lower than any animal, but she will not reverse the order of her kingdoms; and while leading the irrational monad of a beast of a higher order into the human form at the first hour of a Manvantara, she will not guide that Ego, once it has become a man, even of the lowest kind, back into the animal species. . .

Regarding the common interpretation of this teaching, she claimed that those who taught it in India and Greece spoke allegorically, having in mind the instruction of their disciples and not that of the general public:

None of them addressed himself to the profane, but only to their own followers and disciples, who knew too much of the symbological element used even during public instruction to fail to understand the meaning of their respective Masters. Thus they were aware that the words metempsychosis and transmigration meant simply reincarnation from one human body to another, when this teaching concerned a human being; and that every allusion of this or another sage, like Pythagoras, to having been in a previous birth a beast, or of transmigrating after death into an animal, was allegorical and related to the spiritual states of the human soul.

According to her, saying that the soul was going to be reincarnated in a particular animal was a metaphorical reference "to the physiological vice in store for the Soul when re-incarnated—a vice that will lead that personality into a thousand and one scrapes and mis-adventures". Here, different animals symbolized specific tendencies such as anger, lust, sloth, etc.

Transmigration of atoms

Mme. Blavatsky explored another meaning of this teaching. She wrote about "the Hindu doctrine of Metempsychosis":

It has a basis of truth; and, in fact, it is an axiomatic truth—but only in reference to human atoms and emanations, and that not only after a man’s death, but during the whole period of his life.

This has to do with the teaching about the constant interchange of "atoms" between beings and objects, including not only the ones known by science, but also the occult "life-atoms":

[T]he magnetic fluid projected by a living human body is life itself. “Indeed it is life atoms” that a man in a blind passion throws off, unconsciously, and though he does it quite as effectively as a mesmeriser who transfers them from himself to any object consciously and under the guidance of his will. Let any man give way to any intense feeling, such as anger, grief, etc., under or near a tree, or in direct contact with a stone; and many thousands of years after that any tolerable Psychometer will see the man and sense his feelings from one single fragment of that tree or stone that he had touched. Hold any object in your hand, and it will become impregnated with your life atoms, indrawn and outdrawn, changed and transferred in us at every instant of our lives. Animal heat is but so many life atoms in molecular motion. It requires no adept knowledge, but simply the natural gift of a good clairvoyant subject to see them passing to and fro, from man to objects and vice versa like a bluish lambent flame.

Thus, Mme. Blavatsky writes:

The esoteric meaning of the Laws of Manu . . . that “A Brahman-killer enters the body of a dog, bear, ass, camel, goat, sheep, bird, &c.,” bears no reference to the human Ego, but only to the atoms of his body, of his lower triad and his fluidic emanations. . . [B]y “Brahman,” man’s seventh principle, his immortal monad and the essence of the personal Ego were allegorically meant. He who kills or extinguishes in himself the light of Parabrahm, i.e., severs his personal Ego from the Atman and thus kills the future Devachanee, becomes a “Brahman-killer.” Instead of facilitating through a virtuous life and spiritual aspirations the mutual union of the Buddhi and the Manas, he condemns by his own evil acts every atom of his lower principles to become attracted and drawn in virtue of the magnetic affinity, thus created by his passions, into the forming bodies of lower animals or brutes. This is the real meaning of the doctrine of Metempsychosis. It is not that such amalgamation of human particles with animal or even vegetable atoms can carry in it any idea of personal punishment per se, for of course it does not. But it is a cause created, the effects of which may manifest themselves throughout the next rebirths—unless the personality is annihilated. Otherwise from cause to effect, every effect becoming in its turn a cause, they will run along the cycle of re-births, the once given impulse expending itself only at the threshold of Pralaya.

Online resources

Articles

• Metempsychosis at Theosopedia
• Transmigration of the Life Atoms by H. P. Blavatsky
• Transmigration of Souls by William Q. Judge