Metempsychosis

Metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις) is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to the transmigration or reincarnation 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 Plato's 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 Theosophical writings a more common term for this idea is reincarnation.

General description

Mme. Blavatsky wrote about "the difference between metempsychosis, which is the transmigration of the human Soul into an animal form, and Reincarnation, or the rebirth of the same Ego in successive human bodies".

However, she claimed that this meaning was due to a misunderstanding of the true teaching:

Ignorant of the true meaning of the Greek word, he does not even suspect how absurd, in philosophy, is this purely exoteric doctrine of transmigrations into animals.

The reasons to reject this theory were 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. . .

In some wirtings, especially in Isis Unveiled, where Mme. Blavatsky opposed to the Spiritist use of the word "reincarnation" to refer to personal rebirth, she used metempsycosis as a synonym for what today is understood by reincarnation in Theosophical literature. In later writings she suggested this tem should be applied to animals alone:

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. The kabalistic axiom, “A stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, an animal a man, a man a spirit, and a spirit a god”, receives an explanation in Manu's Mânava-Dharma-Shâstra and other Brahmanical books.

As a metaphor

She explained that the references to incarnation in animals is a metaphor "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". As she wrote:

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.

Transmigration of atoms

As to "the Hindu doctrine of Metempsychosis", Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

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" (not only the ones known by science but also the occult "life-atoms") between beings and objects:

[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. t 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