metempsychosis

Metempsychosis is the transmigration of a soul from one body to another after death, typically within a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The term comes from the Greek metempsychōsis, from meta “beyond” or “after” and psychē “soul.” In ancient Greek thought it was connected to beliefs about the soul’s immortality and moral consequences in the afterlife.

Historically, metempsychosis appears in Pythagorean and Orphic traditions, where the soul is thought to undergo successive lives. In Plato’s dialogues, especially the myth of Er and discussions in the Phaedrus and Phaedo, the soul’s voyages through different bodies are central to ethical and metaphysical arguments. The doctrine was used to explain virtue, punishment, and the purification of the soul over many lifetimes.

Across other cultural and religious contexts, closely related ideas of transmigration are found. In Hinduism and Jainism, the jiva or atman is reborn in various forms according to karma. In Buddhism, rebirth occurs without an everlasting, unchanging self (anatman); the continuity is a stream of consciousness shaped by karma rather than a fixed soul migrating intact. These views share the notion that moral actions influence future existences, though they differ on the nature and persistence of the self.

In modern usage, metempsychosis is often equated with reincarnation but can be distinguished in scholarly contexts as a specific form of soul transfer between bodies, sometimes across species. It remains a topic in philosophy, theology, and literature as a motif for moral consequence, identity, and the mystery of life after death.