Liber - Tumblr Posts
Hey! You seem to be pretty well versed in the Greek concepts of the afterlife, so I was wondering; what were there thoughts on reincarnation? I've heard it mentioned before, but never with details.
The main sources on reincarnation in ancient Greek culture come fairly late in the picture, relatively speaking — Pythagoras and Herodotus, mainly. Herodotus got most of his reincarnation talk from his study of Egyptian culture, and it was fairly minimal as I recall, didn’t go very far, he was just fascinated with the Egyptians in general. The main lineage then would be Pythagoras, who learned of reincarnation from a mentor in the Orphic traditions (relating to Orpheus), a sort of New Religion from Thrace that was probably influenced by the Hindus from India and surrounding areas. It’s no coincidence that Dionysos was known for A) being a New God bringing new mysteries, and B) having come from India (where he was hidden from Hera). The Propompoi is largely a symbol of the foreign monsters and creatures who formed the Indian court of Dionysos.
Orpheus, who went to Hades seeking his wife Eurydice, taught that the immortal soul is caught or imprisoned in the mortal body, but can fly free with the grace of the gods (especially Dionysos), moving between freedom and captivity in a cycle related to the Fates. and through self-purification (the mystery rites of Eleusis) and the favor of Dionysos, Persephone and Demeter — Liber, Libera, and Ceres, as they are called at the upcoming Liberalia — the soul can achieve immortality and eternal bliss. Perhaps this means Elysium, perhaps something else, much has been lost.
Orphism organized into mystery schools at Eleusis around the time of Pythagoras. Some suggest that Socrates was involved, and that this related to his forced suicide, these new ideas of his that threatened the system of life and afterlife that had been established before the coming of Dionysos. There are bits of it in the Phaedrus, the Republic. The soul drifting in a sort of limbo, Pindar’s “realm of Persephone” before taking another body, and eventually dying permanently into the afterlife of heroes.
It is likely that much of the reincarnation mythology from India passed through Greece and into the Celtic cultures as well; many feel that the eastern lands from which the Tuatha De Danann sailed to Ireland must have been Greece, and maybe India as well, and the Danann ancestors (the Nemedians, the Fir Bolg) were said to have been scattered to Greece before returning to Ireland as the Tuatha De Danann.