Transmigration

May 17, 2009, 7:27 am • Tags: , ,

icon_31Transmigration of the soul is similar to the philosophy of reincarnation. The idea of transmigration of the soul comes from the ancient Greeks. In transmigration after death, the soul drinks from the river Lethe and loses all past memories of their previous life while in Hades, or the underworld, and then moves transmigrates into another human form and is reborn. It was thought the soul had been, and always would be, eternal, having no beginning or end.

Some psychic mediums of a variety of religious persuasions and some Spiritualists believe in transmigration of the soul but hold that reincarnation is an anomaly if it occurs at all.

The believed nature of the soul has a significant impact on the Hindu belief of transmigration. In Hinduism, a soul is both immutable and eternal and thus the character of a soul from a previous life is imprinted on the new one.

Buddhists, however, do not subscribe to the concept of universal Atman, Soul, or Self or the individual atman, soul or self. Thus, the concept of transmigration differs from Hinduism on this fundamental point. The Buddhist concept of transmigration, rather, is understood as the effect of karma, karma being defined as volitional action.

Transmigration, although not directly referred to as such, has been used frequently to the point of being an overblown cliché in the sense of people “switching bodies,” in which the identities of two or more characters transmigrate to each others bodies. This concept has been used many times in various films.

An examination of transmigration in the arts, perhaps more directly spiritual than the popular culture aspect above, was author Philip K. Dick’s novel The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.