Transmigration

or Metempsychosis, the doctrine of the passage of the soul after death into another body, human or otherwise. Herodotus is our authority for the Egyptian belief that at death the soul of man, being immortal, enters the body of some creature born to receive it, and that, after passing from animal to animal on sea, in air, and on land for 1,000 years, the soul returns to a human being again. It is thought that the Egyptian custom of embalming cats, crocodiles, and other animals had its origin in the belief that they had sheltered human souls. The doctrine may be traced among the Buddhists and Brahmans of India. The latter held that the purified soul finally returns to its origin--God. The doctrine of transmigration was taught by the Greek Pythagoras. Allusions are found to it in the writings of Cicero, of Virgil, and of Ovid. Modern writers have advanced similar views. Notably the theosophists of modern times announce, as a fundamental doctrine, a belief in successive "reincarnation."