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of their new hosts, especially upon whether the hosts, if human, observe certain
dietary restrictions and religious rituals. Pythagoras, for instance, prohibited his
disciples from sacrificing animals and from consuming flesh or beans and encour-
aged them to participate in rituals that celebrated the superiority of the intellect
over the senses. Orphism taught that ultimately all souls reunite with the univer-
sal deity. In sum, what Pythagoras and Empedocles seem to have shared, and
what they encouraged in thinkers who would come later, was belief in a soul, or
self, that existed prior to the body, that could be induced to leave the body even
while the body remained alive, and that would outlast the body. 3
These ideas were extremely consequential. Directly or indirectly, they seem to
have powerfully influenced Plato and, through Plato, various church fathers,
including Augustine and, through Augustine, Christian theology and, through
Christianity, the entire mindset of Western civilization, secular as well as religious.
It is ironic, perhaps, that ideas that eventually acquired such an impressive rational
pedigree may have originated in the dark heart of shamanism, with its commitment
to magic and the occult.
Subsequent to Pythagoras and Empedocles, Heraclitus (535?-475? b.c.e.), of
whom more is known, had a scientific interest in the nature of the soul and a
sagelike interest in its well-being. Impressed by what he took to be the extent to
which people live divided from one another and themselves, he thought he saw
the way toward unification (or
re-
unification).
4
Impressed with Pythagoras’ method
of “scientific inquiry,” which he wrote was “beyond that of all other men,” he
was less impressed with Pythagoras himself, who he said was “dilettantish and
misguided.” Heraclitus would be more systematic: everything, including earth,
air, and water, is made of fire.
In Heraclitus’s view, humans have souls, which arise from water. Living prop-
erly causes one’s soul to dry out. The dryer one’s soul becomes, the more alive and
noble one becomes. Desire, and its ally passion, keep the soul in ignorance, hence,
moist. One whose soul is moist, like a
drunk or a sleepwalker, is unaware of
where he is. Such a person lives in a world of his own, with an “understanding
peculiar to oneself.” Wisdom comes from self-understanding. It is the same for
everyone, and it involves awakening, as if from a dream. Those who “are awake
have one world in common.” In this world, the soul reveals its boundless nature:
“You could not in your going find the ends of the soul, though you traveled the
whole way: so deep is its Law (
Logos ).”
5
At bodily death, the soul
separates from
the body, at least temporarily. The souls of the foolish, which are moist, return to
water. The souls of the wise, which are dry, join the cosmic fire.
Heraclitus was impressed with impermanence. He gets credit for the famous
saying that you cannot step into the same river twice. What he meant by this