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PLATO S MYTH OF ER

Plato concludes his Republic with a religious and philosophical vision of the af
terlife. A man named ER died in war; after twelve days his body was uncorrupted
and he returned to life, sent as a messenger from the other world to describe al
l that he had seen.
After his soul had departed, it traveled with many other souls and came to a div
ine place where there were two openings in the earth; opposite were two other op
enings in the upper region of the sky. In the space between these four openings
were judges who passed sentence. They ordered the just to go to the right throug
h one of the openings upward into the sky, but they sent the unjust to the left
through one of the downward openings.
Er also saw from the remaining two openings some souls coming up out of the eart
h, covered with dust and dirt, and others descending from the sky, pure and shin
ing. When they were all reunited on the plain, they recounted their experiences.
The Sinners. The first group from out of the earth wept as they recounted their
torments, which lasted one thousand years. Everyone had to suffer an appropriate
penalty for each sin, ten times over. Those who were extraordinarily wicked (su
ch as the evil tyrant Ardiaeus), guilty of many murders and other unholy deeds
were never allowed to return out of the earth; but wild men of fiery aspect seiz
ed and flayed them and hurled them down into Tartarus.
The Virtuous. The second group, on the other hand, who had descended from the op
ening in the sky, told of the great happiness that they had felt and the sights
of indescribable beauty that they had seen as they completed their cycle of one
thousand years.
The Choosing of a New Life. All these souls, sinful and virtuous alike, proceede
d on another journey to arrive at a special place which provided a cosmic view o
f the universe, controlled by the spindle of Necessity and her daughters, the th
ree Fates, and where the Sirens song echoed the harmony of the spheres. In this p
lace, each soul had to pick a lot and choose from examples of lives before begin
ning the next cycle of mortality. In front of these souls were placed the exampl
es of every kind of life possible for human beings and for all living creatures.
All-important was the choice that a soul would make; it must have learned from
its experiences in life and in death to know the difference between the good lif
e and the wicked, and always choose the better rather than the worse. This is th
e crucial choice for a human being always, whether living or dead, and the choic
e is the individual s own; god is blameless.
Rebirth and Reincarnation. When all the souls had chosen their lives, whether wi
sely or foolishly, each was given a divine guardian spirit. After certain ordain
ed procedures, they came to LETHE [lee'thee], the river of forgetfulness, where it
was necessary that they drink a certain amount (some were unwise and drank too
much). As they drank, they became forgetful of everything and fell asleep. In th
e middle of the night, amidst thunder and an earthquake, suddenly they were carr
ied upward just like shooting stars, each in a different direction, to be reborn
.
Plato has a similar account of the afterlife in the Phaedo. He explains that tru
e philosophers who have lived a holy life are eventually released from this cycl
e of reincarnation and entirely as souls inhabit beautiful dwellings. In each of
our lives in this world and in each of our periods of reward or punishment in t
he afterlife, we are supposed to learn and become wiser and proceed upward spiri
tually.
The Platonic Afterlife. Plato is writing in the fourth century B.C., and his vis
ion of the afterlife is far different from Homer s. Not only do human beings have
a body and a soul, but moral and religious philosophy has developed concepts of
virtue and sin, which merit reward and punishment in the next life, and a theory

of rebirth, reincarnation, and the transmigration of souls, all of which provid


e dogma for mystery religions.

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