“Another Earth”. The Orphic motif of celestial travel in ancient philosophy

Abstract

The motif of the journey is characteristic of Orphicism. Orpheus' journey on the Argo and his descending to Hades, the travel of souls to the afterlife and their celestial journey before their subsequent incarnation. These ideas are vividly represented in the Orphic hymns, the Orphic golden tablets and, perhaps most vividly, in Plato's myths in Phaedo, Phaedrus, Gorgias and the State. In trhe paper I consider these myths in the context of ancient philosophical literature, the task of which is to provide a coherent interpretation of the very fluid and not entirely unambiguous pictures that the great Athenian philosopher paints in his imagination. First of all, it concerns such questions as the corporeality or incorporeality of souls, the circumstances of their judgment and the conditions of their subsequent incarnation, details of the topography of the “other earth” and, finally, the discussion about the classes of souls, which were developed in subsequent Platonism.