Myth of Er

Referenced in 1 episode

Definition

The story at the end of Plato's Republic about a soldier who revives on his funeral pyre and describes the afterlife. In it, souls choose new lives and drink from the River Lethe (forgetfulness) before reincarnating. It is often called one of the earliest recorded near-death or out-of-body accounts.

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The Odyssey Is Not What You Think: Reality Is a Soul Trap | Ike Baker

Third Eye DropsJul 30, 2026

Esoteric scholar Ike Baker argues that Homer's Odyssey was read by ancient Platonists as a coded map of the soul's fall into the material world and its journey back to the divine. Drawing on Porphyry, Proclus, Macrobius, and the Orphic tradition, he explains how the Cave of the Nymphs, Penelope, the suitors, and Odysseus's beggar's rags stand for reincarnation, the higher self, bodily appetites, and shedding the 'astral garments.' The provocative core claim, which Baker says he believes completely, is the Orphic idea that this world is Hades and the body is the tomb of the soul.

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