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Pythagoras: Souls
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During his youth, Pythagoras was a disciple of Pherecydes and Hermodamas, and while in his teens became renowned for the clarity of his philosophic concepts. In height he exceeded six feet; his body was as perfectly formed as that of Apollo. Pythagoras was the personification of majesty and power, and in his presence a felt humble and afraid. As he grew older, his physical power increased rather than waned, so that as he approached the century mark he was actually in the prime of life. The influence of this great soul over those about him was such that a word of praise from Pythagoras filled his disciples with ecstasy, while one committed suicide because the Master became momentarily irritate over something he had dome. Pythagoras was so impressed by this tragedy that he never again spoke unkindly to or about anyone.
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Pythagoras founded a society of disciples which has been very influential for some time. Men and women in the society were treated equally -an unusual thing at the time- and all property was held in common. Members of the society practised the master’s teachings, a religion the tenets of which included the transmigration of souls and the sinfulness of eating beans. Pythagoras’ followers had to obey strict religious orders where it was forbidden to eat beans, to touch white cocks, or to look into a mirror beside a light.
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Pythagoras believed in the kinship of all living things. The soul is immortal, doomed to a cycle of rebirth. But the soul could be liberated by means of ritual purification. Pythagoras himself claimed to be able to remember his past lives. He believed that he was the reincarnation of Euphorbus, a famous warrior.
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Pythagoras and his followers practiced one of the first recorded diets known as vegetarianism. He advocated a diet devoid of the flesh of slaughtered animals partially because he felt food influenced the distribution of the bodily humors and thereby the health of the individual and partially because it would prevent the killing of a reincarnated individual and its transmigrated soul. Up until the late nineteenth century non–meat eaters were generally known as "Pythagoreans."
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Siddhartha (Gautama Buddha) lived at the same time as Pythagoras. Buddhists came up with ideas on the transmigration of the soul that were very similar to ideas of Pythagoras, but that doesn't necessarily mean there was contact. Both groups were ... vegetarians, but probably for different reasons. John Burnet suggests Pythagoreans occasionally ate (and usually refrained from eating) meat for reasons of taboo rather than philosophy.
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It is ... rather strange that after the death of Pythagoras his original teaching about the concept of Vegetarianism was distorted by many of his followers to suit their own life style. They claimed they practiced Vegetarianism only because the souls of all living creatures pass after death into other living creatures. Others occasionally ate flesh regularly and some refrained from eating meat only because of their bizarre claim of a ‘taboo’ rather than Pythagoras’ philosophical teachings. They also altered the concept of reincarnation claiming ‘it was not the same in all
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