Many other traditional religious images were taken over by Plato, including the music of the spheres, the migration of the soul, the soul's remembrance of its celestial origin, and the idea of rewards for the righteous and punishment for the wicked.
The lineup includes the premiere of Milica Paranosic's multimedia "The Tiger's Wife: Prologue," based on the novel by Téa Obreht, and the premiere of Narong Prangcharoen's "Migration of Lost Souls".
The most successful was "The Migration of Lost Souls," by Narong Prangcharoen, an atmospheric work that weaves some of the spiritual and vernacular sounds of Mr. Prangcharoen's native Thailand into a skillfully orchestrated tapestry.
In the history of religion, the term eschatology refers to conceptions of the last things: immortality of the soul, rebirth, resurrection, migration of the soul, and the end of time.
Death, he told his friends, might be annihilation, in which case it is like a long, dreamless slumber; or it might be a migration of the soul from one place to another.
The Pythagorean concept of the migration of the soul was also taken over and was blended with the Egyptian belief in the reincarnation of the sun-god Horus in the reigning king.
In Beijing this week, delegates to the National People's Congress took a moment away from debating annual targets for consumer price inflation (3 per cent), unemployment (4.5 per cent), and cuts to carbon intensity (3.1 per cent), to reiterate their policy position on the migration of the soul.
The proposal prompted a furious backlash from the Greek migration minister Yiannis Mouzalas, who told the Financial Times: '"We do not intend to become a cemetery of souls here".
"The transmigration of souls?
