In practice no clear distinction is made between the expressions metempsychosis, metensomatosis, palingenesis, re-incarnation and transmigration. Older writers (Plotinus and the Fathers) preferred to use metensomatosis Palingenesis is a notion with a much broader connotation, in some sort of way presupposed by the more systematic ideas involved in that of metempsychosis.

Many cultures without written traditions (the so-called primitives) hold that the principle of life of a living being can pass into another after death, without having to remain…