Taking its name from Orpheus of Croton, Orphism was one of the early expressions of religious thought in ancient Greek civilization, believed to have arisen in what is now Calabria in the 6th Century B.C. and spreading from there to Athens. Pythagoras was influenced by Orphism, as was, most significantly, Plato.
Many of the details of the Orphic religion have been lost to time, but it is known to have involved bizarre violent origin stories and complex mythological genealogies that fell out of religious favor long ago. But the Orphic belief in the separation of body and soul—the idea that an immortal soul is contained (imprisoned) within a corrupt mortal body, to be released upon death, had a lasting impact. In order to improve the quality of the existence of the soul after the death of the body, Orphics sought to overcome the contaminating effects of the body through “purification,” which involved asceticism, a vegan diet, and elaborate rituals and liturgies. An early Orphic poem declares “they who are pious in their life beneath the rays of the sun enjoy a gentler lot when they have died.”
Plato rejected and ridiculed the Orphic rituals, and he taught that virtue should be pursued for its own sake, not for any afterlife reward, but he embraced the concept of separation of soul and body. Platonic dualism, the idea that humans have minds/souls separate and distinct from our bodies has had a profound and lasting effect on Western civilization.
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