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Section 81

"The reality is much more like this: if the soul departs pure, dragging nothing of the body with it—because it had no willing association with the body in life, but fled from it and gathered itself into itself, always practicing this (which is nothing but practicing philosophy rightly and truly practicing dying readily; or would you not call this practicing death?)" "Most certainly." "If it is in this state, does it not depart to what is similar to it, the invisible, the divine, immortal, and wise? Arriving there, it has the fortune to be happy, freed from wandering, ignorance, fears, wild desires, and all other human evils. And as is said of the initiated, it truly spends the rest of time with the gods. Shall we say this, Cebes, or something else?" "This, by Zeus," said Cebes. "But if, I think, it departs from the body polluted and impure, because it always associated with the body, served it, loved it, and was bewitched by it and its desires and pleasures—so that it thought nothing else was true but the corporeal, which one can touch, see, drink, eat, and use for sexual pleasure, while it hated, feared, and fled from what is dark and invisible to the eyes, but intelligible and grasped by philosophy—do you think a soul in that state will depart pure and by itself?" "Not in the least," he said. "Instead, it is interspersed with the corporeal, which the constant association and communion with the body has ingrained in it through practice." "Certainly." "We must believe, my friend, that this corporeal element is burdensome, heavy, earthy, and visible. Such a soul is weighed down by it and dragged back into the visible region, out of fear of the invisible and Hades, as they say, roaming among the tombs and graves. Indeed, shadowy phantoms of souls have been seen around such places—the images provided by souls that have not departed purely, but still share in the visible, which is why they are seen." "It seems likely, Socrates." "Very likely, Cebes. And these are surely not the souls of the good, but of the inferior, who are compelled to wander around such places paying the penalty for their previous bad upbringing. And they wander until the desire of the corporeal element accompanying them bounds them again in a body."