Prior to 2,000 years ago, transmigration of the self was a standard teaching among most of the ancient religions and philosophies. This of course included the Vedic and Buddhist philosophies. But it also included the Egyptians, Mayans, American Indians, Aboriginals and many others. All of the great religions understood transmigration of the self as a basic tenet of their philosophy.

 The Greeks, Romans, and Northern Europeans also assumed this philosophy—as did the Hebrew and Christian teachings prior to 553 A.D. It was then that the Roman Catholic Church specifically banned the teachings of transmigration of the self as put forth by early fathers of the Christian church such as Origen of Alexandria.

 Origen Adamantius (185-254 A.D.) was a devout Christian scholar and minister who was an esteemed associate of the Bishop of Alexandria. Origen had a flourishing school in Alexandria during his lifetime. He was considered one of the fathers of the early Christian church for several centuries. Origen taught that the self was spirit in essence, and transcendental to the body.

Origen taught that each of us initially fell from God’s grace by choice and took on a physical body. Once within the physical plane, the spiritual self then descends through the species, taking on one body after another, until again rising back to the human form of life. Here in the human form, Origen taught, we have the rare opportunity to return to God—should we use this human form wisely.

Should we make some progress but not enough, Origen taught, we may take on another human form until we progressed (evolved) to the level of returning to the spiritual world.
However, if we got caught up in the chase for animalistic pleasures—eating, sex, and so on—we may once again fall into the animal forms to again transmigrate between countless physical forms until we have another chance in the human form. This journey through the lower species, Origen taught, was equivalent to going to hell.

There is a substantial amount of evidence that Jesus also taught the transmigration of the self. The Gnostic books of the Essenes, a society that Jesus lived in, support this, and even some of the four gospels of the New Testament indicate this possibility. For example, we find in the New Testament (NIV) that Jesus’ disciples asked this question about a blind man:
"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:1)
Let’s consider the question asked carefully. Why did Jesus’ disciples ask this question? First we should consider that multiple disciples asked this question and not just one ‘rogue’ disciple. This means that it was a question that arose from an understanding between Jesus and his disciples from Jesus’ teachings. In other words, it was assumed that before the man was born, he had the ability to sin. In other to have the ability to sin, the man must have had a previous physical body. Why? Because as Jesus taught previously, sinning was an action brought upon by the flesh. In other words, the person must have had a prior physical body in order to have sinned before he was born.

Note also that Jesus did not ridicule or criticize this question. He took it in stride. He did not say, “what a preposterous question.” What he said was:
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent me.” (John 9:2)
Because Jesus accepted that the man could have sinned, he admitted that the man must have lived prior to his being born into that body. While he is saying that the activities of his previous life did not cause his blindness, Jesus is acknowledging that they could have.  Jesus in fact is saying that there was another purpose to the blindness other than as a consequence of his previous activities—previous to being born blind.

We can add to this that Origen was a famous and devout person who dedicated his life to Jesus. In the end he became a martyr for his devotion to Jesus and God. Origen received the teachings of Jesus through his father, Leonides, a devoted Christian teacher who was also persecuted for his determined faith in God. There is good reason to believe that Origen’s teachings were directly in line with one of Jesus’ disciples. 

 Origen was one of the most prolific Christian writers and well-known Christian teachers of that era, with thousands of devoted students who studied under him at his Catechetical School of Alexandria, where Clement of Alexandria had also instructed. Origen’s teachings were also supported by the bishops Alexander of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea, and he had a close personal relationship with Demetrius, the Bishop of Alexandria. Origen was a devoted Christian who gave personal care for thousands of imprisoned Christians. He was a prolific writer, and his commentaries and translations of scriptures were well respected throughout the region. He is said to have produced some 6,000 writings during his lifetime. In one, Origen wrote:
".... every soul, for certain mysterious reasons  is introduced into a body, and introduced according to its deserts and former actions....  this soul also, which conferred more benefit by its former residence in the flesh than that of many men (to avoid prejudice, (I do not say "all"), stood in need of a body not only superior to others, but invested with all excellent qualities." (Against Celsus, I.32)
Certainly the dedication and passion Origen had for serving God and Jesus, and his acceptance by the early church indicates that he wouldn’t have simply made up the philosophy of the transmigration of the self without a strong foundation of scripture. Origen in fact was highly committed to scripture as having ultimate authority, and all of his writings quoted scriptural passages. These facts all add up to one certain notion: That the transmigration of the soul was embraced by many in the early Christian church in the second century after Jesus’ disappearance. Are we to deny the possibility that it was also part of Jesus’ teachings as well?

Everything began to change in the fourth century. In 325 A.D. and periodically thereafter, Constantine and his successors organized the Hebrew/Christian church and dictated its teachings through the legislation of the Synods of Nicea. Here bishops of different regions were brought together into a politically oriented committee to produce a unilateral interpretation of the Jewish faith and Christianity. These and other governmental decrees resulted in massive restrictions on what could be taught within the Hebrew and Christian world. Eventually, these culminated in an insidious persecution of anyone involved in teaching the transmigration of the self—which has continued (though less violently) through modern times. Evidence of this is found in the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, as it pushed forth this official anathema (meaning “to banish”) against Origen and similar teachers:
“If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, as well as their impious writings, as also all other heretics already condemned and anathematized by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and by the aforesaid four Holy Synods and if anyone does not equally anathematize all those who have held and hold or who in their impiety persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those heretics just mentioned: let him be anathema.”(5th Ecumenical Council: Constantinople II, 553)
Notice that other leading early Christian teachers are also being banished together with Origen. These include Nestorius, who was the Archbishop of Constantinople in the fifth century; and Apollinaris, who was either Apollinaris Claudius, Bishop of Phrygia or Apollinaris of Laodicea, the Bishop of Laodicea (Syria).

The ancient traditions of gnosis, hermeticism and hellenism, which descended through the Greek texts from antiquity inclusive of ancient Egyptian teachings, also taught transmigration. Hermes Trismegistus, revered amongst Christian, Islam and Jew­­ish sects, stated:
“O son, how many bodies have we to pass through; how many bands of demons; through how many series of repetitions and cycles of the stars; before we hasten to the One alone?”
We also find this passage, translated from ancient sermons and fragments of later Trismegistic literature (Mead 1906):
“What then is the value nowadays of that ancient doctrine mentioned by Plato, about the reciprocal migration of souls; how they remove hence and go thither, and then return higher and pass through life. And then again depart from this life, made quick again from the dead? Some will have it that this is a doctrine of Pythagoras, while Albinus will have it to be a divine pronouncement, perhaps of Egyptian Hermes.”
There is also evidence that the teaching was accepted by the original teachings of the Koran:
“How can ye reject the faith in Allah? Seeing that you were without life, and He gave you life; then will He cause you to die, and will again bring you to life; and again to Him will you return.” (Al-Baqara 2:28)
Today, transmigration of the self is most often considered an Eastern religious philosophy, along the lines of the Buddhist or Hindu faiths. These teach almost an identical description of transmigration as that taught by Origen and Hermes. Here the self is also described as a transcendental spiritual entity transmigrating from one body to the next. As the self evolves, it takes on progressively higher forms until the human form is achieved. In the human form, according to the most ancient Vedic texts, the self has an opportunity to return home to God and the transcendental world. Should the self be caught in the ‘wheel’ of karma, it may be dragged once again down into the lower forms of life.

Should the self become reconnected with God by way of devotional service, the self may, after this lifetime is finished, transcend the physical world.

 Should the self make some progress but not reach perfection, it may take on another human form and have the opportunity to continue that progress.

 But there is always the risk that ones attachment to the physical world may return the self to taking on bodies of lower forms of life. These include animals, fish, insects and even plants and bacteria.