eidolon (ειδωλον)

(Language: Greek)

Short Description: image, idol, double, apparition, phantom, ghost

Long Description: image, idol, double, apparition, phantom, ghost; in Homer, there are three kinds of supernatural apparitions that are called by the term eidolon: 1) the phantom (phasma), created by a god in semblance of a living person, 2) the dream-image, regarded as a ghostly double that is sent by the gods in the image of a real being, 3) the psuche of the dead; the Homeric psuche is not a soul, but a phantom, a thin vapor that proves to be ungraspable; for Pythagoreans and Plato, psuche is no longer eidolon of the body, but the immortal soul that constitutes one’s real being; for Plotinus, the soul is the eidolon nou, a simulacrum of nous, an image that is already obscured; the conception of eidolon is partly related to the ancient Egyptian concept of ka.

Sources: The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Platonic and Pythagorean Philosophy, by Dr. Algis Uždavinys