Pythagoras — "Eating beans is the same as eating the heads of one's parents."
Eating beans is the same as eating the heads of one's parents.
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"A chewed bean placed in the sun smells of human semen or of murderously spilt human blood."
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About Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE)
Greek philosopher and mathematician whose school in Croton combined geometry (the Pythagorean theorem), number-mysticism, and a religious-vegetarian way of life. Closely associated with Thales of Miletus (earlier pre-Socratic and the first philosopher). For an intellectual contrast, see Heraclitus, pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of flux — Heraclitus called Pythagoras 'the chief of swindlers' — among the founding insults of the philosophical-rivalry tradition. Their 'all is flux' vs 'all is number' poles still organize the philosophy of mathematics today (Platonist vs anti-realist).
Details
Another extreme reason attributed for the bean prohibition.
Date: c. 570-495 BCE (attributed later)
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Beans are strictly forbidden—eating them is morally equivalent to the ultimate taboo: cannibalism of one's own ancestors. The comparison is deliberately shocking to enforce absolute compliance. In modern terms, this is a sacred dietary rule framed as the worst imaginable act to ensure followers never cross the line. Purity, taboo, and community identity are all compressed into one visceral commandment.
Relevance to Pythagoras
Pythagoras founded a monastic brotherhood with strict codes including vegetarianism and a bean prohibition. He taught metempsychosis—souls transmigrate through humans, animals, and plants after death. Beans were believed to house ancestral souls, making consumption literal soul-eating. Legends say he died rather than flee across a bean field when enemies pursued him, showing how deeply he held this conviction.
The era
In 6th-century BCE Greece, fava beans carried strong ritual associations with the dead. Greeks used beans in the Anthesteria festival to appease ancestral spirits, scattering them to ward off ghosts. Mystery cults like Orphism, which influenced Pythagoras, taught that souls cycled through living bodies. Beans, growing from underground decay and resembling fetuses or Hades' gate, were widely believed to harbor ancestral souls awaiting reincarnation.
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