Is the TAO based upon the premise of Transmigration, how seriously do you take it?

THis is actually in response to some other posts in other forum sections, but is so important I have to post..

These teachings are, unless I have totally missed something, saying consiousness/energy/mind preced matter and that souls are seeded from elsewhere into monkey like bodies..

so people are NOT animals evolving into something beyond life,

they are souls transmigrating through lifetimes evolving something in between..

they some and go and somehow develop

How seriously do people take this? It’s hard to think it’s true.. How early on did this TAOIST transmigration appear in history and what support does it have?