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Soul Revival

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PORB

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Soul is usually not talked about in depth, from what i can tell, in most psychological/philosophical/scientific lines of thought, so im going to bring it up here :) This comes out of a trance in my life i have been under in exploring the works of James hillman, Rollo May, and Irvin Yalom, though mostly Hillman and his contributions to Depth Psychology.

So, what is Soul? Where is Soul? Is Soul the same as mind, consciousness, spirit, psyche, or different? or all of them? What is Soul to you?

Ill will start with by stating Soul is circular, round.


“Our interest lies not in applying the methods of science to psychology (to put it on a “sound scientific footing”), but rather in applying the archetypal method of psychologizing to science so as to discover its root metaphors and operational myths.”- James Hillman

“Archetypes are the skeletal structures of the psyche, yet the bones are changeable constellations of light—sparks, waves, motions. They are the principles of uncertainty…”fading into uncertainty belongs to the very nature of myth””.- James Hillman
 
The way I've seen this for most of my life is that the human consciousness is comprised of multiple consciousness-levels or vehicles which is also referred to as "bodies". The idea is that all of these, aside from the physical body, are made up out of energy and enable you to deal with different forms of energy in different ways. Although the physical body is a type of energy-field, too, just slow vibrating enough for us to perceive it as "mass", thus we perceive it as something "different" to the other, or subtle bodies.

One common outline, and the one that makes the most sense to me, is this:

1) Physical/Etheric body
2) Emotional body
3) Mental body
4) Soul body
5) Monadic body

These are thought to correspond with the enegy-level or dimension that they operate at and are what allow us to operate on these levels. The etheric body deals with lfe-force or vitality and is the higher sub-plane of the physical body, but also referred to as a body in its own right, and corresponds with the etheric plane. The emotional body with emotions, the mental or intellectual body with thoughts or ideas, the Soul body is thought to make up the more permanent part of you which is where your consciousness is held and is the part of you which travels throughout all lifetimes on earth, stores memories, and learns or evolve. "The Monadic body" is said to be representative of the spirit, and the original God-self which is divine and like a replica of God, and at one with the whole and all other consciousness-forms.

So the physical/etheric body is like a temporary shield for the more subtle bodies which is dissolved at death. The "higher" bodies are said to be taken with you into new lives, so that you can take with you what you have learnt, like the level of intelligence, creativity, emotonal capacity, etc. you have achieved and it's described as you "take up where you left off" when you come back to start a new life on Earth. Spiritual accomplishments are generally seen as the most important, although learning skills which enable you to live life in this world successfully, like social skills, are also valuable. This can also make up a sort of "karma" in that what you did in one life will have hoof or bad consequences in the next.

Even habits which are destructive for your health are said to come with negative consequences in future lives. So being a drug-abuser in one life might lead to having a poor physical vehicle or bad health in a future life-time (and, yes, ouch). I once read those who take good care of their bodies and are good to others at the same time tend to be embodied with "The body beautiful" and it can become a pattern where you get more and more into the culture of cultivating an impressive appeearance.
 
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The soul is to the body as God (in a spiritual sense not creator) is to the physical universe
it has no shape and no start or end.the mind and body are just tools for the soul/consciousness to express itself on the physical level of existence.
 
PORB said:
So, what is Soul? Where is Soul? Is Soul the same as mind, consciousness, spirit, psyche, or different? or all of them? What is Soul to you?
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I like the concept of the Atman and the Brahman in the Hindu religion, that your 'soul' is like one particle or ray of an infinity of rays that come out from the source/centre. Something like that. You have this individual essence, but at the same time you are also whole with God and all the other souls.

Soul is something beyond mind. Consciousness is a loose and poetic word, not defined enough, as with psyche.

To me it's your essence and aspects of it are reflected in your personality. I don't believe you can lose your soul or destroy it, but that the majority of people go through life without ever coming face to face with themselves.
 
Wow, what cool answers.

Never heard of James Hillman but I like what he says about the role of science in psychology and vice versa. Psychology as a field is certainly missing some of the fundamentals and is still, I feel, in its infancy.

I have found little use for the word soul lately, but that's not to say I don't think it exists, just that I haven't had much need for it my models recently.

If you take your soul to be the Atman, then yes, it's more real (or perhaps I should say more fundamental, since 'real' is a very loaded and tricky word) than any aspect of your mind or body. In Hindu philosophy they say, the Atman is Brahman incarnate. In western culture we might just as easily say, the soul is God manifest. The words mean nearly exactly the same thing, depending of course on what context you're applying them in.

Consciousness as a word is indeed poorly misunderstood. It has three primary aspects. The first is awareness of things, whether they be your own thoughts or objects in the outside world (though the distinction is ultimately arbitrary). The second is interpretation of the things you're aware of into subjective experience, known in contemporary philosophy of mind as 'qualia' (e.g. "is your red the same as mine?") The third is the actual fact of experience, i.e. the miracle that anything exists to begin with. Nothing exists without these three things. Though I have divided them to better illustrate the picture, they are not actually separate.
 
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After studying several ancient systems in depth, including their priesthood lineages, I've come to understand it as follows.

There is the corporeal soul which is the life force of the physical body. It dies when the body dies. There is the spirit which, for all intents and purposes, is the ego of this singular lifetime. Its ultimate destination is dissolution as well, but can linger for undetermined periods after death. Most ancestral practices work with these spirits.

The soul is a fragment of the divine. It requires no retrieval or regeneration. It leaves the same as it arrived. Its purpose and destination are anyone's guess.

Most "soul retrieval" practices as we see them in the modern world are really just psychological reintegration. As Carl Jung noted, traumatic experiences can cause fragmentation on the personality level, with varying degrees of dissociation. Soul retrieval is just bringing those back into wholeness.

FWIW most of these modern plastic shamans who do soul retrieval are charlatans. At best they're not doing anything and at worst they are tapping into a person's psyche with no other insight than their own inflated sense of self-importance.
 
i will add a little more Hillman:

“Moreover, a polychromatic spectrum offers a cultural mode of soul-making. By enlarging and complicating our images and myths we will have more and deeper cultural vessels for the tremendous surge of fantasies in our age. Otherwise barbarianism, anarchy, or monolithic statism.”

and

“Then we realize what a miracle it is to find the right words, words that carry soul accurately, where thought, image, and feeling interweave. Then we realize that soul can be made on the spot simply through speech. Such talk is the most complex psychic endeavor imaginable—…."

So the way i see it, anywhere where thought, image, and feeling interweave, you get image and words, art and speech, and anywhere you this happening, you are seeing soul speaking to itself, and this is a place where soul revival takes place.

to move soul into depth is healing, essentially. the conversation just needs started.
 
so I'm basically effed in this life and the next. good to know. fantastic for both my mental and emotional bodies. what ever happened to "blessed are the poor in spirit"? fml and the next for an infinite amount of time i suppose.
 
thrash unreal said:
so I'm basically effed in this life and the next. good to know. fantastic for both my mental and emotional bodies. what ever happened to "blessed are the poor in spirit"? fml and the next for an infinite amount of time i suppose.
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Doubtful that anyone is fucked. It's all just learning.
 
My belief is that the soul is the spark of awareness, the thing that makes a collection of complex organic matter conscious. The soul is the universe itself. Hence, we are all the universe experiencing itself subjectively. I don't believe there are previous lives or next lives for individuals, each life is a unique happening in a particular dimensional position. "We" are all of existence at once, while simultaneously experiencing an infinite array of distinct illusions of separateness.
 
And what if your soul is so sick that you fail to find joy in anything? i doubt this dimension is any better than the next.
pessimism seems to be a constant companion as of late, so apologies if i sound bitchy.
 
I believe souls began to develop with the first humans or possibly their predecessors. Basically it's initially a subtle collection of stories/experiences. I plan to make it so much more than that though. I believe that with affirmations and imagining, I could use the mind to program my soul with various information. I want to use my mind to strengthen my soul permanently in deep meditation. Life itself has to be able to be exploited/hacked somehow.
 
Do you believe that souls are only associated with humans? Personally I am of the view that the soul is the universe itself, the force of awareness within existence, the observer. And we are all the same one manifesting itself uniquely. As such, all life has a soul.

But even if I'm wrong, I am certain beyond doubt that at least some animals have a conscious experience (if not all). I have had too many close relationships with unique, individual, thinking, feeling animals to believe otherwise. Certainly their experience would differ from our own, and would probably involve a lot less higher thought, but then again, human babies are the same way.

Perhaps though, your idea of "soul" isn't one and the same with "conscious experience".
 
Really interesting to read my own posts from 2015.

At this point I'd answer "What is a soul?" with the question "Who is asking?"
 
I see it as some kinda universal force that is in us all right now, it comes in a form that we now know as human & it cannot move onto a higher dimension till we have learned lessons about life. When we have learned what it is like to love, be poor, be hungry etc after many times around we can finally move onto "heaven"
 
Shadowmeister said:
I am certain beyond doubt that at least some animals have a conscious experience (if not all). I have had too many close relationships with unique, individual, thinking, feeling animals to believe otherwise. Certainly their experience would differ from our own, and would probably involve a lot less higher thought, but then again, human babies are the same way.
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I agree there 100%
I firmly believe if you have worked upon "making your mind open" animals can feel something from you that goes beyond words & they will be nice to you. I remember a post on this part of BL about some guy that was high & he came across a bear with her cubs, the bear went off to hunt trash while he sat there looking at the baby bears. When mother bear was done eating she came back & nodded at him then walked off.

I'm quite sure a dog I once part-owned was of a higher wisdom than most folks & could read my mind without question. My moms dog could also see "spirits" as something went down in my yard which confused me & kinda scared me too at the same time. I truly believe in a kinda Buddhist thing that people who have a really easy life this time around & don't have to suffer in life come back as a lower form of animal like a dog & end up living rough on the streets if India for example.
 
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