Soul

[da]

What's the word "soul" mean to you? What associations does it bring up? Is the word fraught with baggage... smelling partly of brimstone? Does it have deep connection for you? Is it ineffable and abstract? Is it like a Platonic ideal of a thing, not to be pinned down? Is it boring? Is it a handy fiction?

I'd love to have a conversation about that, to the extent we can in an online journal. Anonymous comments are fine. My hope is to have common referents to continue in another post.

I invite you to make your first comment here, that is to say without reading the previous comments before-hand. Of course feel free to read other comments too, and discuss with others, but after your first comment. :) Thanks!

[Edit to add:

I can say: the breadth of peoples' responses is pretty darn cool.

So, I suggested a dialogue. What now?

It would be one thing if we were in the same room, and could look at each other and be clear that we're going to treat this with the respect it deserved. In that situation, I would say we could just ask each other open, honest questions; questions that don't try to convince the other of our own understanding; but help the other person to articulate their truth for us. And take it from there.

We could try something like that. I'd participate. Why don't we try that?

It might go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: you're welcome to not reply to someone's question, or to reply telling them you won't reply (and that's final; challenges are not OK).

]

Comments

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

To me, "soul" is the divine spark we all share; each human alive has "that of God" within, which might as well be called the soul. Those who teach that the soul is innately sinful have it prefectly backwards, I think- the divine spark is our living connection to the divine, and the only sin is whatever pushes us away from that connection. And we all have immense capacity to strengthen that connection, through deliberate seeking for it.

I am agnostic about what happens to the soul after death, except I'm quite certain it doesn't involve condemning anyone to hell.

The word "soul" has about as many fraught associations as the word "gay" does- and similarly, it has been a project of maybe half my life to claim the positive ones. "Saving souls" makes me wince. It's not like an all-powerful Creator misplaces anyone.

My favourite association for the word "soul" is an image: a tuning fork. (Which does go along with soul music, but that's not where I'm taking this right now.) Tuning forks have one job: to resonate at a particular frequency. My soul has one job, to resonate at the frequency of its Creator. You can take a pair of tuning forks, strike one and the other will resonate. If I am connected with my innermost soul, my interactions with the world are just as resonant. And that's a big "if."

I've been asked, what is my experience of Quaker Meeting at its best? Well, in some ways, it feels like a room of tuning forks, in silent resonance.

[dpolicar]

So, what are other positive associations to the word "soul" you've been claiming?

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

I think the main difference between your idea and mine is the moon vs. the finger that points to the moon. In other words, I'd say that our souls are the way we connect to divinity but not divinity itself, but in the end that's a technical distinction that really doesn't matter much except in discussions like these. :)

Have you read Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle? It describes the soul as a castle, at whose center lies God. She explains our spiritual task as that of moving toward the center of the castle, which is the center of ourselves, at which point we will find the entire universe inside ourselves. If you haven't read it, you might find it related to this stuff.

But for a question: I like your tuning fork analogy very much. But how does one cultivate resonance? Or are we always resonating, we just sometimes forget to pay attention?

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

What associations does it bring up?

Unfortunately, when I read this, I immediately thought of word associations and came up with "sister" from that "Moulin Rouge" song. ;-)

Since I was eight or so I have been strongly agnostic or atheistic, so have no particular belief in an immortal soul. That said, I have no explanation for consciousness or for why I feel like a sentient being with choice. So my initial lame answer is that I have no idea.

I have problems with the idea that you are alive for a finite amount of time and then (depending on what you did) you spend an infinite amount of time revelling or doing penance or suffering. That's a dumb reward system. Reincarnation or going around the wheel of life works a bit better for me, except for the obvious population growth -- one would assume a soul could not be split.

And I disagree that one cannot have meaningful conversations within online journals. Heathen! Your soul shall.. erm, something. ;-)

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Lots of this resonates with me too. Except as a kid I was agnostic and eventually decided there was a *something* that kept me from deciding I was atheist, and so on.

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

[dpolicar]

You imply here that being agnostic/atheistic leads to having no particular belief in an immortal soul. I'm interested in what you see as the connection between those two (or perhaps three) things.

[dpolicar]

Also, a somewhat tangential point about reincarnation: the population-growth objection presumes that human souls are always human souls, and that souls are eternal in both directions (that is, that there are no "young souls").

Without those presumptions, population poses no particular difficulty... it just means there are more souls incarnated as humans now than there were a thousand years ago, either because they are young, or because they were previously incarnated as non-humans.

For example, there are a number of New Age reincarnation believers who consider themselves spiritually extraterrestrial -- that is, who believe their souls originate elsewhere in the universe and have only recently chosen to incarnate on Earth.

And as I understand it, the traditional Hindu beliefs around reincarnation involve the same supply of souls being shared among humans and other animals.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Mostly I have it tagged as that-word-that-means-something(s)-to-other-people. I think if I used it, it would be a synonym for "self," by which I mean the illusionary impression that I am a single person in a single body, despite all the changes over moments and years to both.

In The Margaret Ghost, Horace Greeley, attempting to lure Margaret Fuller to write for his paper says: "Five columns a week and you're never to use the word soul. Except in case of accident, as in "sole survivor".

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

[dpolicar]

For me, the primary associations are as per "soulful" -- that is, associated with deeply felt and ineffable sensations. To say that someone has no soul is not to accuse them of being undead or anything like that, merely to assert that they lack depth, lack empathy, that sort of thing.

That said, while it's not quite correct to say that I believe in the existence of souls in the metaphysical sense you're invoking here -- if I get into a headspace where what I'm doing is primarily believing in some propositions and being skeptical of others, evaluating them on the basis of evidence, then I lose all grounds for believing in the existence of souls -- it is true that I resonate with the idea of an aspect of my identity that exists independent of my corporeal self.

Primarily, what that means to me is connection to things whose connection to me is not readily apparent.

[dpolicar]

Coming back and reading other comments, I'm intrigued by the prospect of a conversation among these viewpoints, but not at all sure how to initiate one... the starting points are so disparate.

[sqrt-joy.livejournal.com]

Regarding evidence: I've often thought that faith is belief in non-physical evidence that can only be understood through personal revelation. But that's difficult, because "there be" the path to madness.

I tried to make a question out of that thought and failed horribly. Sorry. :)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

If I think of "the soul" at all it is as that part of us that makes us more than machines; the thing that gives us the ability to go beyond reason and linearity. And yes, reading Plato did much to help me conceptualise "soul" in that way.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

[sqrt-joy.livejournal.com]

Even as some one who does not subscribe to a faith, I think the soul exists. The soul is that part of a person, of a project, that exists outside of the physicality of the world. It is what is greater than the sum of our parts. To me, the soul is innately good, innately loving, innately integrous. This means that the soul isn't what would be considered thoughts and desires, because people do innately bad, uncaring, and unprincipled acts. To me, the soul is quiet and peaceful. The lyrics : "inside ourselves / A hidden sun that burns and burns But never does any harm to anyone" is close to what I'm trying to get at.

That was very hand-wavy, sorry.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You might not be surprised but lots of what you said resonates with me too. And I will look up those lyrics.

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

[peaceofpie.livejournal.com]

I like your response, and I am curious what you mean by "hand-wavy".

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

"Soul" brings to mind a style of music related to R&B and funk, with some jazz and disco influences. There are those who hold James Brown and Aretha Franklin as the male and female embodiment of soul, and there is merit in their belief.

In the sense I think you mean it, in my view of existence, the soul is the part of a being that may survive the death of its physical form, the only thing that is carried from one life to another (whether that life is on the same or a different plane, even if it is unrecognizable as life to us). It is the soul which is nurtured by conscientious seeking of deep truths and the development of compassion, so it is difficult for a soul to grow and improve without a human being to contain it. But it is also humanity which is the greatest danger to a soul, since harmful and self-seeking choices and actions can diminish it to the point where it is destroyed along with the body.

Some people say that everything that exists has a soul. Some claim that all living things have souls. Some believe animals have souls. Some are convinced only humans -- and possibly only some types of humans as designated by physical or spiritual characteristics -- have a soul. I don't know the truth of that any more than I know the relationship of a soul to gender, so I try to see everything as precious and worthy of respectful compassion. I do better in some circumstances than others and I keep working on improving.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I appreciate this perspective and for some reason my brain illustrates what you're writing with bits of Tezuka's Buddha...

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Soul, as a noun, is the core of being of a living thing, and in my belief system is transcendent of the physical being, though bound with it for a time on this plane. Had the Xian indoctrination grew up around taken, the word would be fraught with baggage -- happily, i escaped that.

As an adjective, it means heart-felt, fulfilling, satisfying, and comforting. I also have it associated with a style of Appalachian/Southern cooking, and a Appalachian/Southern/Urban style of music.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

The soul is the spiritual part of a person. It allows people to interact with the spiritual part of the world just as the body allows people to interact with the physical part of the world and the mind allows people to interact with the world of ideas.

The soul is immortal, unlike the body, but it is not a complete person in itself. Although angels are by nature beings of pure spirit, humans are by nature both physical and spiritual. During the time between physical death and final, general resurrection people are in an odd state of existence--they are not perfected by the absence of a body, but rather crippled. Angels are beings of pure spirit, and calling a human soul without a body an "angel" is a reasonable analogy but technically incorrect.

It would probably be incorrect to say that anything but a human has a soul. To say something has a soul means it is capable of conscious interaction with other spiritual things. It's possible that other things besides humans have a soul, but that their intentional use of it is limited. However, likely the spiritual aspects of non-human physical objects and animals are dim and unorganized enough that we would not call them souls, but something else.

Spiritual interaction is the perception of and communication with other spiritual objects. This kind of communication is very different than that done through the body, and because of this spiritual experiences are often discounted as imaginary. It is true that spiritual interactions are very difficult to reproduce precisely, which means that coming to a collective, objective agreement on them often requires a large sample size, a common frame through which to view them, and generations of discussion. Imagine how much easier it would be to understand the soul if you had the same response to prayer or meditation every time, or could call up a vision or transcendental experience on demand. Instead the experience changes from day to day or even moment to moment with no obvious context for those changes.

This makes it easy for a charismatic individual or a group in authority to subvert the process to their own ends by claiming to give people an easier or quicker path to a collective understanding of their soul and its operation. But that doesn't mean these interactions are imaginary, nor does it mean that all bodies dedicated to the study of this question intend to manipulate people for their own agenda. Self-reflection, reading, and participation in communities dedicated to the honest investigation of this subject are imperative to avoid fooling yourself or being fooled by others.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Now that I read the other comments, I see a lot of comments about the soul being fundamentally good. Just for the record, I think the soul as a part of the person is as fundamentally good as a person is--which is to say, by nature good but capable of choosing evil at any point.

Mencius points out that anyone walking by a child who is about to fall in a well will catch that child by instinct--this is the fundamental goodness in our character. It would take conscious decision or training to ignore the child and let him fall, and to not feel bad about doing that would require serious damage to our nature. But we are completely capable of perverting ourselves that way--either as a personal choice or as a result of medical problems or damage done to our psyches by others. And that perversion pervades our entire being--the spiritual and physical are holistically connected with regard to the consequences of those choices. A deep connection to the absolute Divine Good is established through the soul but it is present to our entire being. Good and evil are principles that are present in all parts of our existence--spiritual, intellectual, and material.

[tocityguy.livejournal.com]

The soul means to me the inner most part of my being, that which is transferred from this lifetime to the next.

I tend to believe in reincarnation and that the ultimate goal is perfection of the self and thus reunification with the universe as a whole. (Hardly original but still quite cool)

It is often minimized, marginalized, or plain ignored by most and those that do consider it rarely seem to do so outside of a Christian perspective.

I think a soul exists outside of considerations like gender, a class, a nationality, a language, culture, or people, sexuality, and the like.

Hopefully that answers more questions than it raises.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I will say that I'm often taken with the concept of reincarnation, and I will agree with the thought that reunification with the universe is definitely quite cool. :)

[peaceofpie.livejournal.com]

When I was a little kid, probably about 7, I had a really powerful image come to me which I've always associated with "soul". The image was of a cave in a volcanic rock, everything around it burnt to a crisp, except one tiny little stream of flaming lava dripping down into the cave. That tiny little stream of flaming lava -- still active, still burning -- amidst all the deadness and ruin around it, is the image that goes with "soul" for me. It's the part of anything that would still exist if all the other parts got destroyed.

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

First off, isn't that icon from Hedwig's "The Origin of Love?" That's an appropriate Platonic reference for this thread, and a great song on top of that.

I'm curious... the lava is what burned the cave in the first place, isn't it? Am I reading too much into the image to note that the vital energy is also destructive?

Regardless it is a compelling image and one that lends itself to deeper contemplation, it seems to me.

[songquake.livejournal.com]

Here from peaceofpie's LJ.

I'd say that when I'm speaking of "soul," it starts with the idea of "breath" -- which connects it to "spiritus" (breath) in Latin, and "atman" (breath or soul, or the universal spirit) in Hindi. (I'd also note how cool it was for me when I was learning to speak German to see that the word for breath there is "atmen"; very nifty to see how directly it's derived from earlier Indo-European stuff!)

The soul comes alive when one breathes, during meditative concentration on breath, during song or exercise, speech or laughter or sobs. I feel my own soul most alive when I'm singing. Or dancing. Or painting. Or throwing mud.

That the soul lives through breath means that we can use it to reach out to the Divine Mystery, as well as to other creatures. It's pretty damn cool. When I am good at doing that, I feel a certain unity of spirit with the divine and with those around me.

Unlike many who believe in souls, though, I don't think they are immortal. I think that when we die, we're dead. We're no longer pushing the breath in and out, although that explanation came after the thought that the soul dies when its host does. I just can't find it plausible that the "energy"/"activity" can exist without the biology sustaining it.

[dpolicar]

There's a similar lexical thing in Hebrew. Most famously, the beginning of Genesis talks about "ruach adonoi," which is varyingly translated as "the spirit of god" and "the breath of god"; more generally, "ruach" has both of these meanings.

[derbiser.livejournal.com]

I would say that "soul" is the essence of a person. It is more than personality and intellect. It is that which cannot be reduced to constituent atoms. It is the eternal: that what remains after my physical self is reduced to dust. It is God within me and me within God.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

*smile* Thank you, I will probably take that image with me to Quaker Meeting tomorrow: "God within me and me within God..."

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I have begun to think that a soul is something we make. This is a not-completely-formed idea, but it has a lot of resonance for me. It goes something like this: we have sense experiences, which we organize into an understanding of the world. Part of that understanding is a set of models of other people's behaviour, and of our own behaviour; we call these models personalities, and pretty much everyone has one. Several, in fact, because each person who knows me will come up with a slightly different model. Some of us (most of us? all of us? I don't know), as we learn about our own personalities, yearn for something more or something different: we wish to be more compassionate, more aware of others, more connected to the world,… And since I believe that I am a set of beliefs about myself, it's kind of scary to cut away at those beliefs, to wish to make them different. Who am I, to make myself different? Could I make myself not want to be different? Etc. So we invent a thing that is deeper than the personality, an essence that is unchanging as we transform ourselves. Perhaps that unchanging thing is really a stable set of beliefs and behaviours; or perhaps that unchanging thing is an illusion we create for ourselves. But that's what I think the soul is: my soul is the unchanging part of myself from which I can reason about how i would like to change.

In this conception, a soul is strictly optional. You don't have to have one. And I don't suppose you have to want to change in order to build a soul, that's just a way I went about introducing the idea. I think just about everyone would like to have a soul, though, and I think most of us construct one.

Note that I'm not saying that souls aren't real. Far from it! Lots of things we construct out of ideas are vividly real. Personalities, for instance. Money is another: it's entirely make-believe, a mass hallucination, but you'd be a fool to pretend it wasn't real. It's hard to imagine that my soul, as a construction of my brain, could be eternal; I think that may be an illusion or a fond hope. But I'm willing to be surprised.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks- that's a really meaty conception, that I will need to sit with.

Sounds like you're describing the Super-Ego, though without piles of Freudian baggage.