The Concept Of Soul
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
The concept of soul is essential to understanding reincarnation. Though most people have at least a vague idea of the concept, it seems that even those who label themselves as "religious” have an unclear understanding about the soul itself. This is most likely a holdover from the medieval Church that severely, and sometimes punitively, discouraged such contemplation. However, " Is it not conceivable that our entire civilization is built upon a misinterpretation of man? Or that the tragedy of man is due to the fact that he is a being who has forgotten the question: Who is Man? The failure to identify himself, to know what is authentic human existence, leads him to assume a false identity, to pretend to be what he is unable to be or to not accept what is at the very root of his being. Ignorance about man is not lack of knowledge, but false knowledge. “(Abraham Heschel Who is Man? 1965). In order for there to be a belief in reincarnation, one must also have a belief in soul, for it is the soul that incarnates. If man is a soul, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he survives death. Is this not the basis for every religious belief in the afterlife? Even the most hardened of cynics and atheists must struggle with the thought that our consciousness screams that it cannot possibly be a mere chemical reaction of blood and matter. Wherefore explain thoughts, hopes or desires? … imaginations or intellect, if that be the case?
There are two ways to prove a thing. One is to show how it follows logically from other things that are true. The other is just to simply produce the thing for examination, so that all may point and say, “there it is.” Either is almost impossible in the question of soul. The belief in soul is essential to a belief in afterlife and thus in reincarnation. We must begin by assuming that we are “soul” and that soul exists. We point to the argument in the paragraph above as our means of explanation. Now, we must attempt to define that “soul,” in order to have some agreement upon the nature of its existence.
If we assume that thoughts, emotions, ideas, imaginations and such have some origin outside the physical sphere, and we must for the sake of argument, else all thought, idea, imagination and existence would terminate when the electro-chemical processes of the brain cease. We move to the analogy of what the soul is, in relation to the body. It cannot be body, or it would cease when the body ceases. J. Paul Williams, in The Yale Review, developed the analogy of the candle: that is, snuff the candle, and the light goes out. However, a candle reflected in a mirror… move the mirror and the light appears to be gone, yet the candle continues to burn. So if we believe that the soul is reflected by the body, but not in the body, then it is rational to believe that soul can exist apart from the body.
Williams also advances that our arguments for experiential-based proofs fall short when considered in light of how limited our experience actually is, in regards to such readily accepted phenomena in science. For instance, who has actually experienced the atomic or sub-atomic reality? While we look at a rock, and accept that it must be composed of these tiny solar systems of particles, because we are told so and because that explanation is consistent with the workings of the universe that we can experience, we actually only experience the rock in a way that is limited by 1) our expectations of the experience, and 2) our conscious and/or unconscious acceptance of the limitations of physical senses. We might, in fact, if we were able to accept enlightenment and an expanded sense of things, experience that rock in an entirely different way.
So…“What is it that incarnates?” “What is the soul?” These questions are really nothing less than trying to the nature of all Being, of who and what we are, and what is the meaning and purpose and nature of Life. Since so much of our identity rests in our notion of the material body, and is continually reinforced through the material experience, the notion of ″a soul” can seem abstract at best, and in our most challenging moments it can seem almost pointless.
Edgar Cayce
For a moment, let us focus on a singular source; Edgar Cayce. Cayce has exerted much influence in the opening of Western, English speaking (particularly American) thoughts and ideas, and is often suggested as the primary catalyst behind the modern acceptance of reincarnation within Western culture today.
Cayce himself was, according to accounts, a nominally educated man from a farming family of strict, Protestant faith. Cayce himself was, according to accounts, a nominally educated man from a farming family of strict, Protestant faith. At an early age, Cayce felt he had a psychic ability. Later, as a young man, he experimented with hypnosis to treat a recurring throat problem. A vision of a woman telling him he would have unusual power to help people led him to diagnose and treat illnesses for people through his hypnotic meditations. By all accounts, he was remarkably successful. In 1910, the New York Times ran a story describing his psychic ability as described by a young physician to a clinical research facility.
Cayce supposedly remained a very religious man, teaching Sunday School in his church. According to his grandson, Cayce “always tried to attune himself to God’s will by studying the Scriptures and maintaining a rich prayer life, as well as trying to be of service to those who came seeking help.” He worked to reconcile his experiences and abilities, as well as convictions that immortal souls journeyed through more than one life on earth, with his Biblical understanding.
Edgar Cayce (and others) speaks of the soul as “bonding” with the body, or “becoming one” with the body for the duration of its life. This seems, though, to be an accommodation to physical-based sense; less than metaphysical and more of a limitation of three-dimensional thinking. Most teachings and sources do not deal with soul in this way, insisting rather that the soul is always separate and rather “looking out” through or from the body; that is, inhabiting rather than infusing.
“What is life? IT is a manifestation of a soul. Remember that the soul is made up of body, mind, and soul.” Cayce reading 4047-2. [Cayce’s readings are identified with two numbers. The first is an anonymous number given to the person for whom the reading was given. The second is the number of the reading. In other words, Person number 4047, the 2nd reading.]