Soul Retrieval? Is there a Soul?

[Informer]

I was looking at power animals and ran into this. I am curious what you guys think about it.

 

The Free Soul

In shamanism it is believed that part of the human soul is free to leave the body. The soul is the axis mundi, the center of the shamanic healing arts. Shamans change their state of consciousness allowing their free soul to travel and retrieve ancient wisdom and lost power.

 

Because a portion of the soul is free to leave the body it will do so when dreaming, or it will leave the body to protect itself from potentially damaging situations be they emotional or physical. In situations of trauma the soul piece may not return to the body on its own, and a shaman must intervene and return the soul essence.

 

 

Reasons For the Soul's Departure

There are various reasons for soul loss. If a person was in an abusive situation part of one's soul may leave to protect itself from the abuse. Sometimes as a child, fighting parents may prompt the soul part to hide because the child is scared. If a traumatic accident is about to occur such as an impact or accident the soul would leave so that it wouldn't be effected by the force of the accident. If a loved one is lost, the soul part may go until the person is ready to deal with their grief. All of these are very healthy mechanisms of protection. In some cases the soul part will return on its own. But if it does not realize how to return, or if it does not know that it is safe to return - the shaman may need to assist the return of that missing piece.

 

Another way to lose ones soul is to give it to someone. When two people are in love, or when they are in a family, it is sometimes occurs that they will give portions of their soul to their loved ones. A mother may give some to her child because she wishes to protect him or her. This type of soul exchange may seem acceptable because of a person's desire to share themselves with another, but it is generally not a good idea. An individual can't use another person's soul, because simply: it is not their soul. The person must then deal with this unusable energy in addition to his or her own problems. In addition, the persons who have given a piece of their soul away have disempowered themselves. The giver's journey is made more difficult because they are not fully present to do the living of their life. It is a lose lose situation.

 

Because we are not taught about soul loss we do this soul sharing unconsciously. As individuals becomes more conscious of this dynamic they can find more empowering ways of sharing love and affection in their close relationships. You can see the language of soul loss in everyday speaking, people referring to how they "lost a piece of themselves" when they parted with a lover, or people saying "you stole my life from me."

 

Another reason for soul loss is called soul stealing, perhaps we should say borrowing. As we said before, the average person today is unconscious of the soul dynamic. So soul stealing can be innocent, you see someone with lots of energy and you want to borrow some of it. You are afraid of losing someone, so you take a piece of that person with you so that you will always have him or her close by. Soul stealing can also be a way to dominate another. For instance soul stealing may be seen where an abusive spouse has taken his or her partner's soul. When you take someone's soul you take some of that person's power.

 

It is important to know that no one can take your soul without your consent. If someone has stolen your soul, you have in some sense given it to them or allowed them to have it. If you feel for some reason that someone is tugging at your soul, make a firm decision within yourself that they cannot have it and they will not be able to take it from you.

 

 

Symptoms of Soul Loss

Soul loss would be comparable to the psychological concept of disassociation. Some of the symptoms that would indicate soul loss to a shaman include: depression, a feeling of incompleteness, an inability to move forward on some issue, lost memories, feeling like your not in control your life, people who say I felt like part of me died when..., or people who say I feel like so and so stole my soul. Soul loss is often accompanied by a feeling that something is missing from life.

 

Once again the language of our society refers to soul loss, I lost something when I lost my job, I never felt the same after my accident...

 

Coma is a situation of extreme soul loss, where more of the soul is out of the body then in. As with the other protective feature of soul loss, this can be very appropriate. If the body is in a great deal of pain, or if the soul needs time to consider its situation a coma provides needed time. Shock is another symptom of soul loss, where the individual's soul hasn't returned yet or hasn't fully reentered the body. For information on "How do I know if I need a Soul Retrival", click here or go to the bottom of this page.

 

A person frequently wishes to return to his or her lost soul. So if the soul part was lost to a person, or in a specific place, an individual may feel an urge to return to that place or person even when there seems to be no outward reason to do so. Occasionally, a person having suicidal thoughts may be because of a desire to reunite with one's lost soul pieces.

 

http://www.shamanlinks.net/Soul_Retrieval.htm

Edited August 6, 2011 by Informer

[RiverSnake]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061227862/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A2PTFCA406K9UV

[Informer]

I am making a pole that I hope people will answer what they think about the existence of a soul.

 

I have a feeling that there is a soul, but haven't really a way to prove it.

 

 

What do you think?

 

(P.S.) I am also curious what your preferred texts say about it.

Edited August 6, 2011 by Informer

[deci belle]

No.

[suninmyeyes]

Edited August 7, 2011 by suninmyeyes

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Interesting question, especially to people who agree with both Buddhism and Indigenous spirituality, since Buddhism basically denies the existence of a soul. However, Buddhism basically denies the existence of everything on the Absolute level, so the soul could very much exist on the "relative" level, the same as hamburgers also exist on the relative level.

 

I see some correlations between "soul loss" and having healthy Elemental Spirits in TCM. I wrote something about this in another post, but essentially, a lot of soul loss symptoms that I read of have to do with loss of Will, to be succinct, and a lot of the Elemental Spirit illnesses also show symptoms similar to this.

 

This link, shared by dawei, has great summaries of Elemental Spirit health.

www.fivespirits.com

 

pce

Edited August 7, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Seth Ananda]

I myself am a great fan of both Shamanism and Buddhism.

 

I see two differing versions of meaning used for the word soul.

 

To me, when we say soul, as in soul retrieval, it means fragments of the psyche. Urges, energy, wants, dreams, and many many qualities of personalities, or even entire sub personality's that seem to be able to be thrown off, taken, taken on, absorbed, disconnected...

I see this as the soul people describe when they say 'he has soul!' or 'he is so soulful', meaning that he comes from a deeper place inside himself in how he expresses.

 

Or the other usage, is to describe the point of golden aware Inteligent and Intentional light that resides deep past the subtle sheaths/body's in a space that coincides with the right ventricle of the heart, and is the root of the human psyche.

 

When I got to be it for 3 days, I knew I had found the root of me, Seth.

It was probably a year before I found detailed references to this point, but since then have found teachings about it Hindu, Sufi, Christian, Kabbalastic and Shamanistic teachings.

To me this is what people mean when describing an possibly eternal part of our psyche as our soul.

 

[dont go all atman on me, and to keep this thread on track so I will not respond to any comments about E&DO that seem argumentative, but I wanted to add that I see this divine spark as also being Empty and Dependently Originating, and also, in reading some Buddhist Tantras I have come across them describing the point of Golden awareness/light that leaves from the heart at death.]

 

 

On to soul retrieval, it is a fascinating practice and even more of a fascinating experience.

When you realise that at some point you 'lost' something, and then get help getting it back, and from that point on your personality has an entirely new portion working along side you... Its weird, and really makes one question ones theory's about mind/self/personality/magick and so on...

 

Similar with de-possession, which i see as a backwards kind of soul retrieval.

Someone chucks out something {or someone} they thought were them, and suddenly a whole gamut of habits and personality traits are just gone - permanently.

 

I helped an old fella move on from a friend years ago, and when he left, he took all his desire for cigarettes and strong blue cheeses with him.

 

I love this stuff, we have such a strange, mystical and awesome existence

 

Will we ever get to the bottom of it?

[RiverSnake]

I think that it is likely that there is a base consciousness that is free of programming and simply is.

 

Would i call this a soul? No its just the perfectly unconditioned self...your true self. I think this is the most likely answer. But we'll just wait and see

Edited August 7, 2011 by OldGreen

[Informer]

I think that it is likely that there is a base consciousness that is free of programming and simply is.

 

Would i call this a soul? No its just the perfectly unconditioned self...your true self. I think this is the most likely answer. But we'll just wait and see

 

Bump for more data!

 

Good point, I like the you admit it is not certainty.

[Seth Ananda]

Bump for more data!

 

[Marblehead]

I voted yes. I often use the word 'soul'. But in my mind 'soul' is basically our subconscious mind including that part of our brain that instinctually tell us an action is 'right or wrong', part of our emotions.

 

Edit to add:

 

I also use the word 'spirit' and I link that to our personal Chi, our life force.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Marblehead

[Small Fur]

Hi Informer,

 

Yes, there is definitely a soul. I see it (literally not symbolically) in the windows of the eyes, in others lives... even before and after life. The soul is different to, but related to spirit, which is similar but different and also related to a larger unity. More frequently, a spirit may leave the body rather than the soul- sometimes as part of their natural function (like what the Taoist call hun or po) or its capacity is diminished due to illness, emotions, malintent, and/or trauma. The soul, as I have seen it, doesn't really exist inside the physical body, per se, it is more omnipresent than that ( -but this means you could also argue that it very much resides in the body!) Rather, I would say, it's quality infuses the body's life force; in this way, much of the formation of the body is due to the map of the solar body. More importantly, the soul is also, not just one 'thing.'

 

The light in the eyes carries the little spirit shen from the heart. This little shen is deeply entwined with the big Shen of the soul. And, when in severe trauma, it is certainly not uncommon for the shen spirit to vanish or leave the body. In many cases, I have also seen that people incarnate without deep relationship to their soul. This often leaves a feeling of great flatness/apathy and disconnection. And quite often, these people are likely not to believe in spiritual-based/mystic-based conceptions, especially because they have not experienced it in this life time. Many of these people are more comfortable to designate their experiences to scientific data, prefer more seemingly rational concepts like that of the intellect, or will just flat out discount anything that is outside of their realm of tolerance. And more often than not, the denial of or inability to have really touched the soul leaves a bitterness, even when we want to doubt. Some have glimpses here and there, but unable to comprehend the totality of dimension and depth of our existence, remain without clarity and so continue to perceive it as 'mystery'. We speak from what we know and sense of life.

 

I do want to note, that the concept of spirit and soul varies across cultures and spiritual practices, and that many people use these terms interchangeably without distinguishing, or really knowing what they mean, and even being aware of the relationships. This often causes more confusion. In addition to the idea being largely theoretical, philosophical or poetic for most (if not discardable all together), many have a very static and simplified notions of the soul or spirit and they are largely discrete. So, for me to even speak of it, so casually as I have here, is a quite a bit of a misnomer in itself.

 

You are questioning this because of that experience with RT?

 

Many aspects of ourselves will come and go over a life time, but allowing yourself to feel your heart is something that best remains when even there is pain.

Edited August 9, 2011 by Small Fur

[Informer]

Nope, I am not missing anything, but thanks for the concern and for sharing!