Soul and Spirit

[Feral]

Hi Folks, the Humans without Souls thread prompted some questions from me, such as;  How would you describe or define the soul and what is it's function? How does Soul relate to Spirit? Are the two synonymous or is there a difference? I have my own loosely formed thoughts,  but would like to hear from others that have reflected on this.

[helpfuldemon]

I decided that the soul is the essence of a person while the spirit is a mood or an idea that is shared i.e; "in the spirit of..."

[Lairg]

In the ancient Egyptian and Jewish traditions a human has 5 souls.   The middle soul corresponds with the Christian concept of soul.

 

Like all(?) entities the soul has a body and an intelligence.  Thus the body of the middle soul is conventionally comprised of material from the higher mental sub-planes.

 

The intelligence of the middle soul is, by some accounts, an entity from the solar system that facilitates the human's spiritual functioning until the human has achieved first stage enlightenment - purification and control of mental functions. 

 

Then the soul intelligence (solar angel) progressively withdraws while the human achieves second stage enlightenment - purification and control of heart functions.

 

At that stage, Spirit finds the human system sufficiently transparent to try operating it directly.

 

It is reasonable to regard each healthy chakra in a standard human as having an operating intelligence that can be regarded as the soul/essence of that part of human functioning. 

 

For example, the human takes a while to learn to walk as the sacral chakra nature spirit learns its business in a new body. 

 

If the physical body, for example, is traumatized, the intelligence of that chakra is affected and various symptoms arise such as poor physical coordination.   The effects of trauma commonly carry over into following incarnations.