Divine Soul The vehicle or garment of the divine ego, which in its turn is the field or vehicle of the divine monad -- terms referring to the human monadic centers. As the inner god corresponds to the divine monad and the inner buddha to the divine ego, so the divine soul may be said to be the expression of the buddha in manifestation on earth.

(See also: Divine Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Spiritual Soul Buddhi; in man, typically the immortal individual monad. The first vehicle of the atmic monadic ray is the spiritual ego, a copy in miniature of the monad, individualized throughout manvantaric evolution. The second vehicle is the spiritual soul, the bearer, veil, or carrier of the spiritual ego.

(See also: Spiritual Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Protean Soul Any one of the several souls of the different monads or egos in nature and in man, which undergo numerous changes of type and form. More commonly used in theosophical writings to describe the vital-astral-physical part of the lower quaternary.

Such souls are in their actions but reflexes of shifting thoughts and moods of the egos which they clothe. The name is taken from the Greek sea god Proteus who could take on all sorts of shapes.

(See also: Protean Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Spirit-soul Atma-buddhi, the spiritual monad, the monadic essence. Buddhi could have no existence if divorced from atman, its origin as well as its inner vivifying principle; and atman without buddhi would be unmanifest on all planes lower than itself. Spirit-soul is therefore the highest manifested entity in kosmos, otherwise called mahabuddhi, and the spiritual monad in man is a direct derivative therefrom.

(See also: Spirit-soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Soul of the World Translates the Latin anima mundi. In its highest aspect it is akasa and the seat of nirvanic conditions; in its lower aspects it is the astral light and the physical world -- the last both its physical carrier and its grossest expression.

See also ANIMA MUNDI

(See also: Soul of the World, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Plastic Soul. Used in Occultism in reference to the linga sharira or the astral body of the lower Quaternary. It is called "plastic" and also "Protean" Soul from its power of assuming any shape or form and moulding or modelling itself into or upon any image impressed in the astral light around it, or in the minds of the medium or of those present at séances for materialization. The linga sharira must not be confused with the mayavi rupa or "thought body" - the image created by the thought and will of an adept or sorcerer ; for while the "astral form" or linga sharira is a real entity, the "thought body" is a temporary illusion created by the mind.

(See also: Plastic Soul, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Universal Soul At one time identified as mahat or mahabhuddhi, the vehicle of kosmic spirit or paramatman, but more frequently called anima mundi, the world-soul, alaya, the astral light of the Qabbalists, the spiritually and ethereally material reflection of the immaterial cosmic paramatmic ideal; hence the universal soul is the source of life of all beings. '

It is regarded as sevenfold, tenfold, or twelvefold in its nature and structure. Taking the triad of spirit, soul, and body, it stands for the middle region, being at once the vehicle of spirit and the prototypical model of the material worlds. Thus it stands for the higher ranges of the astral light as the storehouse of ideas impressed upon it by the creative spiritual forces, and the transmitter of them to the world of material and physical objectivity. In this view it would be the source of the intermediate human principles.

See also UNIVERSAL MIND

(See also: Universal Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Astral Monad or Soul The animal soul or vital-astral soul, the lowest and feeblest reflection or vehicle of the divine monad; when enlightened by the human monad, it produces the human being known today.

(See also: Astral Monad, Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Lost Soul An entity who through a series of rebirths has been slowly following the easy descent to Avernus. A lost soul is one who is not merely "soulless" in the ordinary theosophical usage, but is one who has lost the last link, the last delicate thread of consciousness, connecting him with his inner god.

This loss of the soul cannot ensue as long as even one spiritual aspiration remains functionally active. When not one single, quivering aspiration spiritward remains, the soul is lost for that manvantara; its essence, as it were, is inverted, and its tendency is downwards into avichi where, depending upon the power over nature acquired by the soul, circumstances may bring about an almost immediate annihilation of it or, perhaps, a manvantara of avichi-nirvana, a fearful state indeed, contrasted with the wondrous nirvana of the dhyani-chohans.

But this horrible fate, the easy descent, is brought about gradually. Passing from human birth to an inferior human birth, and then to one still more inferior, the degenerate astral monad -- all that remains of the human being that once was -- may finally even enter the body of some beast to which it feels attracted (and this is one side of the teaching of transmigration, which has been so badly misunderstood); some finally go even to plants perhaps, at the last, and will ultimately vanish. The astral monad will then have faded out. Such lost souls are exceedingly rare.

The lost soul is at one pole of consciousness and the master at the other. It is between the higher human soul, and the human soul (or man proper) that lies the psychological frontier over which one must pass forwards or backwards, into regeneration or degeneration. The first leads to masterhood, the second to final annihilation. For, as attraction to matter increases, the egoic soul-quality deteriorates, and through attrition the link is broken, and the soul finally sinks into the Eighth Sphere, the Planet of Death.

(See also: Lost Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Group-souls The idea that there are entities which express themselves through the collectivity of the individuals of a race or nation, or other similar group, somewhat as the soul of a person may express itself through the collectivity of the living units which compose his organism.

However, the living units of our body do not of themselves engender a unitary entity but, having been drawn together by similarity of karma and by the vital magnetism of the imbodied soul, form the vehicle for the expression of the entity of a higher order. The individuals of a race or nation, though drawn by similarity of karma and character into the same race or nation, do not thereby constitute a vehicle for the manifestation of any entity of a higher order which is the predominant and almost exclusive factor in the case.

There are, nonetheless, such things as the national genius, which can be metaphysically explained by calling it a minor ray from the logos, to which belong the already relatively highly evolved individual units of the group thus overenlightened. Such a national or racial aggregation of individuals of like karma and character likewise create a vital atmosphere, a manifestation of the genius, which exists in the creative ideation of the planetary spirit, both as an imbodied idea and as an abstract spiritual entity. It is in this sense that such expressions were used in ancient Greek and other mythologies when speaking of nature spirits, genii loci, or denoting families and races by an eponym, ancestor, or the name of a god.

A misunderstanding of certain teachings has also given rise in some minds to the idea that animals, when they die, become merged in a group-soul, which is entirely erroneous when connected with the implication that they lose their individuality and do not reappear as the same partially egoic individuals. Every animal, as also every organism down to an atom, has its monad or permanent individuality, which is on the path of evolution just as human monads are, though at a lower stage.

This individuality cannot be lost. Yet the manifested quality of individuality is so little developed in the animals, as compared with human beings, that their monads to our minds, although not in themselves, are much more alike than are human monads, so that they seem to us to fall together more readily into a group. But the word group here is a collective noun and denotes an entity, but of an extremely abstract -- to us -- type.

(See also: Group-souls, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Humors In medieval European medical thought, a fluid or juice, applied especially the four fluids -- blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile) -- which were thought to determine a person's health and temperament. This theory derived from classical sources.

"These vital spirits and humors corresponded, however imperfectly, to the pranic fluids of ancient Hindu teaching -- considered to be both ethereal essences and physical humors. From early mediaeval times up to the recent present, medicine consistently taught that normal physical health in the human body was maintained when these vital spirits and humors were operating in equilibrium, and that disease and even death were products of their malfunctioning. The archaic ages were unanimous in their agreement on these points" (FSO 556).

(See also: Human Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Twin-Souls To quote Blavatsky: "The star under which a human Entity is born . . . will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its incarnations in one Manvantara. But this is not his astrological star. The latter is concerned and connected with the personality, the former with the individuality. The 'Angel' of that Star, or the Dhyani-Buddha will be either the guiding or simply the presiding 'Angel,' so to say, in every new rebirth of the monad, which is part of his own essence, through [though]

his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact. The adepts have each their Dhyani-Buddha, their elder 'twin Soul,' and they know it, calling it 'Father-Soul,' and 'Father-Fire' " (SD 1:572-3).

Thus when Jesus speaks of my Father and your Father, he means the cosmic paramatman or universal spirit presiding over our universe, of which every monad in the present solar manvantara -- except those peregrinating through our solar system as visitors -- is an offspring or spark; furthermore, every class of adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them together, because of identity of origin in a dhyani-buddha of our universe; and thus it is that every buddha, indeed every great adept, meets at his last initiation all the great adepts who had reached buddhahood during the preceding ages. "Such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the same divine ray" (Subba Row in SD 1:574). The awareness of such a community of origin pertains to planes of being far above the personal self, and it has nothing to do with so transitory a phase of human evolution as sex.

However, certain human beings, because of a common monadic origin in an identic spiritual source, are by that fact of the same spiritual family, and in consequence have bonds among themselves of intensive sympathy, and sympathetic intellectual understanding and processes of mentation, which cause them to feel more at-one with each other than with human beings similarly united but not derivative from the same spiritual ray. Yet all these different cosmic dhyani-buddhas or spiritual rays themselves converge or coalesce on a still loftier plane into another kosmic entity still more sublime than the former ones; and this again is but one of many others who on a divine plane still loftier than the last, find their common point of origin in a kosmic individuality still grander.

(See also: Twin-Souls, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Soul

The life of the individual, the astral body That part of the individual which survives death and lives on into the otherworld, before being reincarnated.

(See also: Soul, New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Plastic or Protean Soul.

See LINGA-SARIRA; SOUL

(See also: Plastic, Protean Soul, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Soul :

Soul

This word in the ancient wisdom signifies "vehicle," and upadhi  - that vehicle, or any vehicle, in which the monad, in any sphere of manifestation, is working out its destiny. A soul is an entity which is evolved by experiences; it is not a spirit, but it is a vehicle of a spirit  - the monad. It manifests in matter through and by being a substantial portion of the lower essence of the spirit. Touching another plane below it, or it may be above it, the point of union allowing ingress and egress to the consciousness, is a laya-center  - the neutral center, in matter or substance, through which consciousness passes  - and the center of that consciousness is the monad. The soul in contradistinction with the monad is its vehicle for manifestation on any one plane. The spirit or monad manifests in seven vehicles, and each one of these vehicles is a soul.

On the higher planes the soul is a vehicle manifesting as a sheaf or pillar of light; similarly with the various egos and their related vehicle-souls on the inferior planes, all growing constantly more dense, as the planes of matter gradually thicken downwards and become more compact, into which the monadic ray penetrates until the final soul, which is the physical body, the general vehicle or bearer or carrier of them all.

Our teachings give to every animate thing a soul  - not a human soul, or a divine soul, or a spiritual soul  - but a soul corresponding to its own type. What it is, what its type is, actually comes from its soul; hence we properly may speak of the different beasts as having one or the other, a "duck soul," an "ostrich soul," a "bull" or a "cow soul," and so forth. The entities lower than man  - in this case the beasts, considered as a kingdom, are differentiated into the different families of animals by the different souls within each. Of course behind the soul from which it springs there are in each individual entity all the other principles that likewise inform man; but all these higher principles are latent in the beast.

Speaking generally, however, we may say that the soul is the intermediate part between the spirit which is deathless and immortal on the one hand and, on the other hand, the physical frame, entirely mortal. The soul, therefore, is the intermediate part of the human constitution. It must be carefully noted in this connection that soul as a term employed in the esoteric philosophy, while indeed meaning essentially a "vehicle" or "sheath," this vehicle or sheath is nevertheless an animate or living entity much after the manner that the physical body, while being the sheath or vehicle of the other parts of man's constitution, is nevertheless in itself a discrete, animate, personalized being. (See also Vahana)

See also: Soul , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

soul part integration: Adjunct to soul retrieval. It is a form of shamanic journeying wherein the client seeks help from spirit teachers and power animals in reintegrating soul parts and the vital lifeforce (sic).

(See also: Soul part integration, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

soul-centered therapy: A mode of psychotherapy that encompasses dreamwork and transcendental hypnosis and, past-life therapy

(See also: Soul-centered therapy, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

soul-centered psychology: Afrocentric mode of psychotherapy advanced by John Bolling, M.D. Its theory posits: (a) soul perception and (b) archetypal energies of the psyche that are susceptible to harmonization.

(See also: Soul-centered psychology, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Celestial Soul Clearing: Theistic means of removing Earth-Bound Spirits. These are transitioned souls that can draw energy from one's life force. The method's theory posits ArchAngels and Spirit Guides and Guardians.

(See also: Celestial Soul Clearing, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Thread-soul, Thread-self.

See SUTRATMAN

(See also: Thread-soul, Thread-self, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

World-soul, World-spirit World-soul pertains to the lower or active side of cosmic manifestation, world-spirit to the passive side of cosmic life. World-soul is but another name for the anima mundi, whereas the world-spirit corresponds directly to the Hindu Brahman and to either the First or Second Logos, according to the manner of thinking when the application is made.

(See also: World-soul, World-spirit, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)