Here’s another guest piece from Dana Horton. Thanks again to him!
More on the soul, wrapping around the axle
(4 minute read)
We’ve heard stories about those Medieval theological debates on the number of angels on the head of a pin. But they don’t surpass some of the discussions in New Thought forums. Let’s look at a snippet from one of my ministerial classes on the Soul.
Is the soul the same as the self? My response in class was, “Yes.” Wrong. According to the New Thought theologians, the Self is the essence of each individual, which never changes. Depending on your religious tradition, it might also be called the Inner Christ, the Buddha Nature, or Tao.
But the Soul is our container of continuity.
That should clear things up.
Editorial rant: I really liked my professor who taught this class. And, in general, I like to think about the nature of the soul. But, to me, it seems a little stilted trying to differentiate between the self and the soul.
Back to the soul. It might help to think of the Individual Soul like a space capsule carrying our Self from one plane of experience to its next destination…wherever or whatever that is. That’s not a bad visual. And we might use this idea to understand how or why some people can recall their past lives, or how mediums can communicate with the ‘other side.’ Evidently (or at least anecdotally) memories are stored in the Individual Soul, not the brain.
Is there an Individual Soul and a Universal Soul? Yes, but they don’t resemble each other.
In New Thought circles, God is both director and receiver (just go with it; remember God is not an old man in the sky). The receiving part = Universal Soul. It is the part of God which reacts to what is put into it. One of the primary principles of New Thought is that if you consistently put your intentions out into the Universe (i.e. the receiving part of God), the Universe responds and you manifest what you intended.
That’s as good as I’m gonna get with defining the concept around Universal Soul.
Practical application. Most readers would probably agree that positive thinking is a powerful concept. But most readers would probably split over whether there is any spiritual influence over those manifestations.
I’m still thinking about it. But if there really is some kind of spiritual influence that reacts to what we put into it, this Universal Soul concept isn’t a bad mental model to use.
That’s it. Four minutes this week.
Dana Horton is from Ohio, United States and is currently (though not for much longer) working full time as Director of Energy Markets a large utility company. In August 2019, he earned his ministerial license through an organization called Centers for Spiritual Living based in Denver, Colorado. This is a New Thought organization following the principles of Ernest Holmes. He acted as interim minister at the Columbus Center for Spiritual Living and, after eight months, he decided to leave and has no interest in returning to a formal religious organization. But he enjoys investigating spiritual principles, how they originated, and how they might be applicable to everyday living. I also enjoy discovering the history of both the Old and New Testaments, and how it differs (greatly) from the traditional Christian interpretations.