Reincarnation
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@zeph said
"Actually, I think the word soul sucks. Bad. It's one of those words that means a different thing to different people, which is the feature that will allow me to argue, for fun if nothing else, for its lack of existence
. Even if you limit yourself to speaking to Qabalists, the English word soul is worthless; witness the variety of words that mean soul, in different ways, in Hebrew."Yes. There are several times in this thread that I've thought of stopping to mention that "soul" probably should be defined each time it's used. We often use it casually, and it's more or less understood in context of ordinary conversation. However, when that conversation moves from casual to technical, the terms need to be defined.
Just as "spiritual" broadly means "all of the nonphysical aspect of a person," "soul" is often used in the same way - as a "body & soul" polarity. That's common parlance. But (as I suspect many, maybe most, people on this thread already know), there are word histories that carry various nuances. Qabalistically, "soul" is probably best used to represent Nephesh only. In the Greek philosophical model, we have to understand that the word meaning "soul" is psyche, so we need to understand those two words in their mutual relationship. And so on.
The American Heritage Dictionary gives 10 different definitions for "soul" - and these don't include the occult technical meanings. Of these, Nephesh is clearly meant by, "The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity... The disembodied spirit of a dead human... A person's emotional or moral nature." But something deeper might be implied by, "The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state" (might because a lot of those experience are actually Nephesh-astral in nature, though, taken literally, this refers to what the Egyptians called khu, and Qabalists might call the illuminated or upper Ruach). A more general, actually derivative meaning is, "The central or integral part; the vital core," analogizing from that which is interior to a person. There are then other derivative meanings which have to do with the interior, the essence, and especially with feeling (drawn from within, clearly Nephesh), e.g., "A person considered as the perfect embodiment of an intangible quality; a personification," "soul music," "strong, deeply felt emotion conveyed," etc.
The Online Etymology Dictionary defines the word as "spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence" - pure Nephesh definition! - but gives no certain origin beyond a German word of the same meaning one step back. This is interesting, because it means the word has tended to be intuitively understood (rather than defined) through most of the history of emerging language. It's a non-Ruach word.
So in common use, the meaning also appears to be Nephesh (or Nephesh-rooted) most of the time, and occasionally something deeper, primarily as interior contrasted with physical. In technical discussions we should be more precise, I think.
"I think we're in the reincarnation thread, so let me ask which soul, in Qabalistic terms, is reincarnated?"
As best I can tell, all layers Briatic and denser. Another way to say it is that the Briatic extension of a Yechidah, being time-independent, has "simultaneous" extensions as a multitude of space-time points.
To open a new can of worms: When I say "all layers Briatic and denser," I don't mean that the do that together. The biological Assiah aspect reincarnates through sexual reproduction. The Yetziratic aspect reincarnates through the propagation of psychological content through various media including direct "field of idea" contact by people, and some of which "sticks" with the Briatic aspect. The Briatic aspect reincarnates by existing "concurrently" in multiple time-space points and having independent Yetziratic and Assiatic "bodies" in each. The parts don't usually stick together, but "inheritance" occurs in each of them.
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"The Online Etymology Dictionary ... gives no certain origin beyond a German word of the same meaning one step back. This is interesting, because it means the word has tended to be intuitively understood (rather than defined) through most of the history of emerging language. It's a non-Ruach word."
What it really means is that "soul" is a Germanic word, and unfortunately there is a large portion of Germanic vocabulary whose anterior etymology is not known. That doesn't mean that these words are "non-Ruach" words in ways that historically attested words are not; it probably just means that they were borrowed into an ancestor of the Germanic languages from a non-Indo-European language that left no written records. "Beer" and "bean", "hen" and "horse", "shield" and "spear" are other such words, and I don't think they have been "intuitively understood".
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@Zeph said
"I think we're in the reincarnation thread, so let me ask which soul, in Qabalistic terms, is reincarnated?"As best I can tell, all layers Briatic and denser. Another way to say it is that the Briatic extension of a Yechidah, being time-independent, has "simultaneous" extensions as a multitude of space-time points.
To open a new can of worms: When I say "all layers Briatic and denser," I don't mean that the do that together. The biological Assiah aspect reincarnates through sexual reproduction. The Yetziratic aspect reincarnates through the propagation of psychological content through various media including direct "field of idea" contact by people, and some of which "sticks" with the Briatic aspect. The Briatic aspect reincarnates by existing "concurrently" in multiple time-space points and having independent Yetziratic and Assiatic "bodies" in each. The parts don't usually stick together, but "inheritance" occurs in each of them."
What an excellent can. Ignoring for the moment, and not for lack of interest, the novel (for me) concept of reincarnation on the lower couple worlds --
The concurrent multiple timespace existence of Briah is how I understand things, with the consecutively simultaneous manifestation as an individuated center being a sort of "reincarnation"; but not at all the reincarnation of the sort that people wistfully hope for, in my projections, when they say that "<name of some temporary persona> was <name of some other temporary persona>." To them I would say, "Yes! You were! And so was I! And so shall we ever be!"
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@zeph said
"The concurrent multiple timespace existence of Briah is how I understand things, with the consecutively simultaneous manifestation as an individuated center being a sort of "reincarnation"; but not at all the reincarnation of the sort that people wistfully hope for, in my projections, when they say that "<name of some temporary persona> was <name of some other temporary persona>." To them I would say, "Yes! You were! And so was I! And so shall we ever be!""
Did I ever say it was that simple?
In a sense, it is that simple - at least, as far as a time-bound mindframe can grasp it. I usually find it of no use to discuss the topic in any way that isn't comprehensible to the average unilluminated Ruach - standard Yetziratic intellectual and imagery stuff.
But there it is - a simpler-yet-more-complex model. The chasm to leap is why our minds contribute the specific sequentiality that they do. I'm sure this is because of how our relationship to the time-stream works, and (for all I know) how the flow of time works. OTOH sequentiality is a tricky subject. I don't really think that time flows linearly through the course of a day. I've long preferred the metaphor that each instant of our experience is a snapshot, and all the snapshots of existence are thrown up in the air to land randomly around us, and we somehow manage to run a needle and thread through them to determine a sequence.
When you place yourself in a linear time framework, the above comes out to be the same experience as if one just said, "And you had an earlier life as X, and after this one you'll get born again..."
Where you and I differ is that I think it is more distinctive - that those inheritances are unique to a particular Yechidah and its Briatic extension. I could be wrong, of course. From an individual's p.o.v. it wouldn't particularly matter.
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I had a mystical experience where I was holding hands with parallel incarnations of myself, yet these personalities existed in different time planes, one being a heretic sufi of the mevlevi order in Turkey, 1890 c.e. This "hand holding" went in every direction, connecting me to everyone. My consciousness shifted between all the identities like a person shuffling through (tarot) cards. This consciousness wasn't limited to just "humans" but extended downwards to animals and trees, rocks and "matter" and also on upwards to archetypes, Gods and the Void where I felt the card shuffling emanates.
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@BNNHKDSH said
"I had a mystical experience where I was holding hands with parallel incarnations of myself, yet these personalities existed in different time planes, one being a heretic sufi of the mevlevi order in Turkey, 1890 c.e. This "hand holding" went in every direction, connecting me to everyone. My consciousness shifted between all the identities like a person shuffling through (tarot) cards. This consciousness wasn't limited to just "humans" but extended downwards to animals and trees, rocks and "matter" and also on upwards to archetypes, Gods and the Void where I felt the card shuffling emanates."
Very cool. Thanks for sharing this.
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Jim,
93!
I have seen you write several times that you have had experience that tells you with certainty, beyond any reasonable doubt, that reincarnation is a fact. If it is not too personal a question, can you share the nature of this information? If memories, do they contain information that you would not know from any other source? Just trying to get a grasp on what kind of data could make it so certain to you. I mean, I believe it myself, but not with a certainty that I could back up.
David
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@DavidH said
"I have seen you write several times that you have had experience that tells you with certainty, beyond any reasonable doubt, that reincarnation is a fact. If it is not too personal a question, can you share the nature of this information? If memories, do they contain information that you would not know from any other source? Just trying to get a grasp on what kind of data could make it so certain to you. I mean, I believe it myself, but not with a certainty that I could back up."
There are a few facts that have been separately confirmed that I don't think I could have known from physical plane historical or informational means.
But the main part of it is the intimacy of the memories. Crowley actually covers this pretty well in his MT&P discussion on the subject. The moments that mean the most to a person are not necessarily those that anyone else knows about.
There are other situations where different people have had independent and coordinated memories of the same place and time - being different people who were there concurrently. It's pretty jarring to have a detailed memory of the scenery of a particular place and time, and of events there, and then read someone else's description (written years before) of the same details of scenery and circumstance.
I could mention isolated factoids, but they aren't the most important things. For example, when I finally remembered my last motto in my last lifetime (later confirmable by records), I was startled to see that my first serious motto in the present life was the next logical step from it. My best friend's nickname for me in that life (confirmed by surviving writings) was completely equivalent to the first magical name I picked in this one. That's probably the sort of thing that would impress 'objective' observers most, but it's fairly minor compared to the experience - the memory - which is at least as real as the memories of anything in the present life.
There are other stupid details. The occupation of the last life was a subject I picked up and had an interest in until about age 7 or 8, then felt "done with." The life work of Life 3 before the present incarnation was in an area where I have inexplicable talent at a very high level despite no training or effort whatsoever in the present life.
But, then, these pale before the basic issue that when one remembers the intimate moments of one's own life, there is something compelling and truthful about them that no artificial memories have.
Not sure if that helps.
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It helps and I appreciate you sharing. I know things like this are personal. Since I myself have not experienced it (or at least didn't know it when I was), I am interested in what to look for.
Thanks!
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I can not claim to understand everything, Quantum mechanics shows us some crazy phenomena.
Them we have the results of parapsychology, remote viewing, micro-telekinesis, teleportation of quantum states, effects oy observation on probability outcomes, but there is no reason to assume these things do not have explanations.
The sort of explanation is not a mystical, supernatural or one that devises faith is metaphysical entities such as souls or forces that have no physical propagation, or events that act without some mechanism of action.
The soul fits the category of a hypothetical metaphysical entity that some how achieves its ends without any sort of mechanism of action.
I can point to the mechanism of parts in the brain that achieves the ends of thought, but I see nothing that corresponds to a soul.
The soul is postulated on assumption, without anything that corresponds to it.
To say the soul is the cause is no different that to say I dank know it just does.
Of light bulbs have luminescent properties in them that make them light up.
So light bulbs light up because they have light in them.
Or fruit is good for ou because it has nutrients
What is a nutrient? Why its something thats good for you.Chemistry and physics explain what nutrient chemicals are and how light bulbs work.
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Interesting topic.
I don't mean to re-open old war wounds, but i did want to comment.
Personally, i don't think all that much about the concept of past or future lives.
I've got enough to deal with in the here and now.
In no way am i saying that past or future incarnations don't exist, i just think (I MIGHT) get side tracked if i started thinking about past or future and didn't concentrate on where I'm at here and now.
This may be a flawed way of looking at it, but it's where I'm at at this moment.