[8FOLD/MISC] What is this 'soul' thing you speak of, Earth man? (was: 8FOLD: Mighty Medley #7)

[Saxon Brenton]

Hurm.  Okay, for a very long time I have been aware that when 
I start a thread the post I send gets posted almost immediatley, 
but when I respond it takes maybe half a day for it to turn up.  
That said, it has been several days now, and I will regrettfully 
conclude that the post below has been eaten by Shub-Internet.
 
Fortunately copy'n'paste from the 'sent' file is the internet 
equivalent of necromantic revivication...
 
On  sat 5th July 2014 Andrew Perron got to the nub of the issue and asked the 
pointed question:
>> To obliterate your soul is neither easy nor painless, and requires a
>> single-mindedness that is quite rare these days.
> 
> Hrm. Okay, question - what are we treating the soul *as*, in this case? 
> There's a lot of different takes on it both in religion and in fiction. Is it 
> an integral part of the self (apparently not, in this story)? Is it a "get 
> into the afterlife free" ticket? Is it some immaterial source of ethics and 
> nice feelings? Is it an agglomeration of "life force"? I'm good with any of 
> these takes, I'm just curious as to which you're following.
 
Oo, er. You know, thinking about it, I have to admit 
I haven't given much conscious thought to that angle.  
I find that for the most part I'm reflexively working 
on a model derived from a Harry Potter fanfic that I 
read years ago - combined with bits and pieces from 
other fiction and real world occultism  (To explicate 
the Harry Potter connection: there's a subtle (very 
subtle) distinction between soul and life force (and 
even magical power, for those who have that ability) 
but they're entwined together and unless you know what 
to look for or have meticulous observation skills most 
people don't notice.  Nevertheless that soul is the 
basis of the persistence of identity when in a 
disembodied state, including after death.)
 
[And, yes, part of the reason I've taken so long to 
answer has been because I went back and looked up the 
reference to make sure I wasn't misremembering too much...]
 
In the context of this story I'm not sure how well 
that working model will do.  This is a superhero setting, 
and the existence of the soul is a lot less nebulous when 
you have supermages releasing that astral forms.  It 
already has a certain amount of conflict with other 
background info that I have for this story: for instance, 
I don't think I'm giving away too much to say that the 
reason that Marcus' wife died on cancer is because it 
wasn't based a purely material malady: she caught an 
infection of her astral double/soul which then had ported 
over to her physical body, and the medicine available at 
the time was only able to treat the physical symptoms, 
but not the metaphysical disease.  (I'm pretty sure this 
idea is based on something I once read from the Victorian 
era British occultst Dion Fortune.)
 
Uhm, I'm babbling, aren't I?  Perhaps if I make up a 
metaphor on the spur of the moment: just as the phsyical 
body has lots of parts, some of which can be compromised 
and have greater or lesser effects (compare have an appendix 
out versus the need for insulin injection or an iron lung, 
or how some types of brain injury can be recovered from) 
the metaphysical existence of a person is also made up of 
bits (life force, soul, possibly other stuff) which can 
also be compromised by injury, disease or loss.  Having 
all the bits is usually a good idea, but losing some of 
them can survival depending on the exact circumstances.
 
 
---
Saxon Brenton  'wibbly-wobbly souly-wouly'
 
 
 		 	   		  
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