I’m Bringing Soulful Back

Recently, I wrote a post about growing up Roman Catholic and how it influenced my ongoing interest-slash-obsession with the middle ages. Today, I’m writing to follow up on the medieval concept of the soul, because it’s very-very cool, IMHO.

Here’s the thing. The way I learned about the soul, it wasn’t music or depth or heart. A soul was a real, tangible entity…And not just in the sense that it weighs 21 grams or whatever, but in the sense that it has an appearance of health or illness based upon my actions. The more time I spent tending to this side of me—or so the concept went—the more my soul grew strong. Now, in the Middle Ages, being strong wasn’t important in and of itself so much. The real rub was that you didn’t want to end up in eternal torment, as that would suck.

The sucky side of having a yucky eternal soul.

That said, the idea of a spiritual self has always appealed to me. Over the years, I’ve started taking note of other cultures that share some version of this same view. For example, in Hinduism, this is the concept of the third eye. How sweet is it for a society to have an accepted physical symbol that represents your level of spiritual development? Extremely sweet.

A lot of third eyes. So lovely.

In ancient Egypt, there’s the Egyptian Book of the Dead. My favorite incarnation of this are maps that show the journey of Ra’s solar barge.

Now, here’s the story on Ra and his boat. When you died—assuming you were lucky enough to get mummified and all that good stuff—the ultimate in the afterlife was to join the god Ra as he rode his solar barge through the underworld each night, bringing back the sun with him in the morning. Is this is same idea as Apollo in Greco-Roman myth? Kinda.

What’s unique about the the Ra version of this tale is that there are secrets you, the mummified nobody, need to know in order to help big bad Ra do his thang. I’m talking here about fancy knowledge like there’s a certain monster that will literally rock the boat unless you help Ra get rid of it. How? By enlisting the help of Seth, the God of Chaos. And don’t we all know monsters that are only killed with chaos? Deep stuff, ancient Egyptians.

Plus, there’s even an elaborate map for the 12 gates Ra’s boat must pass through, and secret tricks for how to cross each one. If you’re lucky, someone painted a cheat sheet of that in your sarcophagus for easy viewing. No, I am not kidding.

Ra travelled in style. 

Now, Buddhism takes the whole thing even further with the ideas of chakras. In this construct, not only do you have a soul, and not only is said soul on a journey, but there’s a template for how to move things along so you grow as a spiritual being. Sweet! There are even different practices (like yoga) that can help you develop on your path. I could write a post on each of these levels, and maybe one of these days, I will.

Chakras are so very-very cool.

In closing, I wanted to give a rounding speech on how the idea of a physical soul is critical, especially in today’s not-too-soul-focused-culture. Unfortunately, I sounded like a total cheese ball. So, I’ll instead close by quoting Martin Luther King, who can talk this topic for hours and still sound quite badass:

Thanks, Martin.  

Nuff said.

Next week: Chakras explained! Why? Because deep down, I know you’re curious.

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