Hún — The Ethereal Soul — [魂] — The Five Shen [Part I]
The Ethereal Soul — Hun — known as the dark, intuitive, and non-rational side of human nature, is responsible for our dreams and visions and is housed by the Liver.
The character 魂, Hún, Ethereal Soul, is formed with two radicals: to the left, 云 Yún, the cloud, and the right, 鬼 Guǐ, translating into ghost, demon, spirit. The combination of the two characters for “cloud” and “spirit” in character for Ethereal Soul conveys the idea of its nature; it is like a “ghost” or the spirit of a dead person, but it is Yang and ethereal in nature, and essentially harmless, meaning it is not one of the evil spirits.
The Chinese Concept of Soul
To fully understand the content of this article, let’s make a small excursion to the Chinese concept of the individual psychic aspects of the organs:
All our other organs participate in mental, emotional, and spiritual activities, their roles often overlapping with that of the Heart. But, in particular, the Yin organs are more directly responsible for mental actions, so we say that each Yin organ has its specific mental-spiritual aspect of a human being:
Mind (Shen) — Heart, Ethereal Soul (Hun) —…
