Models of the soul
Vitality, personhood, consciousness and spirituality.
Re-Assembling Reality #25b, by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt
In Re-Assembling Reality #25a, we presented different psychological models of the mind, and showed that they rest on different and possibly incommensurable cosmologies. Now let’s consider religious models of the mind. These, of course, are usually known as ideas about the soul, not of the mind. But remember that the term psyche at the root of psychology originally referred to the breath of life, or to the soul.
At some point in modern times, the terms “mind” and “soul” came to refer to entirely different things, one pertaining to science and the other to religion. But, when we consider religious models of the soul, we will find, like in psychology, many different models based on different cosmologies, which may or may not be compatible with each other — and which may or may not be compatible with psychological models.
The “soul” is often conceptually paired with the “body”, forming a dual model of the person consisting of a material body and a spiritual soul. But, in the comparative historical and ethnographic study of religions, the dual model is but one of countless different models of the soul. Here, for the sake of brevity, we will simply provide a sampling of different models. This will show us that the differences between religions aren’t so much about the number of souls, but about the different entities that are combined under the term “soul” or its equivalents.
Hinduism and Buddhism
The religious traditions originating in India — now known as Hinduism and Buddhism — have highly elaborate theories about what is called the “mind” in modern philosophy and psychology, and systematic methodologies for acquiring knowledge about it and bringing about its transformation.
In one scheme found in the Upanishads and upheld by the Advaita Vedanta school, the mind is modeled in terms of four states of consciousness: the waking state, the dreaming state, the state of deep sleep, and the state of pure consciousness. The first is characterized by pain and pleasure and is directly determined by impressions of the external world. The second has pain and pleasure but is detached from the external world. The third is characterized by serenity and desirelessness. The fourth is the state of liberation, which is characterized by pure bliss, luminosity, undifferentiation, infinity, and transcending distinctions between subject and object. This state underlies and transcends the previous three states of consciousness. This is the state of Atman, the pure consciousness, which is part of Brahman, the universal consciousness. This scheme posits a progression of mastering different states of consciousness, moving from the illusory self of the external world of pain and pleasure, to the true Self of undifferentiated pure consciousness.
In another model found in the Katha Upanishad, a horse-drawn chariot is used as a metaphor to illustrate how we are a composite of different entities: the chariot is the body, the horses are the senses, the passenger is the pure consciousness (Atman), the charioteer is the intellect, and the reins are the mind. This scheme suggests the importance of the coordination of all the components, and notably the capacity to control the senses and the body by the mind, the intellect and the pure consciousness.
A common Buddhist model describes people as composites of five Skandhas, which means “aggregates” or “heaps”: (1) form — your physical body; (2) feeling — sensations of pain and pleasure; (3) perceptions of sense objects — (4) mental formations — concepts and thoughts; (5) consciousness — our awareness of the other four aggregates. This model suggests that we should become aware of the transitory nature of all of these heaps, which are always subject to change and decay, such that we realise that our ego, the source of all suffering, is an illusion.
Another Buddhist model involves nine different consciousnesses. These include five consciousnesses; one associated with each of the five senses: the mind-consciousness which integrates the perceptions of the senses into coherent images; the mano consciousness which makes judgements based on intentions and motivations; the alaya consciousness which is a subconscious storehouse of all information and past experiences, that are stored as seeds of future karmic potentials; and, finally, the amala consciousness which is the fundamental pure consciousness, the consciousness of the Buddha-nature.
Models of the mind and consciousness in Hinduism and Buddhism are numerous, subtle and complex. For the purpose of our discussion about the different entities that constitute the mind in different cosmologies, these models see the mind as either an aggregate of things such as the body, sensations, perceptions, and thoughts (which, though ephemeral, come together to create what appears to be a whole person); or as a continuum of forms of consciousness, ranging from sense impressions of the physical world to a pure, self-transcending universal consciousness.
A core difference between Hinduism and Buddhism is that the former tends to be ontologically realist about the spiritual self or soul (atman) of each person, who has an eternal essence that reincarnates from one life to another. The latter, on the other hand, tends to be anti-realist about the self (anatman) which is nothing more than an illusion. Still, both Hinduism and Buddhism posit some sort of universal pure consciousness that transcends that of each individual.
The soul in Christianity
In a common dualist model currently widespread within the monotheist traditions, the soul is an independent spiritual entity that is the seat of consciousness, gives life to the body, and continues to exist after leaving or becoming disconnected from the body. The origin or essential nature of the soul is divine. Its most important relationship is with God: the soul is in a relation of sin, rebellion, attraction, love, and/or submission to God. The soul gives life to the body and has the function of controlling and guiding the body, manifesting virtuous qualities or divine attributes through behaviour.
This model, however, at least as it is known in the West, is the outcome of numerous theological debates around theories of the soul, that lasted over a thousand years. More archaic Greek ternary models postulated the body or soma (σῶμα), the psyche (ψυχὴ), which refers to an immaterial soul that continues to live after the death of the body, and the pneuma (πνεῦμα), vital breaths, which unite within the living body and disperse at the moment of death.
Another model, alluded by Saint Paul (1 Thes. 5:23) and widespread until the 12th century, was also ternary, postulating the same three entities as the Greek model, but with different meanings. Here the pneuma, now translated as “spirit,” refers to the breath of God, while the psyche, now translated as “soul,” refers to one’s self or personhood. Both the spirit and the soul are immaterial, but different entities. Our spirit is our connection to and innate awareness of God, while the soul is the medium between the body and the spirit: it is our personality, with which we think, reason, feel emotions, and make decisions.
Augustine, drawing on Porphyrus, proposed a different ternary model involving the body, the spiritus (pneuma in Greek) and the mens (noûs in Greek), in which the body gives us physical vision by means of the eyes, the spiritus gives us spiritual vision through mental images, and the mens gives us intellectual vision through abstract thought.
While a dual conception of body and soul ultimately became dominant, the early Christians disagreed on the substance of the soul, with many affirming that the soul is a kind of “spiritual body.” It was only after Augustine that the dominant conception in Christianity became one of a purely incorporeal, spiritual soul.
And although the dual conception of body and soul is today often conceived as one of dualistic struggle, the relationship between the two was understood in different ways by early Christian and mediaeval theologians. While dualistic rejection of the body was widespread, other models, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries, conceived of the “friendship” and even of the “marriage” or “musical harmony” between body and soul.[1]
These various examples from the history of Christianity show that, even within the Christian tradition, several conceptions of the soul have enjoyed currency at various times. These conceptions are models that describe the relationships between things such as the physical body, vitality, mental activity, the personality, and the connection to God.
Chinese conceptions
Ancient Chinese conceptions included two types of souls: the po and the hun. In some versions, there are four po and three hun. The po rises from the Earth to join the embryo, giving vitality to the body; and at the moment of death it returns to the Earth, finding its home in the tomb. The hun, on the other hand, is conferred on the baby by the father at the naming ceremony, when he makes the child laugh. After death, the hun rises to Heaven and, in normal cases, finds its home in the ancestral tablet, joining the ranks of the ancestors [2]. The po tend to be associated with animal instincts and desires, while the hun tend to be associated with spiritual faculties and lofty aspirations. This Chinese conceptual scheme sees human life as consisting of the conjunction of an earthly, material vitality and a heavenly, spiritual vitality. A healthy, vigorous and virtuous life is one in which the hun and po are maintained in a harmonious and productive tension.
Another Chinese scheme, found in Chinese medicine and in Daoism, postulates a triple vitality consisting of jing, qi and shen. Jing (精, essence) refers to the vitality derived from food, as well as from sexuality and sexual fluids. Qi (氣, vital breath) refers to the vitality associated with breathing and relational interactions. Shen (神, spirit) refers to mental activity, consciousness, and spiritual powers. Jing, Qi and Shen can circulate and transform into each other. In this conception, mental and spiritual faculties are part of a seamless continuum of vital energies that range from more material sources of energy and sexual drives, all the way to divine consciousness. To cultivate one’s vitality (yangsheng ) is to harness these different vital forces, to circulate them, and to refine lower forms of vitality into higher forms of spirituality.[3]
Some conceptions in Papua New Guinea
When we look at other cases around the world, we find an endless diversity. In fact, the number of souls or entities forming the person is often two, three, or more. Here are two examples from different societies in Papua New Guinea:
Among the Maenge of New Britain, the human being is made of two “bodies” and two “souls”: the vale, which is the “container body”, and the agau mirana, which is the “internal body”. To these correspond the kanu e soali, a “container-soul” that gives form to the “container body”, and the kanu, an “internal soul” that gives humidity and life to the “internal body”. When one dies, the two “souls” leave the corpse and, bound together as a pair, enter a volcano where they must face an ordeal: to lick a wound on the body of a deity, Kavavalelea. If the pair passes the test, the deity will separate the container-soul from the inner soul, which, in its full resplendent beauty, can now cross a river and return to the original home of its matrilineal clan, and gradually lose its identity, fusing into the community of anonymous matrilineal ancestors. On the other hand, if the pair does not pass the test, they will remain welded together and join the ghosts who invade the village each time someone dies.[4]
This fourfold model conceptualises not only a relationship between body and soul, but also between visible container and invisible matter, and how form and vitality both shape the body in its internal and external manifestations. It also explores the relationship between form and vitality (unity and separation), as well as between vitality and ancestry (through the maternal line), and between vitality and individual identity (through the vital soul’s gradual loss of identity as it reaches its ancestral origin).
Among the Melpa of New Guinea, each person has two souls. The first is the min, who comes from the ancestors and gives life to the foetus. The min then gives life to another soul, the noman, an invisible entity centred in the thorax, which manifests through the appearance, health, emotions and thoughts of the person. But this soul dies at the same time as the body, while the min continues to live, returning to the ancestors.[5] This model distinguishes between two aspects of vitality: vitality as connection to the eternal source of life (the ancestors), and the individualised manifestations of vitality in the health, personality and thoughts of the body.
Components of the “soul”
In this and the previous essay on psychological models, we have taken you on a whirlwind tour of different theories of the “mind,” of “souls” and of “consciousness”. Each model is based on a distinct cosmology, and focuses on the relationships between a limited number of entities, whether they be genes, consciousnesses, bodies, persons, souls, perceptions, or observable behaviours. Many of the models have some entities in common (though they are defined and understood differently), but each places more emphasis on certain entities while, perhaps, having no interest in others. Consciousness, for example, is fundamental to Hinduism and Buddhism but plays no role in behaviourist psychology.
The religious models are very different from each other, but so are the scientific models. Is it possible to draw a clear line between scientific and religious models? To the extent that any lines can be drawn, they can be drawn within psychology itself, with three approaches — behaviourist, cognitive and biological — based on objectification. In these models, there is no need to consider personhood or subjective experience.
The other models, on the other hand, are more than simply the subjective and personalised counterpoints to objective approaches to the mind, confirming a simple body-soul or objective-subjective dichotomy. In fact, if we look more closely at the different entities and combinations of each religious model, we find four aspects that seem to recur, albeit in different conceptions and relations:
- Personhood
- Vitality
- Consciousness or mental activity
- Divinity or spirituality
These four aspects may combine differently in different models, but they all have a distinguishing feature: at the moment of death, they either disappear or separate from the body, while the cadaver continues to exist for some time.
Modern Christian understandings tend to incorporate all four of those aspects into a single integrated entity, the soul, that leaves the body after death and remains integrated in the afterlife. But other models disaggregate or combine these aspects in different ways. They also raise questions about where each of these aspects comes from.
Where does personhood come from and what happens to it? Some models see our personhood — including our individual characteristics, personality and identity — coming from our parents or ancestors, and returning to them. Others see it as coming from past lives, and continuing into future lives. Others see it as coming from God, and returning to Him. Others see it as coming from ephemeral aggregates, and dissipating at death.
Where does vitality come from and what happens to it? Some models conceive of different types of vitality, coming from different sources — the food we eat and the air we breathe, our parents, the land we live on, the sun, the stars, or a deity. And there are different conceptions of where vitality goes at death. Perhaps it simply disappears; perhaps it dissipates; perhaps it returns to the earth; perhaps it remains with the person of the deceased (now a metaperson), giving it life as a ghost, as a spirit, or as a soul awaiting the day of judgement.
Where does consciousness and mental activity come from and what happens to it? Some models posit that it comes from the brain, from the body, or from the material world; others posit that it comes from a pre-existing universal or divine consciousness. At death, perhaps this consciousness disappears; perhaps it dissipates; perhaps it flows into a new life; perhaps it returns to the universal or divine consciousness.
Where does our spirituality or divinity come from and what happens to it? By this aspect, we refer to the way some models posit that each human has a divine aspect or an inbuilt or potential connection with God or with a universal consciousness. In some models, this connection is a product of the imagination, of mental activity; in others, it is discovered or activated through the cultivation of consciousness; in others, it is a gift of God; in others, it is the fruit of karmic connections. At death, perhaps it disappears with the imagination; perhaps it will remain with the person of the deceased (now a metaperson); perhaps it will merge into the universal consciousness; perhaps it will grow into a deity; perhaps it will return to God.
The living body as demarcation
Different models combine or separate these aspects into different entities, with different origins and different trajectories after death. But here we find another demarcation between “scientific” and “religious” models: even to the extent that “scientific” models have any use for personhood, vitality, consciousness or spirituality — which is not the case for most psychological models — these aspects are purely contained within the life-span of a living body: they cannot have an origin beyond the living body of the individual; and they cannot continue after death. By the criterion of non-post-mortem-continuation, the psycho-dynamic and humanistic approaches of psychology fall on the side of “science.”
What this means is that the scientific conceptions of the self see each individual as fully self-contained (other than for material substances such as molecules or genes), while the religious conceptions see the self as composed of essential connections that extend beyond the body, beyond birth and beyond death. These connections vary in different models, and can include ancestors, family members, places on the land, incarnations in past and future lives, universal consciousness, God, or other metapersons.
The different models thus accord different values and emphasis on different entities, leading to different notions of the self. In the scientific models, the self is entirely contained within the living body, while religious models may locate the self in an entity or combination of entities that is not limited to the physical body. This has implications for the normative orientation of the models: what the models consider to be an ideal state, and what they define as a problem or a disfunction that needs to be fixed.
The religious models that see the self as composed of entities with essential connections to other entities, consider problems (whether subjective suffering, behavioural problems, existential problems, or other misfortunes) to be caused by weak connections, broken connections, or wrong connections. One’s flow of vitality has been cut from its source, or it is not being properly channelled. One’s person has conflictual relations with other persons (such as family members) or metapersons (such as ancestors, spirits, or deities) or is too deeply engaged with the wrong persons or metapersons. One’s consciousness is focused on material desires or on self-preservation, rather than on the universal pure consciousness or on divinity. One’s spirituality or divinity has been forgotten, or its connection to the pure consciousness or to God is broken.
In some models, these wrong or broken connections lead to a false or illusory sense of self, which is built around attachment to the wrong relationships, leading one to forget or ignore one’s true self. The true self is centred around what is posited as the most essential relationships, such as the relationship with God, with the universal consciousness, or with all beings in the cosmos. Or, in models positing a conglomeration of multiple entities, there is an ideal structure of relationships between all of the entities, and problems occur when the overall harmony or coordination of the entities breaks down.
On the other hand, the scientific models that posit a self-contained self either do not posit a normative ideal, or they assume the autonomy of the self to be the ideal. Thus, while the psycho-dynamic and humanistic models posit the influence of family relationships on the self, and identify broken or tense relationships as sources of problems and dysfunctions, the ideal solution tends to be toward increasing and strengthening the integration and autonomy of the self, who is then better able to manage its relationships.
Modes of intervening
Depending on the entities that compose the self within a given model, there are different ways of intervening or dealing with problems of the self, involving manipulating or invoking different entities, by different agents or experts. For example, interventions might include the following:
- Absorption of material substances to modify a specific entity.
- Enhancing or modifying vitality through training the body, diet, or changes to the surroundings.
- Providing a new information frame through conversation or teaching.
- Introspection, contemplation or meditation.
- Working on relations with persons or metapersons through rituals or prayer.
If the model involves material substances such as the biological model, then interventions will involve those substances. If the model involves consciousness, interventions will work on consciousness through meditation and information frames, to guide the meditation and interpret its effects. And so on — each model allows for a specific type of intervention that corresponds to the entities that constitute the model.
Finally, each model mobilises specific actors, who play more or less active or passive roles. In some models, an outside expert, such as a neurologist or a priest, is the active agent while the “patient” (the person with the problem) is in a passive role, simply submitting to the intervention or doing nothing at all. In others, the patient plays the active role, such as in forms of meditation, prayer, or pop psychology. And in other models, other persons such as family members, the community, or metapersons have roles to play, which may be defined and performed through rituals.
Ambiguous cases
To conclude, then, how do we draw the line between scientific and religious conceptions of the mind? When we move away from abstract generalities and consider specific models in use in different schools of psychological science and different religious traditions, we discover that the distinction is not one of empirical reality vs subjective beliefs: all the models, scientific and religious, are based on a specific cosmology, which is a system of beliefs on the composition of the universe. All of the models simplify the universe by focusing on some entities more than others. Regardless of whether they are psychological or religious, they postulate entities that are not directly observable, but they make inferences about these entities through observable phenomena.
Where we do find a clear line between the scientific and religious models, it is not so much at the level of the contents of the belief systems. Psychological and religious models all consist of a grab bag of different material and immaterial entities. Rather the distinction lies in the ways in which one relates to the mind in order to obtain knowledge of it and act on it. First, the scientific models objectify their object of study –whether it’s behaviour, the brain, or cognition. Second, they treat the self as contained within the living body. The religious models, on the other hand, are relational, through personhood, vitality, consciousness, and spirituality or divinity, in different measures and in ways that are not fully bound within the limits of the body and its life-span.
Having identified these distinctions, we can understand the ambiguous status of some of the models. The psycho-dynamic and humanistic models in psychology are less objectifying, and they deal with personhood, consciousness, and vitality (“pulsions” and “drives” in psycho-analysis). These characteristics make them less “scientific” and to some degree similar to “religious” approaches. But, in line with scientific rather than religious models, they conceive of the self as contained within the living body.
Consciousness-based models in religion tend to be seen as more “scientific” because introspection fits well with a self-concept that is contained within the living body, and because it often involves something comparable to objectification through the empirical or experimental “inner observation” of mental states. This can be done without engaging with personhood, and can even involve deconstructing the “illusion” of personhood.
But the “scientific” nature of these models is limited by their assumption of a universal consciousness that transcends the embodied self, by the proliferation of metapersons in Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist cosmologies, and by the purely interior, and hence subjective, nature of mental observation through meditation — as well as these models’ goal of transcending the subject-object distinction through higher states of consciousness. The mainstreaming of meditation from these traditions in modern secular society thus usually involves removing or downplaying those elements that are deemed “unscientific”.
The ambiguous status of these models, in both psychology and in religion, facilitates their mutual cross-pollination and integration in many modern forms of “alternative spirituality,” psychotherapy and “body-mind-spirit” holistic healing. These typically combine notions of vitality, personhood, consciousness and spirituality from religious cosmologies, and notions of a bounded, integrated, autonomous subjectivity from psychology, in an endless kaleidoscope of hybrid models.
[1] The discussion of the evolution of Christian notions of body and soul, as well as the examples from Papua New Guinea discussed further below, is primarily taken from Jérôme Baschet, Corps et âmes: Une histoire de la personne au moyen âge [Bodies and Souls: A History of the Person in the Middle Ages], Paris: Flammarion, 2016.
[2] Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise [The Chinese Mind]. Paris, 1934, pp. 233–238.
[3] Despeux, Catherine,“Jing, qi, shen; 精 氣 神; essence, pneuma (breath, energy, vital force), spirit”. In Pregadio, Fabrizio (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Taoism. Routledge, 2008, pp. 562–565.
[4] Baschet, Corps et âmes, pp. 233–234.
[5] Baschet, Corps et âmes, pp. 235–236.
See also Trnka, Radek, and Radmila Lorencova. “Indigenous concepts of consciousness, soul, and spirit: A cross-cultural perspective.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 29, no. 1–2 (2022): 113–140.
This essay and the Re-Assembling Reality Medium series are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong’s Common Core Curriculum Course CCHU9061 Science and Religion: Questioning Truth, Knowledge and Life, with the support of the Faith and Science Collaborative Research Forum and the Asian Religious Connections research cluster of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
