The Acquisition of a Soul

The accumulation of Strength and Authority, the transformation of the energies that constitute the purpose and content of embodied existence, finds its expression in the realization of the potentials of the Monad and, on the human level of consciousness, in the creation of an reshimo of that realization — a soul.

At the same time, owing to the fragmentation of the psychocosm and the multiplicity of personalities that arise, live and dissolve within it, the vast majority of people do not have an integral soul, accumulating over the course of life a multitude of uneven and variously sized small souls, which not only fail to bear substantial energy but, on the contrary, introduce disharmony into the actualized part of the Monad — the “soul of souls.”

In other words, a large number of people who are trapped by predators and parasites that prevent harmonious development, instead of producing a coherent and powerful stream of experience, burst apart at death like shrapnel of fragments of their half-empty experience.

Therefore, not only beings deprived of a soul because of its death or loss, not only vessels that have become empty for some reason, but indeed very many embodied beings cannot strictly be called “soul-bearing” in the full sense.

The reality observed by the Magi is that most people not only lack a stable personality, but they also lack a single soul and are merely loosely integrated streams of vegetative energy that feed predators and parasites and, at the end of their existence, contribute to the Pleroma only pitiful fragments of accumulated experience.

In light of this understanding, one of the most important tasks facing a Magus seeking to increase the effectiveness of their existence is the acquisition and development of a soul in the full sense of the term.

We have already mentioned that for this purpose Magic has developed two approaches — the “alchemical” and the “hermetic.”

In a broad sense, the “alchemical” approach can be described as the set of efforts to “remelt” the existing material in order to integrate and harmonize it. However, as the saying goes, “to make gold, you need to have gold”, and therefore this approach is suitable only for those whose level of attained Authority is fairly high, though not necessarily harmonious.

The other approach — the “hermetic” — consists of accumulating a ‘binding’ material: experience that unites the separate fragments of souls generated during life into a single relatively harmonious system. This approach suits those inclined to create small but harmonious reshimoth — souls.

In the first case the existing elements are restructured and regrouped around the harmonizing axis of Orlög, while in the second they are bound together by the “addition” of experience — Wyrd.

However, in any case, for embodiment to be effective and productive, the soul created during its course must be as large as possible and, at the same time, as unencumbered as possible.