Weight of the Soul
Everyone is well acquainted with expressions like “to ease one’s conscience”, “I feel lighter at heart”, and the like. They reflect the most ancient notions that, although not material, the soul can nevertheless have weight.
As mentioned, when considering the soul as a substance (or, more precisely, as an ensemble of “worlds” of varying degrees of condensation), the Magical myth allows us to make quantitative and qualitative assessments.
One of the most important characteristics is the notion of the soul’s “weight“, which determines not only the concepts of its afterlife but also contributes significantly to the cartography of the Metacosmos.
Indeed, the concept of “upper” and “lower” worlds arises precisely from the idea of “light” and “heavy” souls: the worlds into which “heavy” souls descend are charted as being “below”, while those to which ‘light’ souls ascend are situated “above”.
Let us attempt to understand what determines the “weight” of the soul and what it affects.
The Magical myth defines the soul as the product of the development of a given embodiment, a repository of its experience — the “dry residue” of a life.
It may seem that the notion of the soul’s “weight” is akin to the religious idea of “sin” and “righteousness” — after all, according to religious beliefs, the righteous souls ascend to heaven, while the sinful ones descend to hell.
But from the magical point of view, things are not so simple.
Taking the conformity of one’s life to the individual path of development of a given being as the sole criterion of “rightness”, the Magical myth regards the degree to which one’s actual path matches its ideal prototype as the measure of the soul’s “weight”.
A soul is considered “light” when its “material” component has been transferred as fully as possible to the ‘spiritual’ — in other words, when the resources available in a particular embodiment are used to the fullest to expand awareness, and when potentials are fully realized. In this state, nothing binds the soul to the embodiment, and it freely and easily merges with its Monad’s ‘soul of souls’.
What “weighs down” the soul, according to the Magical myth, are not “sins” or breaking rules, but unfinished deeds, unspoken words, unmet debts, unassimilated events, phenomena, or objects — everything that binds the soul to embodiment, to “matter”, because resources remain unused. Such a state is like extra cargo that must be used; if unused, it trails behind one as a needless burden and is therefore called the soul’s “shadow.”
In other words, this is the same central principle of Magic: the effectiveness in embodiment — the more effectively a being acts, the “lighter” its soul. This means that the fuller the realization of potentials, the stronger the soul’s affinity to the Monad, and therefore the lighter it is; conversely, the lower the effectiveness, the greater the soul’s affinity to the embodied state (which is intended to free it from this burden), and therefore the “heavier” it is. While remaining in an embodied state, the soul can change its “weight”, but once deprived of embodiment, it loses that possibility and either “rises” or “falls” — depending on its “weight”.
From this point of view, it becomes clear why the predators of both the Psychocosmos and the Metacosmos so fiercely oppose effective advancement — a being’s fullest use of resources deprives them of scattered energies — of their sustenance. It is also clear why “hell” is described by visionaries as a host of hungry predators — “heavy” souls have more available food for them than “light” ones.
Thus, the notion of the soul’s “weight” removes religious overtones from the Way, aligning its success with the degree of selfhood attained within it. The Way is more successful not for the one who strictly follows the rules and nor for one who merely knows or does more, but for the one who remains truer to himself, developing in line with his individuality.
What a wonderful entry! I am very grateful to you for it, En. Everything is simple and correct, without religions and commandments… I wish your Soul ease.
About Souls – The Animal Soul – vitality – this is Nefesh; awareness – this is Ruach; the personal Soul – this is the dry residue of Ruach, which is absorbed by what I would call the “Individual Collective Soul.” And in fact, this is Neshama. D. Andreev named the personal Soul Shelt, and Neshama in his terminology – Monad. However, in this he was incorrect. Since Neshama is still not Monad. Monad is Yechida + Chaya. Correct? Are there ways to intentionally lighten the weight of the Soul even in life? Can intentional summons of the Langoliers serve such a purpose? Or will they eat everything necessary and unnecessary?
I would not equate Monad with manifestations of Light: Yechida and Chaya are forms of existence of Light in the Vessel, Monad is the principle of manifestation itself, it is BEFORE the entry of Light into the Vessel, it is only potential. It is not Keter; it is Ein Sof for the manifested being. And otherwise, I agree with your reasoning. Regarding questions – yes, there are many ways to lighten the soul known – both magical (various Purification Rituals) and religious (for instance, the sacrament of confession). The Langoliers are not very suitable for this purpose – you rightly noted – they are very difficult to control and there is a great risk that they will “gnaw” at the soul itself.
And can we look at this Problem from a different perspective, approach it from another angle… Making the soul lighter means increasing the frequency of soul vibrations, and to increase the frequency of soul vibrations, there must be something that lowers that frequency (what you call parasites of consciousness). Personally, for me, these are not parasites of consciousness; they are what point out my weak spots, and it is simply foolish to defend against them or fight them since it’s useless. The only way to rid oneself of parasites of consciousness is to feel those points they press on and try to understand why it is ‘thin’ there. A predator does not attach itself to the aura just like that; it is attracted to resonant vibrations, that is, a person attracts ‘parasites of consciousness’ with their own unconscious actions. ‘To Caesar what is Caesar’s,’ ‘To the pure what is pure,’ ‘To the dirty what is dirty.’ Thus, parasites do not pull you down; they help you rise by pressing on the weak sides of a person; if there were no predators, then a person would not do anything at all because people are lazy creatures. Parasites force a person to move, and every person chooses their own standard of purity. Parasites separate the grain from the chaff, divide people by light and shadow, and this is truly fair. The parasite tells the person – look, I am eating you, this means you are not clean at all; you can think for as long as you like that you are clean, but my bites will quickly dispel your false charm and sense of self-importance. P.S: And the devil is indeed a creation of God. He is like a filter for passions. We all must pass through him for our hearts to become lighter…
Dear Enmerkar, in my humble opinion, you are overly absolutizing the individuality of a person in contrast to their personality. In some post, you wrote that personality is the socially structured behavioral matrix of a person. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the definition, but something like that. I think this biased approach is related, in my view, to an excessively hypertrophied understanding of the human free will and a severely narrowed current psychological concept of personality.
Both aspects in the binary individuality-personality are components of the human essence, i.e., what belongs to the monad of a person. You might say that the monad is a unit and cannot be dual by definition. And you would be right. The individuality-personality binary is not a binary by essence but is a binary by task, i.e., not by reason but by the purpose of being. In other words, individuality is the potential of personality.
When a person is born as a volitional being, they reveal their individuality and follow the call of the heart. Thus, they begin to pave what is called the path or way of consciousness. However, when they reach a certain qualitative threshold and begin to follow the call of infinity (a separate topic of conversation), personality may or may not be born. If a mage is not born as a personality, they turn into that being which people usually call otherworldly entities. This is what happened to ancient mages, completely deforming their tonal in favor of nagual. Don Juan said that ultimately we must remain human, and therefore the essence of working with nagual is to transform the tonal, not the other way around, as ancient Toltecs did – they accelerated their tonal to the limit, reducing it to the external shell. In this way, ancient Toltecs, in a sense, turned into a demon or, as I said before, an otherworldly entity. History showed that it was the ancient Toltec who overcame death and came to Don Juan’s line with their gifts, not the other way around.
Dear Feanor, according to my practical experience, the fulcrum in the manifested is the self of the spirit as the main support of all manifestation outside and inside the person, this is their individuality. Individuality is the main personality, the core of a person, and everything else are sub-personalities, auxiliary elements that should spread and live in the world of other people in harmony with their individuality. The sun is individuality, while all the other objects of the solar system, the planets, are personalities. And the task of these personalities is to begin to radiate their own light and give. Otherwise, the sun, individuality, will integrate these personalities, objects, planets into itself. This is the law of infinity.
Feanor, can we accelerate Nagual and deform Tonal? 🙂 Nagual – the Unknowable, Tonal – the Knowable. Cleaning the island of Tonal, remember? – is not at all deformation but rather the Lightening of the Soul – lifting the burden of “unfinished tasks, unspoken words, unpaid debts, unrecognized events, phenomena or objects,” that is, taking the grains of personal power from all “un” events, to travel lightly into the Unknowable (Nagual) and bring new elements into the Knowable (Tonal), that is, to Expand Consciousness (increase Power) through knowing the unknowable… “that very ancient Toltec, who overcome death” made a deal with the Line in exchange for gifts of knowledge for life energy, that is, each party received what it needed…… Individuality is the qualities and characteristics that distinguish one personality from another. What do you mean, Feanor, by “counterbalance” of individuality in relation to personality?
*in the previous comment, I wrote:
“ancient Toltecs accelerated their tonal to the limit”
I meant:
“ancient Toltecs accelerated NAGUAL to the limit”
A human was created in the image and likeness of the All-Creator.
I think a parallel can be drawn between the pseudo-binary individuality-personality and image-likeness. Individuality and image are the seeds of free will, while personality and likeness are the fruit. Spiritual birth, conditionally speaking, the birth of a mage, is the actualization of oneself as an image that is originally present in human nature. However, the principle of individuality is substantive only by the nature of consciousness, not by the quality of consciousness. That is, revealing the position of humans in relation to animals, this principle is indeed substantive – humans exist at a qualitatively different level and can potentially be the masters of their destiny. Speaking of potential, I mean that 90% of people live like robots, that is, at the level of animals without free will. However, on the other hand, revealing one person’s position in relation to another, the principle of individuality is not substantive; it is formal. That is, a mage, in the understanding you describe, Enmerkar, as a consciously self-controlling individuality, does not qualitatively differ from an average person. They are different in the form of existence, that is, they live in other – non-ordinary – realities different from everyday consciousness. But qualitatively, they are driven by the same very primitive motives. To qualitatively change, that is, to become free in content, one must seek initiation in the creativity of the call of infinity – einsof. Without a face, you cannot get around this; otherwise, you may simply turn into a servile angel, at best :-).
Thus, in my opinion, individuality is the transformed core of the mage, and its face is the sphere, spun up by intensifying on the core in the direction of the creative tasks of one’s destiny. Only then can one lighten the weight of the soul without looking back at the consequences.
Individuality as a shining pentagram. That’s how I understand it now. So it follows that to be oneself, it is important to be in agreement with one’s pentagram and to develop it (work on its composition, actualize the qualities and properties of all rays). Thank you, En, your articles give birth to interesting realizations in me.