Jin

Timeline of various splits in Jainism via Wikipedia

In Jainism the jin is the liberated soul, living in what is believed to be the highest aspect of reality. With absolutely no attachment to lower levels of existence, including this world of becoming, it does not intercede nor intervene in respond to prayer requests.

This extreme detachment differentiates Jainism from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity in that these systems, each in their own unique way,  teach that purer or more enlightened beings mediate graces to less pure, lost or deluded ones.

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Meno

An Arabic manuscript from the 13th century depicting Socrates (Soqrāt) in discussion with his pupils...via Wikipedia

The Meno is Plato‘s celebrated dialogue in which his theory of knowledge as “recollection” is forwarded.

Plato believed in reincarnation and the idea that individuals possess an all-knowing, immortal soul. According to Plato, the trauma of being born causes amnesia and we forget all that we knew prior to a given birth.

Plato says learning is “remembering” things we already know about, at the level of the soul if not at the level of immediate consciousness.

In the Meno, Socrates is a literary figure who represents Plato’s perspective. Plato’s Socrates does not necessarily say what Socrates, himself, would have said.

Plato’s Socrates asks a slave boy a series of geometrical questions without telling him the final answer. Because the slave boy eventually gets the correct answer without Socrates giving it away, Socrates concludes that the slave boy must have already known the answer in his own soul.

Some philosophical commentators object that Socrates essentially lead the slave boy down the proverbial garden path, prodding the boy toward the desired answer with leading questions.

Would the slave boy have found the correct answer without Socrates (a) knowing what it was and (b) leading him towards it? If we answer “no” to (a) and (b), then knowledge arguably cannot be mere recollection because it depends on someone else, who already knows, to lead another person toward that knowledge.

This leads to a kind of chicken and egg problem. How could the very first person to exist, assuming there was a single first being, attain knowledge without a guide?

Others say that Socrates didn’t have knowledge of the answer, but simply a correct belief because he begins the dialogue by saying that the only thing he knows is that he doesn’t know anything for certain. But to this one could reply that Socrates (i.e. Plato) still had a definite philosophical bias at the outset of the dialogue.

Related to these issues, Plato makes the useful distinction between:

• Having a belief that happens to be true

versus

• Definitely knowing that one has gained the truth

Another objection to the Meno‘s theory of knowledge is that knowledge of geometry differs from other types of knowledge, such as knowledge of ethics. Can we generalize a specific example from geometry to claim that all forms of knowledge are instances of recollection?

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Castanada, Carlos

Las enseñanzas de Don Juan: arugatse / Geronimo De Francesco

Carlos Castanada (1925-1998) was a Peruvian born anthropologist and author who immigrated to California in the hope of attaining an academic career.

He published the book The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968) for his masters thesis.

The book apparently was an anthropological account of his encounter with a wise, benevolent Yaqui sorcerer in Mexico. It did very well commercially and Castanada continued with a series of best-sellers, all written along the same lines.

Critics of his work point out that Castanada took no real field notes and is elusive about his past, suggesting that the books are cleverly crafted fiction.

Fictional, embellished facts or scrupulously factual, these widely acclaimed stories outline a belief in interactive fields of reality.

In the broadest sense these fields could be differentiated as “ordinary” and “non-ordinary” worlds, or as Mircea Eliade termed it, mundane and supramundane reality.

But Don Juan teaches more than a simple “this and that” cosmology. Schematically speaking, his vision is not unlike the mathematical fractal. The sorcerer is said to control interactive fields of power. He or she may exert influence from one region of power to another to bring about an ethically good outcome.

An apparent physical illness, for instance, could be healed by inwardly perceiving spiritual disturbances or fields that are interacting with a patient’s bodily organs. Don Juan claimed that, by focusing awareness and exerting the will, the sorcerer could correct a seemingly isolated physical disturbance.

This kind of distance healing could be a single or complex, multi-layered issue.

While this approach might seem fanciful to some, semiotics married to sub-atomic physics seems to point in a similar direction. Leading physicists and modern science writers are now saying that “matter” and “energy” are two humanly constructed concepts and perhaps different forms of one underlying essence.

Castanada criticized the beatnik and drug guru Timothy Leary for suggesting that psychotropic drugs, alone, could cure. For Castanada, ingesting drugs was simply an initial step in a complex inner journey requiring a great deal of prolonged training and personal discipline.

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Soul

All Souls Night in Gdansk: Robin Hamman

Soul

The idea of the soul has innumerable meanings around the world and throughout history.

A distinction is often made between an individual soul and a world soul. Some regard the soul as a multiple entity, as in ancient Egyptian religion or the contemporary views of the trance channeler Jane Roberts/Seth.

Others insist the soul is single.

Some say the soul is the conceptual “I” that apparently remains constant throughout life.

Plato viewed the soul as single but containing multiple functions.

Aristotle saw the soul as a partly rational and partly irrational function governing bodily needs, desires and actions that disappears at death. Soul is also envisioned as a spiritual, self-motivating and eternal agent or substance.

St. Thomas Aquinas insists it is united to the body but not of the body. For Aquinas it “operates through corporeal organs” with its “proper function” being “in the understanding.”

In much of Hinduism the soul reincarnates, ultimately to merge with God, as a drop of water returns to the ocean from whence it came. In this sense, individuality is temporary at best. Ramanuja‘s Visistadvaita school of Hinduism is an important exception to this idea. For Ramanuja individual souls (jivas) emerge from and ultimately rest within God (Brahman), retaining  some aspect of their individuality, existence and, therefore, reality.

The anatman doctrine of Buddhism contends that the idea of a soul is just a conceptual illusion and, in reality, does not exist.

Catholics believe that the soul is created by God at the moment of human conception, a view that has sparked intense debate among pro-life and pro-choice groups. Concerning death and the afterlife, Catholic believers say the soul rises to heaven or is purified in purgatory in preparation for heaven or descends to eternal hell.

In music “soul” refers to a form of music originating in America that blends gospel music with rhythm and blues. Although soul music was created by black Americans, its contemporary offshoots are composed and performed by anyone, anywhere.

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Soul Loss

Photo: Barney F

Soul Loss

In shamanic traditions, this is the notion that psychological or physical illness is caused by the loss or spiritual abduction of the soul from the physical body.

Through rituals, dancing or entry into a trance (sometimes induced by hallucinogenic drugs such as mushrooms or peyote), an experienced shaman allegedly undergoes a mystical voyage to return a lost, wandering or abducted soul to its body.

Reasons for leaving the body could be severe trauma, such as those associated with accidents or sexual abuse.

While the shamanic view of soul loss is an intriguing idea not too difficult to imagine in our age of digital graphics, video games and films like The Matrix, critics of Shamanism believe that shamans are lost in a world of fantasy or possibly astral, even demonic realms.

Along these lines, Sri Ramakrishna once said that all religious and spiritual paths lead to the same place and involve the same type of numinosity; but not everyone agrees with this view. For some, Ramakrishna’s claim is facile and throws his entire project and status as a ‘holy man’ into question.

» Illness, Laing (R. D.), Possession, Spiritual Attack

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Skandhas

Offerings at the Vulture Peak Buddhist Shrine, Grdhrakuta in Rajgir, where the Buddha inspired Avalokiteshvara to give the Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutram, the Heart Sutra, requested by Sariputra | Photo by Wonderlane

Skandhas

Buddhist belief posits five skandhas, or aggregates of attachment said to be the source of all suffering.

1. matter or form (rupa)
2. sensation (vedana)
3. perception (samjna)
4. mental formations (samskara)
5. consciousness (vijnana)

Taken together, the five skandhas form the impermanent personality and the illusion – so it is believed – of individuality.

Impermanent and subject to change, skandhas may discontinuously reappear from one life to another.

Whether or not one agrees with every aspect of Buddhist teaching, the skandas present a conceptual alternative that may be applied toward a contemporary critique of the Hindu view of reincarnation (See, for instance, Reincarnation: A New Look at an Old Idea – Part 3).

Although the two religions of Buddhism and Hinduism may seem similar at a glance, Buddhism clearly differs from the Visistadvaita school of Hinduism in that the soul, too, and not just its attachments, is usually seen as illusory in the ultimate sense.

» Buddhism, Corruption, Pollution

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Seer

Thee High Priestess ov Thee Temple ov Psychick Blah (T.H.P.O.T.T.O.P.B.) by Suzanna / Comtesse de Wurzeltod

Seer

In the religious sense a seer is a person with an alleged gift of inner sight. He or she apparently ‘sees’ the past and future, possibly across great distances and through different spiritual realms.

Some spiritual figures like Da Free John, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Chinmoy and Paramahansa Yogananda apparently receive other people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences, and claim to use these abilities to assess their disciples’ degree of spiritual development.

Mystical Hinduism, particularly the guru ideal, stresses the importance of the seer. And his or her gifts are said to coincide with and contribute to spiritual wisdom.

In Catholicism the seer often adheres to the rules and regulations of their order, as in monastic Catholicism. Spiritual abilities are viewed as gifts or charisms from God and are usually played down out of humility–that is, there’s no desire to puff oneself up as a big holy person, an unsavory approach which in Jungian terms is called inflation or self-aggrandizement.

Catholic seers allegedly have the gift of ‘reading hearts,’ which includes knowing another person’s thoughts, inclinations and overall spiritual condition.

In Greek myth Tiresias was a blind seer.

Some are willing to entertain the idea that a seer may possess unconventional abilities but question their source as well as the ethics as to how they are applied in daily life.

Meanwhile, skeptics like James Randi remain unconvinced about everything paranormal, the notion of ‘seeing’ and so on.

» Clairaudience, Clairsentience, Clairvoyance, Remote Viewing, Rishis, Psi, Wisdom

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Sacks, Oliver

Oliver Sacks by Joshua Wanyama

Sacks, Oliver (1933 – )

An influential British-born neurologist and best-selling author whose clinical/anecdotal writing style stresses the inalienable dignity of human beings suffering from various neurological disorders.

Sacks looks at how patients with neurological disorders cope and, in so doing, strives to understand body-soul interaction in both disabled and so-called normal people.

He appeared in Wim Kayzer‘s innovative video series, A Glorious Accident: Understanding Our Place in the Cosmic Puzzle, along with Rupert Sheldrake, Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel Dennet and other major figures at the cutting edge of their respective fields.

His overt holism is best illustrated in his own words:

Mozart makes me a better neurologist.

MINDMAP OF MUSICOPHILIA BY OLIVER SACKS by Austin Kleon

On the Web:

• Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, discusses amusia, the inability or inhibited ability of the brain to process music. “

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Auroville

Auroville: Under Construction by Premasagar

Auroville

The community founded by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) lying just outside of Pondicherry, India, which seems to be a curious hybrid of the old and the new.

Young Indian artists migrate there to pursue careers in film and video production, while international seekers use it as a retreat center for meditation and alternative community living.

Lonely Planet’s TV host Justine Shapiro visited Auroville and seemed to imply that it was a haven for foreigners seeking enlightenment while exploiting local laborers. Whether or not this is a fair assessment remains unclear.

On the Web:

• “Scenes from the documentary Journey To The City of Dawn based in Auroville, India produced by Paul Kakert of edpvideo.com and Storytellers International. Visit the film’s website at www.cityofdawn.com.”

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Traducianism

My Soul by Dr. Wendy Longo

Traducianism

The doctrine proposed by the Christian Father Tertullian (circa 160-225) that souls are inherited from parents, like bodies.

This runs counter to the more common Christian belief in Creationism, where God apparently creates an entirely new soul at the moment of each person’s conception.

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