Spirit…

Spirit. One of the Great Mysteries…and a concept that seems often to be confused with that of ‘soul’.

As someone who has always had a thirst for knowledge, understanding the nature of “spirit” has been the cause of quite a few sleepless nights for me, for well over a half century. It took me fourteen years of living on this earth to even realize that there is a difference between spirit and soul. I thank my first ever Jewish friends in “The City of Angels”, for that startling revelation, by the way.

Here I must state that, while the compensation for gaining that knowledge was to help me focus my search for understanding somewhat, it certainly did not result in any real answers. If anything, it only made for double the study!

I did discover that one of the most enlightening explanations of the difference between spirit and soul is actually addressed in the Torah, if you can arrange your brain to understand it – and have a satisfactory translation (I had the reference written down somewhere…now where did I put it?😠).

Perhaps if I’d also had the acquaintance of a learned rabbi or other scholar, I would not have had to struggle so hard and long with grasping the spirit v. soul differences…

As an adult…

…with children…

…all 10+2 of whom have also had that same question at one time or another.

The problem dealing with a subject as deep and involved as this is the energy requirements of research – you had better have taken your gingko biloba and gotten a solid bit of rack time (sleep) under your belt, because your powers of concentration and analysis are going to be stretched to the max, while delving into all the religious tomes you’ll need to read.

There is, of course, the simple, basic statement that my old friends gave me, all those decades ago: “Soul and spirit are dependent upon, but separate from each other; they work together equally and share aspects, but are not interchangeable…sort of like your Christian ‘trinity’.”

Which is fine.

If you just want to know the basics.

Not enough, though, if you seek to understand…which I always did want, for knowledge by rote has never been enough for me.

Now, especially since writing the “Folded Dreams” books in which the spirit plays an intrinsic part, have I needed to really understand…for much of that story is played out in the spirit.

Kenning back to the friends of my youth, I knew that I was in for a lot of research because, paranormal or metaphysical fiction though Folded Dreams may be, I would not want to be guilty of misrepresenting any belief that I may reference in the story.

Take incarnations, for example; Jewish interpretations aside, the idea of different types of incarnation are part and parcel of a number of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufi and, in vague form (again, depending on interpretation), are even held by some Christians (“”).

And that, as well as the nature of spirit, as opposed to the measurable intelligence of natural man, is also something to be considered…but that is another post entirely!