The soul essentially breaks down into three core segments: thought, feeling, and will. In our everyday lives on Earth, these elements are completely tangled together. You perceive something through your senses, you process it with your mind, and that triggers an emotion. From there, you act based on those feelings. It’s all one messy, interconnected loop. True spiritual development requires uncoupling these segments. For someone who has undergone significant spiritual growth, thought, feeling, and will aren't as tightly bound. They become independent. It’s similar to what happens at death—every time we transition into the spiritual realm, these parts naturally separate. That’s why this work is so incredibly difficult. Every spiritual exercise, old or new, is designed around this concept. The goal is to strengthen the soul enough so that, even while living here on Earth, these three segments can function independently.
Animals possess a soul too, but they operate through a collective soul. If a single animal of a certain species stumbles upon a new behavior, every other member of that species across the globe "knows" it instantly because of that shared group soul. However, animals don't have a spirit. It isn't the soul that sets humans apart in this world; it’s the spirit.
The soul is intrinsically tied to your breath. But honestly, the methods used by ancient yogis aren't really appropriate for our modern era. Their whole goal was to bring that specific physiological segment into conscious awareness. Think of it this way: when you walk from point A to point B, you aren't actually conscious of your legs doing the work. Your consciousness stays centered in your head, focused solely on the decision to move. What’s happening "down in the legs" remains hidden from your awareness. You can attempt to bridge that gap and become aware of it, but it’s far from easy—and frankly, it’s probably not even advisable. Breathing works the exact same way. We breathe subconsciously while our minds simply maintain a high-level awareness that we are breathing. The actual mechanics of the process stay tucked away from us. Ancient yogis tried to drag that internal process into the light of consciousness. However, dedicating an entire lifetime to such a pursuit is a massive undertaking. They operated under the assumption that the progress made in this life would carry over into the next. In today's world, that approach feels misplaced and ultimately futile.
The question itself is perfectly valid. But that opening post? It’s a total mess. There’s way too much filler in there that just doesn't hold any water.
Even Heraclitus had already categorized the soul, and he didn't just pull that out of thin air—it was common knowledge back then.
He broke the soul down into three segments: cognitive, emotional, and motor. It’s functionally identical to how later thinkers described the soul as being composed of thought, feeling, and will. There isn't really any room for arbitrary interpretation here. The evidence exists, though it isn't the kind of evidence you'd find in a math lab or through chemical or physical analysis. That's simply impossible because the soul belongs to a different realm than this physical, material world we live in.
It’s been common knowledge for a long time now that anyone who picks up a Bible is just going to find their own personal interpretation of it. This is a textbook example. Without any real insight into the mystery, people simply see whatever they want—or are capable—of seeing.
On top of all that, the media is pretty much censored on almost everything. For instance, there’s a group of bishops over in Europe who have officially broken away from the Pope and renounced his authority, but you won't find a single thing about it in the mainstream news outlets. Behind these bishops, there's a significant group of believers who have actually declared Archbishop Vigan as their own Pope.
You can’t really have a conversation about God if you don't first define what you actually mean by the term. Any decent theologian will tell you that without that clarity, you just end up hitting a dead end.
Most people judge faith based on the institutions and the believers themselves. Anyone with even a shred of a moral compass sees the flaws there, which naturally leads to a lot of resentment and rebellion. But here's the thing: morality is a deep, spiritual category, yet it isn't what most people think it is. We've all been raised with such a narrow definition of it that anyone with common sense can see the disconnect. You have two groups: those who ignore the hypocrisy out of sheer habit because they're too lazy to change, and those who clearly see the rot but always manage to find some intellectual loophole to justify staying put. Ultimately, the Church as we know it has run its course. Within the next century, it’s going to undergo a massive transformation. Whether that turns out to be for better or for worse remains to be seen.
George Wood2 said:I know nothing of certainty myself. With you, anything is possible... 😉...ugh, I hear you. But these are all just stories, much like my own.
That experience—it all happened spontaneously. Out of thin air. There was no mental effort, no guided visualization, no precognition... none of that. You are taking yourself far too seriously.
A long time ago, on some old internet message board, there was this guy talking about having a similar sensation out in a field somewhere, claiming he felt this and that. Fast forward twenty years, and once he’s aged a bit, he’ll probably still be sitting there, obsessing over the same thing, stuck in the exact same spot he started in. He won't have moved an inch.
When it comes to spirituality, you need to be a hundred times more skeptical than you would be about anything else. Anyway, congrats, I guess—though I'm not entirely sure what I'm congratulating you for.
In the realm of spirituality, patience isn't just a virtue—it’s an absolute necessity. There used to be a standard rule, and you still see it held by certain circles, where if you hadn't hit forty-two years old, you simply didn't have the standing to speak on these matters. That wasn't just arbitrary tradition, either. We've moved past the era of classic, formal initiations into knowledge; nowadays, true initiation comes to you directly from the spiritual realm as an act of grace, once you've actually earned it.
By the way, Steiner needs to learn how to actually read. If you approach him thinking, "Okay, I'll just take a quick look at what he wrote and make a judgment call," you're missing the point entirely. You have to read like a true scholar—keeping every single question open-ended. The answers will come eventually, but they won't show up on your schedule.
Christianity is a complicated beast. Looking back, it’s had its moments of genuine good, times when certain things were just historical necessities, and times where it did real damage. Nowadays, though, anything coming out of the Vatican feels purely malicious. Honestly, at this point, the Pope might as well be Satan himself.
But none of that has anything to do with a good man like Father Mike from a small town in rural Kentucky. A decent guy like Father Mike isn't going to hurt anyone. The problem is, he lacks that sense of mystery. It seems like the ones who actually possess a shred of true mystery are the predators—because once you acquire actual knowledge, you face a real test of character, and those are the ones who fold under the pressure.
Christianity is such a dense subject that it’s easy to just write the whole thing off, but that isn't how a spiritual path works. Being spiritual means taking everything into account without being biased and refusing to pass judgment. There was a book where the author started a paragraph by saying: "A massive shift occurred in my life today; I decided to keep every single question open."
An aware individual naturally feels the urge to tackle three fundamental questions: where am I, who am I, and why? It’s perfectly reasonable to pursue those as a way to find one's purpose in life.
None of this teaching matters to anyone, not even a single damn thing.
The only things with any actual value are what someone has truly absorbed into their own being and what they actually live by. Even with Christ, the doctrine itself isn't the point; that’s just how the Church likes to frame things to keep control. What really matters is the action.
Actions carry weight because they impact other people, and on a personal level, they reflect your true thoughts.
Steiner pointed out that, at best, people are praying to their angels, but more often than not, they’re actually just praying to themselves—addressing their own higher self. And honestly, he hit the nail on the head there.
The term "angels" comes from Christian tradition. It refers to a specific hierarchy of beings within the third tier, consisting of angels, archangels, and archai. These pure thoughts and ideas are supported by the oldest of the archai.
An angel's role is to provide personal protection and guidance through life, though not quite in the way most people imagine. While we sleep, angels are busy weaving patterns into our astral bodies. When we're awake, however, we are primarily influenced by the spirit of the times rather than by angels. If someone is prevented from doing something they were expected to do, or if they run into someone in a way that feels orchestrated, we usually just chalk it up to coincidence. But that is precisely where angels step in. Furthermore, a person's own nature and spirituality have a reciprocal effect on their angel. Just as in the human hierarchy, a sort of fragmentation occurs within the angelic hierarchy as well.
Paul Ross2 said:The reality is, you can't actually "experience" a pure idea. A pure idea simply *is*. It represents a perfect truth. What we experience is merely its echo—a subjective interpretation.
The whole world is just a reflection. We are reflections ourselves. But it still feels real. So, either you've experienced that echo of the idea, or you haven't.
You can decide any word means whatever you want it to mean.
It’s about whether you actually experienced a pure idea or you didn't. And there's no need to overthink whether it was "the thing" or not. You just know with absolute certainty. Call it whatever you like.
Paul Ross2 said:Thoughts and PURE IDEAS are simply not synonymous.
"Thought" is a much broader term; it encompasses ideas, concepts, and preconceptions. Which, obviously, is an imprecise way to put it. You can't really pin it down with total precision anyway.
The devahanski realm isn't a world built on thought.
Thoughts belong to the reality closest to us. In fact, they're essentially the first thing we encounter when we enter that space through a healthy, conscious lens rather than a pathological one.
Another issue is that most people can't even wrap their heads around the idea of an existence that isn't rooted in thought, simply because our entire daily lives are constructed around them.
It’s much like how difficult it is to grasp the concept of an existence that exists outside of time.
But honestly, these are pretty great topics for contemplation.
George Wood2 said:These explorations into unusual "out-of-body" consciousness phenomena are quite intriguing. Perhaps someone here might possess insight regarding the process of separating from one's physical form while in a state of full wakefulness, with eyes wide open. It felt almost like a mere overture to everything that followed.
To provide context, thirteen years ago, I was sitting outdoors in nature, simply waiting for the workday to conclude. About half an hour prior, I experienced a peculiar sensation—a strange feeling that something was about to occur. I wasn't dwelling on any specific thoughts; I was merely relaxing and observing the landscape and the distant islands from a pine-covered clearing. Suddenly, I felt myself slowly sliding out of my physical body toward the right side. I reached a point where I was halfway out. It was a completely conscious "slipping" away from the physical vessel, which remained entirely static. The "entity" that emerged from the physical body was translucent, ethereal, and perhaps the most weightless sensation I have ever experienced through any form of consciousness. It was akin to direct perception without the need to reflect upon what was being observed. Pure consciousness, nothing more.
After several minutes, a progressively stronger pulling force began to act upon the physical part of my body, dragging me back toward my previous "normal" state. It was as if the physical body alone cannot sustain itself for long without what we might call a carrier, and without this "consciousness" of the physical form, the body cannot truly be conscious. Perhaps the body would simply become a zombie. But what would happen to a conscious body? This persisted well into the evening, characterized by this incessant tugging as the body sought to pull my conscious self—which is essentially who I am—back into the integrated, default setting of a complete human being. It was a surreal experience to walk and drive my car home 🤣 feeling separated. Someone would undoubtedly describe it as being distracted. 😉
I do not consume any intoxicants, nor do I use any drugs. 🤣 From a psychological or psychiatric standpoint, this experience caused no harm to my mind or body, aside from providing a profound perception and a different perspective when viewing life outside of man's material and intellectual planes.
Does anyone happen to have information regarding a similar experience?
That's either a consequence of improper exercises you're doing, a habit from this life, a leftover from a past life, or something else entirely.
The body doesn't move; rather, consciousness changes. We all have a built-in mechanism for when this happens, which is that we automatically withdraw from it because it's such an unusual experience, unlike anything we normally encounter.
There's a danger lurking in the near future here: that everyone will "have" their own version of spirituality that they feel satisfied with. For you, it might be something significant that left a mark, but in reality, it isn't anything special. The potential danger is that it could lead you down the wrong path.
Remember, evil is also spiritual; it has a spiritual origin. The nature of good and evil is not a trivial matter at all.