Topology of the Human Soul and the Struggle for Holiness, Combined

I have decided to combine the parts of my article on the human soul into one piece and repost it here. This is copyright material, intellectual property of the author subject to the copyright laws of the United States of America and international copyright treaties. Permission is hereby granted for the reproduction and redistribution of any or all of this work, with out requirement for remuneration, so long as the author is properly attributed and the portions reproduced are properly labeled. Any attempt to misrepresent the author’s words or intent will be in violation of all copyright laws, and subject to the penalties under law.

Disclaimer: Much of the content of this article is in the realm of speculative synthesis. The only parts that can be considered valid Christian doctrine necessary for salvation are the doctrines of the Trinity, creation of humanity in the image and likeness of God, and the three realms of the universe. The rest is collected and combined from various sources including monastic mystics and parapsychologists, among others. I am presenting a synthesis of human experience exploring the various realms of creation. The use of the masculine pronoun in reference to God is merely traditional. In no way should this be construed by the reader that this writer believes that God is entirely male or that God was male before the conception of Jesus Christ.

First we need to set the background of the setting of the human soul. God is a single entity, revealed to us in three persons. His revelation to us declares that He has made us in His image. The fact that God was not a physical being until the incarnation of Christ makes it difficult to form an image of God in human terms. So what is the image of God in humanity? That can be seen in the convergence of the number three in all of creation.

There are three realms of creation. Heaven, the realm of God’s throne; the spiritual realm, where all the creatures of spirit, without bodies, live; and matter, the physical realm where planets, stars and animals, including humanity, live. The tri-circle diagram is a good illustration of this idea. (See the diagram I posted on my Facebook timeline.) These three realms are not separate, they overlap in an exciting way. The souls of humans bridge the three realms and hold them together.

In the article tomorrow I will outline how that is. But today, I want to finish the background.

The realm of matter is the universe we see when we look around us, the Earth, stars, planets and galaxies we measure and plot. Science has mapped this realm for centuries. Although we are not finished measuring, mapping and cataloging this realm, we have gathered an enormous body of information about this realm. Therefore, it is not of significant interest to us in this exploration. It’s something already known. We’re interested in exploring uncharted territory.

To that end let us take a glimpse into the realm of spirit. In the spiritual realm, time is not linear, all time is now; space is merely suggestive, not concrete, therefore, distance between two points in the spiritual realm is a matter of the relationship between them, not displacement. This is the true definition of eternity, the realm of the spirit is eternal. Unfortunately for us, our instruments of measurement cannot function in eternity. There is no way we can accurately map and measure the realm of spirit.

The realm of Heaven is an even greater question mark to us. Until the ascension of Jesus Christ, there was no way to enter the Heavenly realm without direct divine intervention. This realm has been glimpsed by mystics and prophets throughout the ages. But now that we have Jesus Christ seated on His throne at the right hand of the Father, we are able to enter Heaven whenever we pray. Seldom do we make enough effort of soul to enter into Heaven in more than just a minor way. The description of Heaven in the sixth chapter of Isaiah’s prophetic book is probably the best in all literature.

The three realms of creation, like the three Persons of the Trinity and the three facets of humanity, is an echo of the nature of God.

Humans are created with three facets in reflection of the Trinity of the Godhead. I will use transliterated Greek terms for the “organs” of the soul to avoid confusion with the somatic organs of the body. I will borrow the term “psychoid” from Rev. Morton T. Kelsey’s book The Other Side of Silence, for referring to the aspects of the soul, and only use the English word “psychic” in the common usage.

In common existence, there is no direct connection between the realms of Heaven, spirit and matter. The only link other than God Himself is the soul of the human creature. The human soul is the only thing in all creation that is both spiritual and physical at the same time. Researchers have measured the mass of the souls of dying people as the soul leaves. While the mass is small, the fact that something with mass beyond the last breath exits the body at death proves the physical existence of the soul. Mystics, shaman and parapsychologists have experienced the spiritual aspects of the soul in their explorations. The soul is a bridge. With Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father in Heaven and at the same time inhabiting the souls of His followers, the souls of believers are also a bridge between the lower created realms and Heaven. This condition of linkage is the reason that fallen angels and spirits of darkness want to inhabit human souls. The power over the physical realm that they can exert through controlling such a link is enormous.

The soul of a human is organized, much the way the body has organs. The soul has an opton, an organ by which a human can see what is taking place around him/her in the spiritual realm, and some can even see what is happening in the physical realm, and at some distance. The soul has an organ of sensation much like the skin of the body and nerve endings within the organs of the body. This organ allows the human to feel what is happening to his/her spirit and soul directly, similar to the way we can detect heat, cold, pressure and pain in the body. The soul has filters to weed out alien influences like the kidneys in the body. But the most important organ of the soul to the spiritual athlete is the part of the soul the Christian monks and mystics call the kardia, corresponding to the heart in the body.

The kardia has chambers like the somatic blood pump. Where the heart has four chambers, two each of atria and ventria, the kardia has three (there’s that number again!). Much like the somatic blood pump drives the blood through the body delivering life to each of the cells, the kardia drives the psychoid fluid of life throughout the soul. This psychoid fluid is made up of (surprise) three parts: feelings, reason, and will; one from each chamber. Just as blood sustains the life of the body, the feelings, reason and will sustain the life of the soul.

I don’t pretend to have a full understanding of the soul, and I doubt any living human on Earth can say they do. I want to go into more detail of the one organ of the human soul that I know the most about. I will now describe the kardia and its role in contemplation and the struggle for holiness.

The three chambers of the kardia are meant to work in concert, but they are not equal in importance. The most important for the purpose of holiness is the thelema, the seat of volition or will. When the thelema is in charge, the person takes responsibility for his or her own life and actions. All thoughts and feelings must be vetted by the thelema for morality, ethics and relevance. When the thelema is in line with the will of God, these actions become easier to direct. Let’s explore the the relationship of thelema with the other two chambers.

The next chamber in line, although not necessarily in import, is the nous, the seat of reason. People who put the nous in charge of their kardia are easy to spot by the way they rationalize their unethical acts and find other people to blame for their faults. The nous is essential in researching the world around us and the will of God. When the nous is subordinate to the thelema, the person is more reasonable and rational. Wild rationalizations are rejected by thelema before they can get out into the rest of the soul. The often most effective vector by which spirits of darkness test the will of a human is to inject thoughts into the person’s nous to see if the person will accept it as his or her own. This is the primary reason for vetting by the thelema of all thoughts before they get out of the kardia.

The last chamber, though definitely not the least, is the one I call the gous, from the Greek word goao which means to wail, this is the seat of the feelings and affections. When the gous is in charge, the person becomes completely irrational and driven by every wind of chance. The most destructive passions, anger, avarice, envy, jealousy, lust, etc. come out of the gous, and they are often placed there by spirits of darkness. When the thelema is in charge, the destructive passions are controlled. When the gous is in charge the passions run wild.

When a contemplative sits in silence to meditate, it becomes an act of pure thelema to listen to the still small voice of God. The nous and gous are clamoring for attention, but the thelema merely lets it pass without entertaining it in the kardia or passing it into the rest of the soul. This exercise of the thelema gains the contemplative greater control over the whole of the kardia and a more healthy soul.

Another benefit of empowering the thelema over the other two chambers of the kardia is the maturity attained by taking responsibility for ones own soul. People who do not put their thelema in charge of their kardia are among the most destructive members of society. I won’t go into the pathology of social disorders. But let is suffice that the thelema can control it in each individual.

So by putting the thelema in charge of the kardia, and aligning it with the holy will of God, the individual is able to grow into holiness as God has planned for each of us. The struggle comes from within the soul as it resists the correction, and outside forces of spiritual evil are injecting thoughts, feelings and passions into the kardia. Putting the thelema in charge of the kardia makes one a better person, even if he or she does not believe in God. But when the will of God becomes the cannon by which the thelema rules the kardia, the soul is on the road to holiness.