Theos-Talk Archives (April 1997 Message tl00013)

   I was interested to read some of the recent Digest comments concerning who
or what the Soul may be.  Blavatsky, in my view, is not particularly helpful
in
this area.  Her definition (see Theosophical Glossary, page 306) reads: the
vital
principle or the breath of life.  However, she also defines Prana in the same
manner, i.e. Life Principle; the breath of life (see page 260 in the same
reference
work).  Thus, she essentially defines them both in the same manner but
nowhere
else in her voluminous writings does she state (or even suggest) that to her
the
two terms are synonymous.  Her view becomes even murkier when we read
further (on page 306 of Theosophical Glossary) that: " ... the term "Soul"
.. is
applied only to Kama Manas..."
   My reading of Judge (see his Mesmerism and Hypnotism, page 14) offers a 
considerably broader view.  Judge says (or at least strongly suggests) that
the
term Soul applies to "the septenary nature of man."  He appears to equate
Soul
with what he refers to as "sheaths" surrounding the essential essence
(presuma-
bly that which Theosophists call Atma).  He even goes so far as to list two
of the
soul sheaths: the physical and astral bodies.  Thus, Soul is not Spirit but,
rather,
the vehicle (or, as Judge would have it, "sheaths") that enable Spirit to
manifest
at levels below the Atmic.
                                                                         D.S.
Arthur