Psychology, the Study of the Soul

The term psychology comes from the Greek psykhē, meaning "the soul, mind, spirit; life, the invisible animating principle or entity which occupies and directs the physical body; understanding, the mind (as the seat of thought), the faculty of reason," combined with the Greek logia, meaning the "study of." To the ancients psychology was the study of the soul, which remained true until the mid to late 1800s, and the rise of scientism. In contrast, a modern definition of psychology treats soul as "the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in a given context," and "the branch of metaphysics that studies the soul, the mind, and the relationship of mind to the bodily functions." By these definitions, we stand at the brink of the intellectual chasm into which soul has disappeared, a gaping abyss that had opened in a relatively short time as so-called "science" began preaching the strictly materialistic view that man is an animal, merely a body that may or may not have a soul. Noah Webster Psychology, noun [Gr. soul, and discourse.] A discourse or treatise on the human soul; or the doctrine of the nature and properties of the soul. Noah Webster Soul noun 1. The spiritual, rational and immortal substance in man, which distinguishes him from brutes; that part of man which enables him to think and reason, and which renders him a subject of moral government. The immortality of the soul is a fundamental article of the Christian system. Such is the nature of the human soul that it must have a God, an object of supreme affection. 2. The understanding; the intellectual principle. The eyes of our soul then only begin to see, when our bodily eyes are closing. 3. Vital principle. Thou son, of this great world both eye and soul 4. Spirit; essence; chief part; as charity, the soul of all the virtues. Emotion is the soul of eloquence. 5. Life; animation principle or part; as, an able commander is the soul of an army. 6. Internal power. There is some soul of goodness in things evil. 7. A human being; a person. There was no a soul present. In Paris there are more than seven hundred thousand souls. London, Westminster, Southwark and the suburbs, are said to contain twelve hundred thousand souls. 8. Animal life. To deliver their soil from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Psalms 33:7. 9. Active power. And heaven would fly before the driving soul 10. Spirit; courage; fire; grandeur of mind. That he wants caution he must needs confess, but not a soul to give our arms success. 11. Generosity; nobleness of mind; a colloquial use. 12. An intelligent being. Every soul in heav'n shall bend the knee. 13. Heart; affection. The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David. I Sam. 18. 14. In Scripture, appetite; as the full soul; the hungry soul Proverbs 27:7. Job 33:18. 15. A familiar compellation of a person, but often expressing some qualities of the mind; as alas, poor soul; he was a good soul

Edna Lister taught that a pioneering mystic views the soul through the lens of a priori knowledge, the "soul knowing" that we bring into life with us from the heavenly realms we inhabit concurrently with the physical universe, "the other side of the veil." The child's prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep and pray the Lord my soul to keep," sadly reinforces the notion that sleep is some "little death," at least in consciousness. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sleep that claims the body nightly also frees the soul to its full degree of consciousness: "He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." ~ 1 Corinthians 2:15-16. The soul is that part of you that remains in constant contact with God, the universal Divine Mind which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). Your soul's knowledge is your moral compass, the means by which you may always find God and know the truth.

Early Metaphysical Views of the Soul

Genesis attests that the soul is bestowed by God alone: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." ~ Genesis 2:7. The breath of life is called ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in the Greek, meaning "breath" or "spirit" as a cognate for "soul," e.g., "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit (pneuma), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." ~ John 3:5; and "The wind (pneuma) bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit (pneuma)." ~ John 3:8.

Among the ancient Greeks, Thales (624–546 BC) and Anaximenes (586–526 BC) are said to have been among the first to use the terms psyche and pneuma. Next was Pythagoras (570-495 BC), and notably, as John Burnet proposes in his Early Greek Philosophy,

"We have one admitted instance of a philosophic guild, that of the Pythagoreans. And it will be found that the hypothesis, if it is to be called by that name, of a regular organisation of scientific activity will alone explain all the facts. The development of doctrine in the hands of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, for instance, can only be understood as the elaboration of a single idea in a school with a continuous tradition."

To Burnet's hypothesis of a Pythagorean guild, we footnote the tradition of the universal elements — earth, water, air, and fire — among the early Greek philosophers and the Jewish masters of mystical Kabbalah. Thales believed a single universal substance existed, which he identified as water. Anaximenes believed that single elemental substance was air. Later, Empedocles taught that water, air, earth, and fire were the unchangeable fundamental universal realities. Similarly, the Genesis relates that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit [air] of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light [fire]: and there was light." Later it recounts that God formed man from the dust of the ground. Earth is adamah; air is ruach; water is mem (singular) or mayim (plural); fire is aish.

The Sepher Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, is the oldest extant text relating to the Jewish mystical study of Creation, known as Kabbalah. The Sepher Yetzirah dates at least from 200 AD, though some say it was composed as early as 200 BC. Written in the metaphoric and highly symbolic language of the mystic, it explains the three universal elements:

"These are the ten emanations of number. First, is the Spirit of the Living God, blessed and more than blessed be the name of the Living God of Ages. The Holy Spirit is his Voice, his Spirit, and his Word. Second, from the Spirit he made Air and formed for speech twenty-two letters, three are 'mothers', seven are 'double', and twelve are 'simple', but the spirit is first among these. Third, Primitive Water. He also formed and designed from his Spirit, and from the void and formless made earth, even as a rampart, or standing wall, and varied its surface even as the crossing of beams. Fourth, from the Water, He designed Fire, and from it formed for himself a throne of honor, with Auphanim, Seraphim, Holy Animals, and ministering Angels, and with these he formed his dwelling, as is written in the text "Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire." …

"These are the ten ineffable existences, the Spirit of the Living God, Air, Water, Fire, Height and Depth, East and West, North and South. The foundations are the twenty-two letters, three 'mothers', seven 'double', and twelve 'single letters'. Three 'mothers', namely Aleph, Mem, Shin, represent Air, Water, and Fire: Aleph mute as Water, Shin hissing as Fire, and Mem as air of a spiritual type, is as balance, standing erect between them and pointing out the equilibrium which exists, speaking."

The references in the Sepher Yetzirah text to the Word and to speech echo the opening verses of the Gospel of John:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. … And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." ~ John 1:1-5, 14.

Over time, the ancient Greek philosophers developed an increasingly complex and encompassing theory of the soul. For example, in Homer's Iliad we find that the Greeks of that era regarded the soul as the animating spark or spirit that leaves at the death of the physical body. The thinking and feeling part of man was thought to be carried in the blood and the heart. This idea is mirrored in Scripture: "The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." ~ Leviticus 17:11. These esoteric teachings about the blood are not the results of primitive ignorance, but the symbolical language of the mysteries known to mystics throughout time.

To the Kabbalist, the colors red and white are associated with the left and right poles of the Tree of Life, signifying rigor and clemency, or justice and mercy, respectively. "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life." ~ Revelation 22:14. The blood itself is composed of red and white cells, and platelets. The red cells, hemoglobin, carry oxygen through the body; the red blood molecule is composed of four parts, each binding an atom of iron, representing fourfold man in physical form (the four universal elements — earth, water, air, and fire — symbolizing body, emotions, mind, and soul, bound to the physical by iron).

"He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers." ~ Revelation 22: 26-27. Each soul must overcome the self to rule the nations, which refers the organs and organ systems of the physical body. The rod of iron is the blood purified of any taint of selfishness. The potter's vessel is clay, symbolizing the dust of the ground from which the Adamic race (Homo sapiens sapiens) was formed.

The life is in the red blood cells, but the atonement or at-one-ment is in the white blood cells, the leukocytes of the immune system, which protect the body against infection, disease, and foreign elements. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," a phrase included in some funeral services is thus literally true: The ashes represent the waste by-products strained from the blood in the liver, while the dust is the overall physical residue of the deceased body.

The blood platelets are cell fragments called thrombocytes, which are essential to blood clotting. The platelets carry the soul's memory, the a priori knowledge, coded onto them as spiritual, mental, and emotional memories of prior experiences. "He shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." ~ Revelation 22:1-2. Platelets, stored in the arbor vitae (tree of life) of the cerebellum, are released into the bloodstream once a lunar month. The effect of memory on the body is chemical. You must lift the effects of the memories as the platelets cycle through, disturbing your homeostasis, your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual equilibrium.

Plato's Conception of the Soul

The most profound influence in man's thinking about the soul came through Plato of Athens (428-348 BC), who subscribed to the teachings of Pythagoras, who lived more than three generations earlier. Plato's tripartite theory of the soul included three portions or phases, each representing a different kind of desire, which he named appetitive, rational, and spirited.

and concepts regarding love, such as eros and agape, are framed in his Chariot Allegory within the Phaedrus dialogue (sections 246a–254e), and explicated in the Republic (Bk. IV., 439e-440a/b), the Symposium, and the Phaedo dialogues.

Plato, in his Republic, apportions the soul into three phases, — rational, appetitive, or spirited. Plato compares man's many and varied desires to a wild animal, difficult to tame without resorting to divine reason (see the analogy of the 'many-headed beast' in Republic Book IX 588c-589e.

[[588a] "If in point of pleasure the victory of the good and just man over the bad and unjust is so great as this, he will surpass him inconceivably in decency and beauty of life and virtue." "Inconceivably indeed, by Zeus," he said. "Very good," said I. "And now that we have come to this point in the argument, [588b] let us take up again the statement with which we began and that has brought us to this pass. It was, I believe, averred that injustice is profitable to the completely unjust man who is reputed just. Was not that the proposition?" "Yes, that." "Let us, then, reason with its proponent now that we have agreed on the essential nature of injustice and just conduct." "How?" he said. "By fashioning in our discourse a symbolic image of the soul, that the maintainer of that proposition may see precisely what it is that he was saying." [588c] "What sort of an image?" he said. "One of those natures that the ancient fables tell of," said I, "as that of the Chimaera1 or Scylla2 or Cerberus,3 and the numerous other examples that are told of many forms grown together in one." "Yes, they do tell of them." "Mould, then, a single shape of a manifold and many-headed beast4 that has a ring of heads of tame and wild beasts and can change them and cause to spring forth from itself all such growths." [588d] "It is the task of a cunning artist,1" he said, "but nevertheless, since speech is more plastic than wax2 and other such media, assume that it has been so fashioned." "Then fashion one other form of a lion and one of a man and let the first be far the largest3 and the second second in size." "That is easier," he said, "and is done." "Join the three in one, then, so as in some sort to grow together." "They are so united," he said. "Then mould about them outside the likeness of one, that of the man, so that to anyone who is unable [588e] to look within1 but who can see only the external sheath it appears to be one living creature, the man." "The sheath is made fast about him," he said. "Let us, then say to the speaker who avers that it pays this man to be unjust, and that to do justice is not for his advantage, that he is affirming nothing else than that it profits him to feast and make strong the multifarious beast and the lion and all that pertains to the lion, [589a] but to starve the man1 and so enfeeble him that he can be pulled about2 whithersoever either of the others drag him, and not to familiarize or reconcile with one another the two creatures but suffer them to bite and fight and devour one another.3" "Yes," he said, "that is precisely what the panegyrist of injustice will be found to say." "And on the other hand he who says that justice is the more profitable affirms that all our actions and words should tend to give the man within us4 [589b] complete domination1 over the entire man and make him take charge2 of the many-headed beast—like a farmer3 who cherishes and trains the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild—and he will make an ally4 of the lion's nature, and caring for all the beasts alike will first make them friendly to one another and to himself, and so foster their growth." "Yes, that in turn is precisely the meaning of the man who commends justice." "From every point of view, then, the panegyrist of justice [589c] speaks truly and the panegyrist of injustice falsely. For whether we consider pleasure, reputation, or profit, he who commends justice speaks the truth, while there is no soundness or real knowledge of what he censures in him who disparages it." "None whatever, I think," said he. "Shall we, then, try to persuade him gently,1 for he does not willingly err,2 by questioning him thus: Dear friend, should we not also say that the things which law and custom deem fair or foul have been accounted so for a like reason— [589d] the fair and honorable things being those that subject the brutish part of our nature to that which is human in us, or rather, it may be, to that which is divine,1 while the foul and base are the things that enslave the gentle nature to the wild? Will he assent or not?" "He will if he is counselled by me." "Can it profit any man in the light of this thought to accept gold unjustly if the result is to be that by the acceptance he enslaves the best part of himself to the worst? [589e] Or is it conceivable that, while, if the taking of the gold enslaved his son or daughter and that too to fierce and evil men, it would not profit him,1 no matter how large the sum, yet that, if the result is to be the ruthless enslavement of the divinest part of himself to the most despicable and godless part, he is not to be deemed wretched [590a] and is not taking the golden bribe much more disastrously than Eriphyle1 did when she received the necklace as the price2 of her husband's life?" "Far more," said Glaucon, "for I will answer you in his behalf." "And do you not think that the reason for the old objection to licentiousness is similarly because that sort of thing emancipates that dread,3 that huge and manifold beast overmuch?" "Obviously," he said. "And do we not censure self-will4 [590b] and irascibility when they foster and intensify disproportionately the element of the lion and the snake1 in us?" "By all means." "And do we not reprobate luxury and effeminacy for their loosening and relaxation of this same element when they engender cowardice in it?" "Surely." "And flattery and illiberality when they reduce this same high-spirited element under the rule of the mob-like beast and habituate it for the sake of wealth and the unbridled lusts of the beast to endure all manner of contumely from youth up and become an ape2 instead of a lion?" [590c] "Yes, indeed," he said. "And why do you suppose that 'base mechanic'1 handicraft is a term of reproach? Shall we not say that it is solely when the best part is naturally weak in a man so that it cannot govern and control the brood of beasts within him but can only serve them and can learn nothing but the ways of flattering them?" "So it seems," he said. "Then is it not in order that such an one may have a like government with the best man that we say he ought to be the slave [590d] of that best man1 who has within himself the divine governing principle, not because we suppose, as Thrasymachus2 did in the case of subjects, that the slave should be governed for his own harm, but on the ground that it is better for everyone to be governed by the divine and the intelligent, preferably indwelling and his own, but in default of that imposed from without, in order that we all so far as possible may be akin and friendly because our governance and guidance are the same?" "Yes, and rightly so," he said. [590e] "And it is plain," I said, "that this is the purpose of the law, which is the ally of all classes in the state, and this is the aim of our control of children,1 our not leaving them free before we have established, so to speak, a constitutional government within them2 and, by fostering the best element in them [591a] with the aid of the like in ourselves, have set up in its place a similar guardian and ruler in the child, and then, and then only, we leave it free."]

As pioneering mystics, we use Plato as our guide in spiritual nomenclature, naming these phases of the soul the appetitive soul, rational soul, and the Oversoul, corresponding to three phases of mind — the subconscious, conscious, and super-conscious. Aristotle later wrote Peri Psyches, better known in the Latin as De Anima, or On the Soul.

John Burnet further noted, "The Neoplatonists were quite justified in regarding themselves as the spiritual heirs of Pythagoras; and, in their hands, philosophy ceased to exist as such, and became theology. And this tendency was at work all along; hardly a single Greek philosopher was wholly uninfluenced by it."

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a scientist, materialist, and atheist who firmly believed in man's power of rational enquiry, in objective empirical knowledge, and in man's conflicting "drives" as the cause of his internal "disharmony." Although born into an observant Jewish family, as the grandson of an Hassidic Jew, Freud was more interested in materialistic philosophy. He later dropped philosophy and religion from his frame of reference, save as the whipping-boys for the ills of human society, along with any religious consideration of the soul.

Perhaps Freud did not consider Plato's discussion of the tripartite soul as being religious, but he was shrewd enough to use Plato's structure for his own theories of man's mind; further, he co-opted the Greek term psyche, using it to name his new field, psychoanalysis.

Freud renamed Plato's phases of the soul as the id/unconscious seat of all desires, the ego or rational mind, and the super-ego or spirited mind.

1) The Ego (or the 'I', das 'Ich') is our conscious self, on display in social situations. For Freud, it 'represents what we may call reason and common sense.'

Like the charioteer and his two horses in the Phaedrus, the Freudian ego is the rational part of the soul whose task is to reconcile the conflicting interests of both the superego and the id.

2) The Superego (or the 'Over-I', das' Uber-Ich') is the part of the self influenced by the conditioning of parents, educators and cultural trends. It intervenes in some of the ego's decisions as its moral conscience. The superego is a social construct shaped by an early identification with the father and his social values. This identification ordinarily turns into an outright rejection of paternal values at the time of adolescence.

The superego is the part of the self associated with ambition and social recognition and like Plato's Spirit, it is essentially about self-respect and self-image as illustrated in the story of Leontion in Book IV of 'The Republic' [439e-440a/b]. 3) The Id (or the 'It', das 'Es') is the unconscious, that 'dark, inaccessible part of our personality', full of seething passions and desires. For Freud, the unconscious mostly expresses itself through the symbolic language of dreams which both analyst and patient decipher together through the psychoanalytical process.

Plato is unique in his division of the human psyche into three components, also called the tripartite soul, and Freud copied him. Most classical philosophers, like Descartes, do not introduce a third component in their description of the psyche but divide it between the mind, considered as an immaterial substance and the seat of consciousness, and the body, associated with matter and sensory experience. https://blogs.osc-ib.com/2017/04/ib-student-blogs/plato-precursor-freud/

The History of Psychology

Plato's tripartite theory of the soul defined Western philosophy's subsequent views of the soul, and anticipated modern psychological proposals, such as Freud's id, ego and super-ego and libido; to the point that "in 1920, Freud decided to present Plato as the precursor of his own theory, as part of a strategy directed to define the scientific and cultural collocation of psychoanalysis".[13] Hellenistic philosophers (viz., the Stoics and Epicureans) diverged from the Classical Greek tradition in several important ways, especially in their concern with questions of the physiological basis of the mind.

Otto Rank