Eschatology is the study of the soul. Without delving into a
study of different kinds of spirits, suffice it to say that a simplistic
definition of a soul is that which persists after physical death. This is
hardly a complete definition and doesn’t speak to the nuances of the
relationship spirits have with souls. Another description of a soul might be
the spirit of a mortal being. This draws much nearer to the mark.
The Nature of Souls
Souls are the immortal essence of beings often associated with
mortal beings but also including immortal entities such as spirits. Dissecting
this, it is immediately apparent that souls do not die, but that is because
they are not alive in the first place. Like spirits, they simply are. This has
the unfortunate implication that they can, just as a house or a hill, cease to
be. Less obvious is the similarity between spirits and souls. Indeed, it can be
said that spirits are souls. This
will be further explored in Pneumatology. Lastly, note that souls are associated
with mortal beings, meaning that mortal beings have an immortal nature and a mortal nature. When a mortal dies,
his body is gone, but the soul continues to exist in some form. That form will
be further discussed later.
For the purposes of eschatology, we will limit our concern to the
mortal soul. This soul is of particular interest because we are ourselves
mortal, and our studies can teach us much of our own lives and what awaits us
beyond death. So it is, that we will begin our discussion of the soul by discussing
its three constituent parts: the agni,
ap, and vayu. Each of these is
present in different degrees in all souls. The development and/or dominance of
any one of these parts has a profound impact on the creature possessed of it.
Let us examine each in turn:
The Agni
Every soul contains an animating spark that causes its existence.
This is the agni. This soulfire is
what provides the energies of life necessary for health, growth, development,
action, and procreation. It stems directly from Ananta, the collective spirit
of creation, and through the agni, each and every soul in the universe is
connected to her. Thus it is within the agni that what Saint Bernhardt the
Lesser called the soul portal exists.
As mentioned above, the agni is what animates, so it stands to
reason that as health fades, so too does the agni dim until it is extinguished
in death. But I hear you exclaim, “Earlier you said the soul cannot die!” You
are correct. The agni neither dies nor is unmade in death. It is siphoned
through the soul portal and rejoined in full with Ananta. So it is that the
death of the mortal restores his life force to that of the universe.
But what of the agni in life? It resides within a head of animals
and within the roots of plants. This is why decapitation is so lethal; it
severs the agni from the remainder of the soul, removing the animating force
that bound the body to this mortal coil. With nothing to do, the agni turns
inward and slips through itself into Ananta.
Souls rich with agni are healthy, vigorous, active, and potent.
They tend to grow larger, create many offspring, and promote fiercely
charismatic personalities. The agni is also associated with the color red,
dancing, fire and warmth.
The Ap
The base part of a soul that drives survival instincts exists
within every soul. This is the ap. It
is the base partner in the eschatological triumvirate and drives behaviors
required for survival and proliferation: consuming, resting, copulating, and
violence for self-preservation. This is what drives plants to grow toward
sunlight, panthers to hunt, and rabbits to breed. Unlike the agni, the ap is
completely separated from Ananta because it has the single job of opposing her
call to the agni to return home. The ap drives survival and binds the agni to
the body.
While every soul has an ap, not every ap is equally developed.
Those of vegetable souls remains vestigial and provides just enough impetus to
drive vines to climb, flowers to blossom, roots to seek nutrients and water,
etc. Animals are different. They are driven by their ap, which is why the ap is
often called the animalistic soul. In humans, the ap is somewhat every bit as
strong as in animals, but another part of the soul, the vayu, dominates most people.
The ap resides in the livers of animals and the main bodies of
plants. This can be most clearly seen by the swelling of the liver of those who
drink to excess. The liver is gorged, strengthening the ap, and driving the
often violent and bestial behavior of drunks. Similarly, those who take serious
injury to the liver die quickly because their ap is damaged and no longer holds
the agni captive.
Souls rich with ap are bestial, crude, passionate, violent,
gluttonous, selfish, driven, lustful, and visceral. The ap is also associated
with the colors yellow and green, drunkenness, grapes, physical combat, and
sex.
The Vayu
The intellectual constituent of the soul that provides reason,
thought, knowledge, and memories is called the vayu. A strong vayu drives curiosity, cleverness, creativity,
exploration, logic, and reason, and it serves to direct and sometimes restrain
the ap, usually for the ultimate purpose of survival. A well-guided ap is a
dangerous thing, which is why canny predators like wolves and panthers are so
feared. But even plants contain some rudimentary vayu that tells it which
direction to lean and where to push roots toward.
Even fewer beings have a developed vayu than do a developed ap,
but that doesn’t preclude the simplest entities from having basal thoughts. A
tree’s vayu directs its roots downward to anchor it in place and its leaves
upward and outward to catch the sun’s warmth. The vayus of animals are stronger
still. These provide both the ancestral memory of instinct and the canniness to
either track and hunt prey or avoid and flee predators. Indeed, many animals
are surprisingly – and often annoyingly – adept at solving puzzles associated
with living with humans. Finally, the vayus of people are extremely developed,
providing us all with the capability of reason and synthesis. Most people are
dominated by their vayu.
The vayu finds the heart as its vessel as evidenced by its
inexorable rhythm in the face of all adversity. Like the vayu, the heart is not
overwhelmed by circumstances. It has a job to do and it does it. This leads to
such sayings as “he has heart” to mean he can drive himself to exceed the
limitations of the agni and the demands of the ap.
Souls with a strong vayu tend to be cold, removed, remorseless,
and calculating. They are the inexorable logic that acts with little emotion. The
vayu is associated with the color blue, lanterns, reading, owls, snakes,
writing.
Personality
It is tempting to say that a person’s personality resides within
his vayu, but that does not account for the unavoidable way animals display
personalities of their own, and how some plants even respond differently to
different people tending them. This suggests that personality arises from the
combination of agni, ap, and vayu. Where the vayu dominates, creatures and
people are contemplative, mindful, and observant, but when the ap dominates,
they are mercurial, defensive, aggressive, etc. The agni tends to affect a
person’s enthusiasm, extrovertedness, likeability, and so on.
Where two aspects of the soul are in conflict, subtler feelings,
like ambivalence, anxiety, guilt, melancholy, and shame, emerge. Indeed, most
complex emotions result from a mixing of responses from different parts of the
soul. And since a personality is a conglomeration of thought patterns and
emotional responses, the personality must not emanate from any one constituent
piece, but rather the whole.
The Origin of Souls
It is often of value to know the origin of something when trying
to understand what it is. So next we will consider from where souls originate –
Ananta. The entirety of existence is suffused with an all-reaching spirit known
as Ananta. Often personified as a female, she is the collective soul from which
all other souls originate and in whom all souls share. That is to say, all
souls are part of Ananta, and she a part of them.
When a child is conceived, it shares in its mother’s soul until
birth. So it is that a healthy mother produces a healthy child, but a sickly
mother produces a weak baby. If the child is miscarried, the mother’s soul is wounded,
but nothing is lost aside from some flesh. But if the child survives to child
birth, its first breath inhales a fragment of Ananta, and this becomes its
soul. This newborn soul consists of agni, ap, and vayu in the proportions
normal to such a creature.
From this, we see that from our first moments of life, we are
connected to the ubiquitous spirit of creation, and that we are all invested
with the same potential for growth. Moreover, the piece of Ananta that enters a
newborn carries with it fragments of its past lives that survived death and
rejoining with the collective soul. Mystics often sensitize themselves to these
experiences through meditation and seek answers and guidance in them.
Death and the Release of Souls
Knowledge of the origin of souls is still half of the story.
Where souls go when someone dies is also an eschatological question. While stories
of final rewards and punishments abound, those who have studies the ways of the
soul generally agree that upon death a few things happen. The soul is released
from the body with the final breath; the agni immediately tries to rejoin
Ananta; and the vayu forcibly carries the ap to reunite with Ananta. Once the ap
is reabsorbed into the collective spirit, the vayu passes to the Akashic
Library where it deposits all that it has learned before mingling itself with
Ananta until such a time as it can be reborn into a new life.
This process is fragile and can go wrong. Sometimes the agni does
not rejoin the world spirit, leading to mindless, animated corpses. Other
times, the vayu cannot wrest the ap from the mortal world, resulting in particularly
vicious haunts. Other times, only the vayu exits the body, creating hungry
undead. And still other times, the entire soul discorporates to become a ghost.
The possibilities go on and on, but flaws in the process of death are the
primary source of undead in the world. It’s also worth noting that it is
through the reabsorption of souls that demons slowly taint Ananta.
These flaws are easily avoided, and are the purpose of psychopomps.
If even the death spirits cannot shepherd a soul back to Ananta, mystics and
priests can assist by shriving the spirit, and in extreme cases, exorcising it.
And if none of these work, the spirit can even be forcibly dispersed through magic
or spiritual intervention.
What's Next?
Now that we know more about souls and have an understanding about how they relate to each other and the world spirit Ananta, we can begin to consider what sorts of mystical supernatural powers may arise from this. These will be built using GURPS Powers and while resembling
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