In search of a soul

In search of a soul

An Anglican pastor, preaching an evening sermon, used the following incident to make the believers gathered for the service aware of the relation of temporal life to eternal life: at one moment a nocturnal bird swooped into the sanctuary through an open window. It circled the church several times, perched on a pillar for a moment, then flew back out the window.

The pastor compared the House of God with mortality, and the bird with the human soul. The bird flew in from the darkness, unbeknownst to him. He stayed in the temple for a small moment and – this moment, this short fragment of his life, is a temporal existence. But then the night visitor flew away, melted into the darkness and its further fate is shrouded in mystery.

What is hidden in this darkness? Where does the human soul reside before it is entangled in corporeal shackles, and later, when it is freed from these shackles? – Such a question has been asked by man since ancient times, and – unfortunately – he can not find the answer… However, he is constantly looking for a solution to this mystery, searching persistently, with a spark of hope in his heart that he will finally find a way to break through the veil hiding the mysterious world of the afterlife. And when this spark is extinguished, what follows is a terrible spiritual dilemma, which has already put a suicidal tool in the hand of many (in 1931, a student at Warsaw University committed suicide for these very reasons. “I want to know what it’s like on the other side” -were the words of the last letter. – Translator’s note).

Already in pre-historic times the question of spiritual life troubled the people of that time. This is evidenced by archaeological excavations, the oldest of which were discovered in the Gargas cave in the Pyrenees. These are wall paintings, dating back to the Middle Oriniac period (Paleolithic or Stone Age). The people of this period were engaged in hunting, which had a significant impact on man’s attitude towards spiritual phenomena. For while the agricultural people see that the phenomena around them are by no means dependent on them, but are determined by atmospheric and climatic changes, etc… while the hunter puts his success or failure in hunting down to chance, guided by certain mysterious causes. Man can cause these causes himself, and for this purpose certain magical procedures are used. Magic consists in the fact that man causes some cause, some effect, but between this cause and effect there is no logical knot. The well-known archaeologist of history and at the same time art historian Luguel supposes that the first magical procedures to cause some effect were hand movements. We know that also in today’s magic (and also in magnetism) hand movements play an essential role. Well, in the Gargas cave, white handprints were discovered on a red background, in various positions, intended to express certain magical procedures. It is extremely interesting that these hands are clearly mutilated. It would be very difficult to determine for what purpose the prehistoric magician mutilated his hands. were it not for the fact that even today, in many primitive peoples, artificial deformation of the hands is a condition, necessary for successful magical experimentation. Similarly, the mere knocking out of teeth (Bantu Negroes), deformation of the skull (Incas) are supposed to predispose certain people to perform magical procedures.