697. The sixth memorable occurrence. On one occasion I saw a strange aerial phenomenon not far from me. I saw a cloud that split into several little clouds, some of which were dark blue and some of which were black. I saw them apparently colliding with each other. Rays or bands of light shone through the clouds. At times these rays looked sharpened to a point. At other times they looked blunted like broken swords. At times the rays came at each other, and at other times they retreated, just as if they were boxing. The little clouds of different colors, then, seemed as if they were doing battle with each other, but in fact they were just playing.
Because this strange sight was not far away, I was able to look at the area beneath it. There I discerned teenagers, young adults, and older adults entering a building of white stone above and red stone below. The phenomenon was occurring in the air directly above this building.
I addressed one of the people going into the building and asked, "What is this place?"
"It is a hall," the person replied, "where young adults are initiated into various issues related to wisdom. "
[2] I then went in along with them. I was "in the spirit," that is, in the same state as the people of the spiritual world, who are known as spirits and angels.
In the hall I saw a lectern [on a stage] at the front of the room, benches in the middle of the room, seats all around at the sides, and a balcony above the entrance [at the back]. The lectern was for the young adults who would respond to the question for debate that would be posed for that occasion. The benches were for the audience. The seats at the side were for people who had given wise responses at similar events in the past. The balcony was for the elders who were the arbiters and judges of the event. In the middle of the balcony there was a platform where a wise man was sitting, whom they referred to as the senior professor. He was the one who would propose the question to which the young adults would respond from the lectern.
After all were gathered, the man on the platform stood up and said, "Respond now, if you would, to the following question and resolve it if you can: What is the soul and how do we experience it?"
[3] All were stunned to hear the question, and a murmur went through the crowd. Some members of the audience on the benches said, "From the Golden Age to our own, who among humans has ever been able to see and discern through rational thought what the soul is, let alone how we experience it? Isn't this beyond the reach of any intellect?"
The elders in the balcony responded, "This is not beyond the reach of the intellect but lies within its scope and purview. Just give your responses!"
Some young men stood up. They were the ones who had been selected that day to come up to the lectern and give their responses to whatever the question would be. There were five of them. An examination by the elders had identified them as particularly sharp-minded and capable. They sat down on padded chairs on either side of the lectern. Later on they got up in the same order in which they had sat down. When each speaker stood up to speak, he would first put on a silk vest that was opalescent in color, and over that a fine wool gown with flowers interwoven, and finally a hat, the top of which was covered in a floral wreath with a ringlet of tiny sapphires.
[4] I saw the first young man, clothed as just noted, going up to the lectern. He said, "What the soul is, and how we experience it, has not been revealed to anyone since the day of creation. It is a secret stored in the treasure-house of God alone. What has been disclosed is that the soul dwells within us like a queen. Where exactly she holds court is a topic on which learned authorities have made various conjectures. Some have thought that she sits in the little protuberance between the cerebrum and the cerebellum known as the pineal gland; they imagined this to be the seat of the soul because the entire person is governed through those two brains, and both brains are controlled by that little growth as it wishes; therefore it in effect controls the entire person from head to toe.
"This appeared either true," he added, "or at least plausible to many people in the world at the time, but in later times it was rejected as imaginary. "
[5] After he had spoken, he took off the gown, the vest, and the hat. The second selected speaker put them on and went up to the lectern. His pronouncement on the soul was as follows.
"Throughout all of heaven and the whole world, no one knows what the soul is or how we experience it. All that is known is that it exists, and exists within us; but where it resides is a matter of conjecture. This much is certain, however: it dwells in the head, since that is where the intellect does its thinking and where the will does its intending. The front surface of the head contains organs for all five senses. The thing that gives life to the will, the intellect, and the senses is the soul, which resides within the head. Where exactly her court is I would not dare to say, but I see the point of those who assign the seat of the soul to the three ventricles of the brain; at other times, I side with those who locate it in the striated body in the brain; at other times, I side with those who locate it in the medullary substances of either brain; at other times, I side with those who locate it in the cortical substance; and at still other times I side with those who assign it to the dura mater. There is no lack of white pebbles to vote for each of these locations.
"One could vote for the three ventricles of the brain because they are the vessels that hold the animal spirits and all the cerebral fluids. One could vote for the striated body because this forms the medulla out of which the nerves come forth and through which each brain is extended to form the spinal cord; the fibers that are woven together to form the entire body come out of the medulla and the spinal cord. One could vote for the medullary substance of each brain because this substance is a gathering place for, and a mass of, all the fibers that constitute the points of origin of the entire person. One could vote for the cortical substance because it contains the first and last ends and therefore the origins of all the fibers, both the sensory fibers and the motor fibers. One could vote for the dura mater because it is a common covering that surrounds both brains and through extensions covers the heart and the internal organs of the body. As for me, I'm not choosing any one of these over the other. I leave it to you to choose and decide, if you would, which theory you prefer. "
[6] After he had finished speaking he stepped down from the lectern and passed the vest, gown, and hat to the third speaker.
The third speaker stepped up behind the lectern and said the following.
"Who am I as a young man to tackle so sublime a proposition? I challenge the learned persons sitting here at the sides of the room, I challenge you, the wise who sit in the balcony, indeed I challenge the angels of the highest heaven to answer me this: Can any human beings ever from their own rational light form for themselves any idea of the soul?
"As for where the soul's seat is within us, I, like anyone else, can offer a conjecture. My opinion is that the soul is in the heart and the blood. This is my conjecture because the heart rules both the head and the body through the agency of the blood. The heart extends its largest blood vessel, known as the aorta, to transmit blood to the entire body, and the vessels called the carotid arteries to transmit blood to the entire head. There is universal consensus on the point that the soul acts from the heart through the blood to sustain, nourish, and give life to the entire organic system of both the head and the body. You will find further support for your confidence in what I'm saying in the fact that Sacred Scripture mentions the soul and the heart many times. For example, you are to love God with all your soul and with all your heart; and God creates in us a new soul and a new heart. See Deuteronomy 6:5; 10:12; 11:13; 26:16; Jeremiah 32:41; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30, 33; Luke 10:27; and elsewhere. We are openly told in Leviticus 17:11, 14 that the blood is the soul of the flesh. "
When he had finished, several shouted "Learned! Learned!" They were ministers.
[7] Then the fourth person put on the garments and stepped up to the lectern. "I too suspect that there is no one with mental faculties that are so fine-tuned and sharp as to be able to discern what the soul is and how we experience it. Therefore I am of the opinion that those who try to investigate the soul will find their mental edge worn down by years of fruitless research.
"Since I was young I have always shared the belief of the ancients that our soul is in everything throughout us; it is in every part. It is in the head, and everything it contains, and in the body, and everything it contains. It was a foolish invention on the part of recent writers to designate a seat for the soul in one particular area, rather than everywhere. For one thing, the soul is a spiritual substance; it fills us and dwells in us, but it cannot be said to have either extension or place. For another thing, surely when we say 'soul' we mean 'life'; and life is in the whole and in every part of us. "
Many in the auditorium agreed with what he said.
[8] Then the fifth speaker stood up. Wearing the same apparel as the others, he expressed from the lectern the following opinion.
"I shall not spend time discussing where the soul is, and whether it is in this or that part or everywhere within the whole. Instead, drawing from my own storehouse and treasure I will reveal my thinking on the topic of what the soul is and how we experience it. Everyone thinks of the soul as something pure that can be compared to ether, air, or wind, but possesses some of the rational life that distinguishes us from animals. I base this opinion on the fact that when we expire, we are said to breathe out or exhale our soul or spirit. As a result, the soul that lives on after death is believed to be a kind of breath with some type of life that is capable of thinking, and this life is called the soul. What else could the soul be? Nevertheless, I did hear those in the balcony who said that the question of what the soul is and how we experience it is not beyond the reach of the intellect, but lies within its scope and purview. I ask and pray therefore that you yourselves unveil this eternal mystery!"
[9] The elders in the balcony looked toward the senior professor who had originally proposed the question. He gathered from their nodding that they wanted him to go down and teach.
He immediately came down from his platform, passed through the auditorium, and stepped up to the lectern. Stretching out his hand, he said, "Listen, if you would, please. Surely everyone believes the soul is the inmost and subtlest essence within us; but what is an essence without a form? It is a figment of the imagination. Therefore the soul is a form. Let me say what kind of form it is: It is the form of all the components of love and all the components of wisdom. All the components of love are called desires; all the components of wisdom are called perceptions. These perceptions come from these desires; therefore they come together as a single form. Within that form there are countless individual things, but the design, arrangement, and close interaction of them allow them to be referred to as one thing. They can be called one thing because nothing can be taken away and nothing can be added without turning the whole into something different than it is.
"What else is the human soul but a form like this? All the components of love and all the components of wisdom are the essential elements of this form. In human beings, these components are present in the soul, and the soul makes them present in the head and the body.
[10] "You are called spirits and angels. In the world, you believed that spirits and angels were like pieces of wind or ether, and were therefore just higher or lower minds. Now, of course, you see clearly that you are truly, really, and actually human beings, who used to live and think inside a physical body in the material world. You knew then that the physical body has no life or thought; there was a spiritual substance that lived and thought within the body. You called this the soul. You did not know what form it took, however; but now you have seen your soul, and you are seeing it right now. You yourselves are all souls! You yourselves are the souls about whose immortality you have heard and thought and said and written such a great deal. Because you are forms of love and wisdom from God, to eternity you can never die. Therefore the soul is the human form; nothing can be taken away from it and nothing can be added to it. The soul is the inmost form of all the forms throughout the entire body. And because the forms that lie outside draw both their essence and their form from what lies within, therefore you are souls just the way you appear to yourselves and to us right now.
"Briefly put, the soul is the real person, because it is the deepest self. Therefore its form is fully and perfectly human. It is not, however, life; it is a nearby vessel that receives life from God, and is therefore a dwelling place for God. "
[11] Many applauded this statement of his; but some said, "We'll have to think about that. "
I then went home. To my surprise I saw that over the hall, where that strange aerial phenomenon had appeared earlier, there now appeared a white cloud that had no rays or bands of light fighting with each other. That cloud then came down through the roof of the hall itself and lit up the walls. I heard that the people there saw passages of Scripture on the walls, among which was this: "Jehovah God breathed the breath of lives into the human being's nostrils, and the human being turned into a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).
