The Evolution of the Soul
William Samuel Sadler, M. D., F. A. P. A., the well-known psychiatrist of Chicago, is a native of Indiana. For thirty-five years he has practiced his profession in Chicago, for thirty-three of those years being associated with his wife, the late Dr. Lena K. Sadler.
Dr. Sadler was originally trained in surgery but, following the first World War, gave up its practice and has since devoted himself entirely to psychiatry.
The Doctor was formerly professor at the Post-Graduate Medical School of Chicago; is now director and chief psychiatrist of the Chicago Institute of Research and Diagnosis; consulting psychiatrist Columbus Hospital; consultant in psychiatry to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation; and for the past twelve years has been professor of pastoral psychiatry at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Chicago. Dr. Sadler was a pioneer in interesting ministers in improving their work of personal counselling through profiting by the experience of psychiatric practice.
Dr. Sadler was a pioneer lecturer before the old-time larger Chautauqua assemblies, where, twenty-five or thirty years ago, he introduced the modern concepts of mental medicine. For many years every Tuesday, from October to May, has been given over to teaching at the Chicago Institute. Lecture-clinics are conducted for physicians, ministers, and the laity. These clinics cover the entire field of psychiatry or mental medicine, or, as Dr. Sadler likes to term it, "personology."
The Doctor has written more than a score of books, being the author of such psychiatric Works as: "Theory and Practice of Psychiatry," "Psychiatric Nursing," "The Mind at Mischief," "Growing Out of Babyhood," "Piloting Modern Youth," "The Quest for Happiness," etc.
The Doctor is a Fellow of the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the American Psychopathological Association, and numerous other allied medical societies and scientific bodies.
Both by his writings and through his lectures, the Doctor has been a consistent advocate of broad and rational principles of psychiatry and was among those American psychiatrists who early placed emphasis upon the importance of the preventive aspects of mental hygiene.
The fact that the Doctor appears on this program to lecture on the "Evolution of the Soul" is sufficient to indicate that he does not adhere to those schools of psychiatry which are purely mechanistic or wholly materialistic. The Doctor's large professional experience coupled with his broad and non-mechanistic views of psychology and psychiatry, should guarantee that his discussion of the soul will recognize its spiritual aspects as well as its more scientific connotations.
Dr. William S. Sadler Lecture
Lecture on the William F. Ayres Foundation by William S. Sadler, M. D., F. A. P. A., Director and Chief Psychiatrist of the Chicago Institute of Research and Diagnosis, Plymouth Congregational Church, Lansing, Michigan, November 18, 1941.
While science may essay to grapple with the problems of organic evolution, the idea of the soul is a metaphysical concept. The soul is not a subject for scientific investigation, therefore must our approach on this occasion be that of philosophy, albeit we should not hesitate to call upon biology, psychology, and even psychiatry to contribute anything possible to the fuller elucidation and a better understanding of our theme.
In the preparation of this discussion, I have arranged the presentation under the following subdivisions:
- Definition of terms
- What is personality?
- The popular concept of the soul
- Historical
- The evolution of the soul
- Mind and spirit
- The emergent soul
- The nature of the soul
- The destiny of the soul
The human soul, at least during our temporal life, does not exist as an entity apart from man's other endowments and equipment of body, mind, and spirit. It will, therefore, be helpful in our study of the soul, if we pause to fully define our concept of these other components of human being—those factors of personality with which the soul is so intimately associated.
1. DEFINITION OF TERMS
- BODY. The material or physical organism. The physical structure of man; the material part or nature of man as contrasted with the mind. Man's body is composed of living cells—in number estimated at from 10 to 12 trillion. These myriads of cells are organized into differentiated tissues composing the various "systems," such as the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems. The human brain with its two associated nervous systems consists of no less than 10 billion individual living cells.
- MIND. That part of the human organism which feels, perceives, and thinks. The intellectual nature of man as contrasted with the physical. Strictly speaking, mind does not embrace either the emotions or the will. Mind is the sum total of those human activities by means of which man responds as an integrated and dynamic organism to external forces or internal stimuli of idea-association or emotional impulse. Mind represents man's organized totality of conscious and unconscious (subconscious) experience at any moment as related to his memory of the past and his attitude toward the future. Mind is often used synonymously with intellect.
Mind is also used as a synonym of PSYCHE. The idea of the psyche has ranged from the "principle of life" to the soul" and even to the "spirit" of man. More recently its scope has been limited to the entirety of the nonphysical experience--the mind in every phase of activity plus the emotional nature and its associated endocrine functions. This concept regards mind as an "organ"--one of the numerous organs or systems comprising the human organism.
Mind function is not limited to the brain; it embraces the activities of all the master tissues, the brain and all of both nervous systems—the cerebrospinal and the vegetative. But the brain does not secrete thought as the stomach secretes gastric juice. The brain and associated nervous systems is an organ which mind functions somewhat as a pianist plays a piano.
I view mind as functioning in three phases, or on three levels: the "conscious" or ordinary domain of awareness, and the realms of the "unconscious" — embracing both the subconscious and the superconscious. The subconscious comprises the biologic reservoir of latent memory and constitutes the arena of the dream-world. The superconscious is the higher level of man's idealistic thinking and in its highest reaches impinges upon the spiritual level of human experience.
- SPIRIT. Many nonmechanists look upon man as consisting of three parts—body, mind, and spirit. Mind and body represent man's material equipment — his biological inheritance his evolutionary acquirement. Man's spirit is a divine endowment the gift of God. We read in Job 32:8 "But there is a spirit in man : and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."
This spirit gift is not a part of man's biologic nature; it is a divine bestowal. Perhaps it is because of this spirit endowment that man can be said to have been made "in the image of God." This Spirit Monitor comes to indwell the mind of man at the hour of the completed emergence of his moral nature—that moment in human development when man becomes a moral being—a free-will creature having the power to choose between right and wrong, between good and evil, and the arrival of this Spirit Monitor signalizes the birth of conscience. And this conscience which tells the mind always to do right, but never what is right, is the child of material mind evolution and not as the poet exclaimed: "The voice of God to the soul."
This spirit endowment of the human being is not a personal entity; normal man is not a double personality—part material and part spiritual. This spirit gift is a pre-personal fragment of the living God; it is the Divine Presence. The Apostle Paul discerned this truth when he alluded to man's body as being "the temple of the Holy Spirit."
This indwelling spirit journeys through life with us, ever seeking to augment our spiritual insight and lead us into the appreciation of higher cosmic meanings and the realization of enhanced spiritual values. And when our life race has been run in temporal form—when the mortal life is to end—"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Eccl. 12:7.
2. WHAT IS PERSONALITY?
Personality is the sum total of man's equipment and experience; it is the totality of all that man is and does. Since I look upon man as being endowed with a gift of divine spirit, you could hardly expect that I would attempt to define personality. Frankly, personality baffles me. I observe personality to function upon six levels—the physical, the intellectual, the emotional, the social, the moral, and the spiritual, but when I put all of these activities with their characteristics of attitude, motivation, and behavior, together—when I add them up, I find in the resultant totality of personality so much that was not observably preexistent in these component factors, that I am inclined to become a Gestaltist and conclude that parts derive their meaning from the whole—that the whole is something more than the sum of its parts.
Personality cannot be defined because it is UNIQUE not only that each individual is a unique personality, but that selfsame individual is likewise unique at each moment of his mortal existence. Personality is something which is relatively free from the domination of the otherwise universal law of antecedent causation.
We commonly speak of thinking, feeling, choosing, loving, hating, and acting, but we actually know little or nothing about such phenomena. What we are really talking about is the PERSON who does any or all of such things.
While not attempting to define personality as such, I would offer various suggestive definitions of personality as we observe it functioning on the six levels already referred to.
- The physical level. The general physical appearance—expression, stature, posture, voice, hair, smile, and even the attire. Health—charm. "It." The sum total of one's physical endowments. The biologic domain of physiology and anatomy.
- The intellectual level. Self-consciousness -- memory and imagination. The ability to know—understanding and insight. Reason, reflection, and judgment. Originality. The sum total of innate and acquired dispositions, impulses, tendencies, and propensities. The "dynamic organization within the individual of these psycho-physical systems which determine man's unique adjustment to his environment." The domain of psychology.
- The emotional level. The province of the emotional life. The challenge of self-control. The temperamental aspects of behavior as exemplified in introversion and extraversion. Vivacity and enthusiasm. Courage and forcefulness. The sense of humor. Love and hate. The far-flung emotional and sentimental life. The domain of endocrinology—the ductless glands.
- The social level. Tact, adaptability, and co-operation. Fairness, kindness, and tolerance. Leadership. Urbanity—even the handshake. The total social stimulus value of an individual. The domain of sociology.
- The moral level. The appreciation of the supreme values of selfhood. The realization of the worthwhileness of human life. A philosophy of life. Stamina, honesty, and endurance. Conscientiousness. On this level wisdom is attained and character is developed. The sum total of the moral worth of an individual. The domain of philosophy.
- The spiritual level. The ideal of the perfect. Idealism and altruism. Friendship. The reverence of truth, beauty, and goodness. Cosmic insight—universe citizenship. Worship—God-consciousness. The idea of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The sum total of man's spiritual attainment, actual religious experience. The domain of religion and theology. Other factors embraced in personality are: our habits and habitual trends. Interests and tastes. Our wishes and longings. Our fears and anxieties. Our established behavior patterns. WILL is a function of total personality.
The term SELF is hardly a synonym of personality, and the conception of the EGO is still more restricted. The self refers more to the totality of the subjective consciousness—consciousness of our continuing and functioning identity — the awareness of personality.
We have concerned ourselves with all of this discussion of body, mind, spirit, and even personality without having once alluded to the title and subject of this paper—"The Evolution of the Soul." So far we have hardly made mention of the SOUL. Our purpose in thus handling the subject is to create a proper "frame" for the further full and extensive discussion of the human soul -- its origin, nature, evolution, and eternal destiny.
3. THE POPULAR CONCEPT OF THE SOUL
In popular usage soul is used synonymously with mind and interchangeably with spirit. Spirit is sometimes used to denote a "disembodied soul." The soul is very generally conceived as being the immortal or surviving part of man. Jung postulates an inner and outer personality and calls the inner the soul or anima.
Webster gives three definitions of the soul, as follows:
- Man's moral and emotional nature as distinguished from his intellect; as a man with more soul than brains; hence, expression which effectively presents or arouses emotion and sentiment.
- The seat of real life, vitality, or action; the animating or essential part; the vital principle actuating anything.
- An entity conceived as the essence, substance, animating principle, or actuating cause of life, or of the individual life, especially of life manifested in psychical activities; the vehicle of individual existence, separate in nature from the body and usually held to be separable in existence.
The present-day concept of the soul is hazy, indefinite, and ranges from the idea of being synonymous with the psyche to that of a disembodied spirit. It will later appear that my concept of the soul is something very precise and definite and in no way akin to these popular conceptions or dictionary definitions.
4. HISTORICAL
In the conception of the atman the Hindu teachers really approximated the idea of man's being indwelt by a divine spirit despite their failure to perceive the personality continuity of the soul beyond death. The Chinese recognized two aspects of human personality, the yang and the yin, the soul and the spirit. The Egyptians and many African tribes believed in two factors of personality, the ka and the ba. The soul was not usually believed to be pre-existent, only the spirit.
The inhabitants of the Nile Valley believed that each favored individual had bestowed upon him at birth, or soon thereafter, a protecting spirit which they called the ka. They taught that this guardian spirit remained with the mortal subject throughout life and passed on before him into the future estate. On the walls of a temple at Luxor, where is depicted the birth of Amenhotep III, the little prince is pictured on the arm of the Nile-god, and near him is another child, in appearance identical with the prince, which is a symbol of that entity which the Egyptians called the ka. This sculpture w completed in the fifteenth century B.C.
The ka was thought to be a superior spirit genius which desired to guide the associated mortal soul into the better paths of temporal living but more especially to influence the fortunes of the human subject in the hereafter. When an Egyptian of this period died, it was expected that his ka would be waiting for him on the other side of the Great River. At first, only kings were supposed to have ka's, but presently all righteous men were believed to possess them.
Every race of humankind has a word equivalent to the concept of soul. Many primitive peoples believed the soul looked out upon the world through human eyes; therefore, did they so cravenly fear the malevolence of the "evil eye." They have long believed that "the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord." The Rig-Veda says: "My mind speaks to my heart."
Many primitive tribes believed that both plants and animals have souls. From time immemorial the soul has been associated with the breath. Even the Old Testament carries this connotation, saying: "And 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." Gen. 2:7.
The theologians have variously taught that the soul is a divine endowment which is bestowed at conception, at birth, at baptism, or at conversion—the new birth.
The ancients located the soul in various bodily organs—the eye, the liver, the heart, or the brain. Some thought it resided in the blood. In the doctrine of reincarnation it is the soul that returns to earth to live again in some new bodily form—either animal or human. The theosophical concept of the soul regards it as including all of man's nonmaterial nature—a "fragment of consciousness—God." But they likewise attach the same idea to every living thing.
The soul has been associated with the fiery flame and also with the shadow of the body. The Greeks connected the soul with the self and the Jews with the life. It has also been associated with the reflections of the self in water. Some modern psychologists and psychiatrists, when not viewing the soul as a mere superstition, have associated it with the bizarre activities of the subconscious mind.
Many of the oriental as well as some of the occidental faiths have perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as animal in origin. The feeling of the inner presence in addition to belief in the external omnipresence of Deity has long formed a part of many world religions. Men have also long believed that there is something growing within the human being, something personal that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life.
Having thus defined the various terms used to designate man and his diversified equipment for functioning during his lifetime in the flesh, and after this brief review of the views of the soul as held by various primitive tribes and present-day peoples, we may proceed with the study of the evolution of the soul as this speaker views it.
5. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL
I was much intrigued by the discovery of a Foundation whose purpose was to provide for the annual discussion of such a theme as "The Evolution of the Soul." And I gladly assented to give this, the seventeenth address, because I happen to entertain the belief that the soul of man does literally evolve. I do not conceive that the soul is an innate part of man's original selfhood. I do not believe that the soul is a supernatural endowment which the Gods bestow upon man at any time of life or for any reason. I hold that the soul is entirely separate from both mind and spirit and that it actually evolves within man during his temporal lifetime, and that under certain conditions—in response to man's choice of will—this evolving soul may attain such a spiritual identity and achieve such a cosmic value as to possess itself of survival qualities and thus be able to defy mortal death and proceed to the enjoyment of life everlasting.
In brief, my thesis is this: Man has a natural, material, mortal mind which has evolved to the status of moral choosing. Man is indwelt by a Spirit Monitor—a fragment of the eternal God. Mortal man, by choosing to achieve his ideals, may become God-conscious and can therefore choose to "do the will of the Father in Heaven." Such an act of human will places the material mind in partial subjection to the indwelling and immortal spirit.
This indwelling and divine spirit presently becomes the father of a new reality in human personality; the mortal mind is the mother of this same emerging reality value—the embryonic immortal soul. And this soul is a new substance; it is neither material nor spiritual during these early days of its evolution in human experience. But this soul is destined to grow and evolve until in the future state it finally attains such a near approach to the spiritual that it eternally fuses with its spirit progenitor. Thus does the identity of the two become as one, and such a spirit-fused being, man's immortal soul, already having survived death, attains eternal life, and embarks upon the long, long adventure of finding God while constantly striving to become more and more like Him. And all of this is but the continuing attempt to obey the Master's admonition: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matt. 5:48. I am sure, if we mortals are in any sense going to achieve such divine perfection, that we will most assuredly need an eternal life in which to attain such levels of spiritual development.
Though the mission of our indwelling Spirit Monitors is spiritual in nature, they must, perforce, do all their work upon an intellectual foundation. Mind is the human soil from which the Spirit Monitor must evolve the immortal soul with the cooperation of the choosing will of the indwelt personality. Mind is the mediator between the material self and the Spiritual Presence—between matter and spirit.
There is a cosmic unity in the diverse mind levels of the universal intelligence. Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space. On the human level of intellectuality the potential of spirit evolution becomes dominant with the consent of the mortal mind, the human WILL, because the human personality is endowed with the creative presence of an entity-point of absolute value—the bestowed Spirit Monitor. But such a spirit dominance of the material mind is conditioned upon two experiences: This mind must have evolved to the status of moral dignity, and the material self must choose to co-operate with the indwelling spirit in this amazing partnership undertaking of creating and fostering an evolving soul.
Mind is the arena in which material creatures live, are self-conscious, make decisions, choose God or forsake Him, and eternalize or destroy themselves. Evolutionary mind, apart from spirit, can never become an eternal personality; the Spirit Monitor, apart from creature mind, cannot achieve our concept of personality.
Material evolution has provided us with a life mechanism, our bodies; the Universal Father Himself has endowed us with the purest spirit reality known in the universe—a fragment of Himself. But into our own hands, subject to our decisions, has been given mind, and it is by mind that we choose to live or die. It is within this mind and with this mind that we make those moral decisions and spiritual choices which enable us to achieve spirit-likeness, and spirit-likeness is God-likeness.
Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is all we have of universe reality that is subject to our wills, and the emerging soul will surely embody and faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical physical mechanism below and delicately impinges upon the bestowed spirit energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious during his mortal life; therefore must he work quite exclusively in and with mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures eternal survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is markedly conscious of God as that man sincerely yearns for God, that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and what you are destined to be in the great beyond.
Mind is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, or upon which this same human will can bring forth the exquisite melodies of God-identification and consequent eternal survival. The Spirit Monitor which is bestowed upon man is, in the last analysis, impervious to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal mind can actually be twisted, distorted, and rendered evil and ugly by the sinful machinations of a perverse human will. Likewise can this mind be made noble, beautiful, true, and good—actually great—in accordance with the spiritually dominant will of a God-knowing human being.
But man does not passively, slavishly, surrender his will to the guidance of the indwelling spirit. Rather does he actively, positively, and co-operatively choose to follow the spirit's leading when such leading consciously differs with the desires and impulses of the material self. The spirit manipulates but never dominates man's mind against his will; to the spirit the human will is supreme and sovereign.
Mind is your ship, the spirit is your pilot, the human will is captain. The master of the mortal vessel should have the wisdom to trust the divine pilot to guide the evolving and ascending soul into the heavenly harbors of eternal safety and cosmic survival. Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected wisdom or upon the concealed rocks of embraced sin. With your consent, this faithful pilot will safely carry you across the barriers of time and the handicaps of space to the very source of the divine mind and even beyond to the Paradise Father of these bestowed spirits of mortal indwelling.
6. MIND AND SPIRIT
The material mind of mortal man is the cosmic loom that carries the soul fabrics on which the indwelling Spirit Monitor weaves the spirit patterns of a universe character of enduring values and divine meanings—a surviving personality of ultimate destiny and unending career, a potential Eternaliter.
The human personality consists of mind and spirit held together by life in functional relationship to a material body. The cooperative working union of mind and spirit does not result in some combination of the qualities or attributes of this mind and this spirit but rather in an entirely new, original, and unique universe value of potentially eternal endurance, the emergent soul.
There are three and not two factors in the evolutionary creation of such an immortal soul. These three antecedents of the evolving human soul are:
- The human mind and all cosmic influences antecedent thereto and impinging thereon.
- The divine spirit indwelling this human mind and all potentials inherent in such a fragment of absolute spirituality together with all associated spiritual influences and factors in human life.
- The relationship between material mind and divine spirit, which connotes a value and carries a meaning not found in either of the contributing factors to such an association. The reality of this unique relationship is neither material nor spiritual but something in between—a sort of transition or cosmic mid-reality. And in consequence of the continued and coordinated ministry of this mind-spirit partnership of the human and the divine, there is experienced the progressive evolution of the immortal soul.
This supernal transaction of evolving the immortal soul is made possible because the mortal human mind is in contact with superanimal realities; it possesses a super-material endowment of cosmic ministry which insures the evolution of a moral nature capable of making moral decisions, thereby effecting a bona fide creative contact with its associated spiritual ministries, and with the indwelling Spirit Monitor.
The inevitable result, of such a contactual spiritualization of the human mind is the gradual birth of the soul, the joint offspring of the material mind, dominated by a human will that craves to know God, working in liaison with the spiritual endowments of the human being which are under the over-control of an actual fragment of the very God of all creation. And thus the material and mortal reality of selfhood transcends the temporal limits of the physical life machine and attains a new expression of spiritual identification in the evolving vehicle for selfhood continuity, the emerging immortal soul.
7. THE EMERGENT SOUL
The mistakes of mortal mind and the errors of human conduct may markedly delay the evolution of the soul, but they cannot inhibit such an evolutionary phenomenon when once it has been initiated by the indwelling Spirit Monitor with the cooperation of its associated mind and with the consent of the creature will. But at any time prior to mortal death this same material and human will is empowered to rescind such a choice and to reject survival.
At any time before eternal fusion with the Spirit Monitor, the mind-soul of the evolving and ascending creature can choose to forsake the doing of the will of the Heavenly Father. Fusion with the Spirit Monitor signalizes the fact that the emergent soul has eternally and unreservedly chosen to do the Father's will with a finality of choice that, is tantamount to irrevocability.
But the soul does not make final decisions until it is fully divorced from material association with the mortal mind except when and as this material mind delegates such authority freely and willingly to such an evolving soul. During the mortal life the will of the self, the human power of decision-choice, is resident in the material mind; as terrestrial mortal growth proceeds, this self, with its priceless powers of eternal choice, becomes increasingly identified with the emerging soul entity; after death the surviving self is completely identified with the evolved soul and its associated spirit.
The soul partakes of the qualities of both the human mind and the divine spirit but persistently evolves toward augmentation of spirit control and divine dominance through the evolution of a mind function that is increasingly co-ordinate with true spirit values. But this evolving soul of potential Eternaliter destiny is neither material nor spiritual; though it is the child of the human mind and the divine spirit, it appears as a new type of universe personality-reality.
The immortal soul is not just a synthesis of the ancestral material mind and the antecedent Spirit Monitor. The surviving soul is something more than a material mortal plus a Spirit Monitor. No universe creature can forecast the eternal destiny of a fragment of Absolute Deity united to the perfected surviving personality of a finite creature of time—a son of the Universal Father—a child of the living God.
Many of the concepts embraced within this presentation of my theory of the evolution of the human soul are not original* [*In the case of some of my "borrowed" concepts which are unpublished, I desired to give credit to the original sources. While permission to make use of this material was granted, the request to accord acknowledgment was denied.] ]with me, but I have deemed it best not to encumber this discussion with numerous quotations, citations, and acknowledgments.
8. THE NATURE OF THE SOUL
Throughout the mind functions of cosmic intelligence, the totality of mind is dominant over the parts of intellectual function. Mind, in its essence, is functional unity; therefore does mind never fail to manifest this constitutive unity, even when hampered and hindered by the unwise actions and choices of a misguided self. And this unity of mind invariably seeks for spirit co-ordination on all levels of its association with selves of will dignity and survival prerogatives.
The material self, the ego-entity of human identity, is dependent during the physical existence on the continuing function of the material life vehicle, on the continued functioning of that unbalanced equilibrium of energies and intellect which has been given the name life. But selfhood of survival value, selfhood that can transcend the experience of death, is only evolved by establishing a potential transfer of the identity of the material self from the transient life machine—the material body—to the more enduring and immortal nature of the emergent soul and on beyond to those levels whereon the soul becomes infused with, and eventually attains the status of, true spirit reality.
This supernal act of making the transfer of the mortal self from material association and death to spirit identification and life is effected by the sincerity, persistence, and steadfastness of the God-seeking decisions of the human candidate for eternal life. The act of the creature's choosing to do the will of the Creator is a cosmic value and has a universal meaning which is immediately reacted to by some unrevealed but creative and potent spiritual force. And in human experience the consequence of this repercussion is the genesis and evolution of man the future out of man the present, the birth and beginning emergence of the immortal soul.
The motivation of faith makes experiential the full realization of man's sonship with God, but action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive identity with cosmic actuality. Faith transmutes potentials to actuals in the spiritual world, but potentials become actuals in our finite realms only by and through the realization of choice-experience. But choosing to do the will of God joins spiritual faith to material decisions in personality action, and thus supplies a divine and spiritual fulcrum for the more effective functioning of the human and material leverage of God-hunger and God-choosing.
When the development of the intellectual nature proceeds faster than that of the spiritual, such a situation renders partial communication with the Spirit Monitor both difficult and dangerous. Likewise, over-spiritual development tends to produce a fanatical and perverted interpretation of the spirit leadings of the Divine Indweller. Lack of spiritual capacity makes it very difficult to transmit to a material intellect the spiritual values resident in the higher super-consciousness. It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function—when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development—that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted to the material mind with but a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a human being.
9. THE DESTINY OF THE SOUL
Man's soul evolves from a material beginning to supernal cosmic heights and to an eternal spiritual destiny. And while such an emergent soul may pass through an infancy and immature youth—may indeed have once been a "toddler"--it can never become old and senile. Souls do not grow old and deteriorate—they are made of "better substance."
Eternal survival is wholly dependent on the divinity concept of the mortal mind and on the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering spirit, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the potential, and insures the possibility, of the inception, growth, and survival of the immortal soul.
The ability of human parents to procreate is not predicated on their educational, cultural, social, or economic status. The union of the parental factors under natural conditions is quite sufficient to initiate offspring. A human mind discerning right and wrong and possessing the capacity to worship God, in working union with the indwelling divine spirit, is all that is required in that mortal to initiate and foster the production of his immortal soul of survival qualities—if such a spirit-endowed individual seeks God and sincerely desires to become like I-lini, honestly elects "to do the will of the Father in heaven."
The mortal career, the soul's evolution, is not so much a probation as an education. Faith in the survival of supreme values is the core of religion; genuine religious experience consists in the union of supreme values and cosmic meanings as a realization of universal and divine reality.
Insofar as man's evolving soul becomes permeated by truth, beauty, and goodness as the value-realization of God-consciousness, such a resultant personality becomes indestructible. If there is no survival of eternal values in the evolving soul of man, our mortal" existence is devoid of meaning, and life itself is but a tragic illusion.
After death the material body returns to the elemental world from which it was derived, but two nonmaterial factors of surviving personality persist: The preexistent spirit, with the memory transcription of the mortal career, and the surviving immortal soul with its possession of personality identity. These phases and forms of reality, these once kinetic but now static formulas of identity, are essential to repersonalization on the spirit worlds; and it is the reunion of the divine spirit and the immortal soul that reassembles the surviving personality, that reconsciousizes you at the time of your cosmic awakening subsequent to the death-transit.
The great goal of human existence is to attune to the divinity of the indwelling spirit; the great achievement of mortal life is the attainment of a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine spirit who waits and works within our minds. But a devoted and determined effort to realize eternal destiny is wholly compatible with a light-hearted and joyous life, with a successful and honorable career on earth. Cooperation with the divine spirit does not entail self-torture, mock piety, or hypocritical and ostentatious self-abasement; the ideal life is one of loving service rather than an existence of fearful apprehension.
When the evolving soul and the divine spirit are finally and eternally fused, each gains all of the experienceable qualities of the other. This co-ordinate personality possesses all of the experiential memory once held by the ancestral mortal mind and now resident in the emerging soul, and in addition thereto this potential Eternaliter embraces all the experiential memory of the Spirit Monitor. But it will require an eternity of the future for a divine spirit ever completely to endow such a personality partnership with the meanings and values which the Divine Monitor carries forward from the eternity of the past.
When a mortal ascender finally fuses with his indwelling spirit, he has found God as God has revealed Himself to such an ascender. And having found the personal revelation which the Universal Father has made to the individual creature, the ascender now embarks with that very revelation upon the long voyage of universe discovery in quest of the central presence and the eternal personality of that divine Father.
And so does man pass from the dependence of cosmic childhood to that supernal height of universe citizenship wherein he actually begins to take part in the fascinating drama of eternity as it majestically unfolds the eternal purpose of the Gods. And throughout all of this intriguing and endless cosmic career the immortal soul of this ascending Eternaliter is functioning in everlasting association with his one time spirit self—man's devoted comrade, his most intimate friend, his loving guide and loyal helper—the understanding Spirit Monitor of the days in the flesh and now the inseparable companion of the never-ending adventure of the exploration of the Universe of Universes throughout the eternal ages.
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