Blood Symbols Read online

  Professor George Claassen of Sceptic South Africa evaluates Botha’s writing as “a crucial analysis of evolutionary thinking that deserves to be read with care”, while Todd Mercer of Foreword Clarion Reviews applauds for its “inquiry and line of logic that seem beyond the merely plausible—it is urgently imperative.”

  Settled on South Africa’s Garden Route, Botha is presently working on his new novel.

  Other titles by Izak Botha

  Angelicals Reviewed

  Do you have a soul? Is the soul a gift from God? Or is it something else? Does the soul guarantee life after death? Or is its purpose yet to be discovered? In Angelicals Reviewed, researcher of metaphysics, Izak Botha, challenges conventional thinking around the nature of soul and presents a startling new hypothesis.

  In a groundbreaking study covering multiple disciplines, Izak shares his knowledge regarding the soul. In these pages you will discover:

  What individuals, groups, and societies believe regarding the soul

  How some accept, and others reject the notion of the soul

  How opposing doctrine differ or agree

  How views about the soul alter with time

  How the debate around the soul is ongoing

  And how the discoveries of cosmology and evolution influence the percepts of the soul.

  As humanity dabbles with replacing God, the question surrounding the soul—existence, purpose, and destiny—becomes all important. If you have pondered these questions, this book is for you.

  Sample chapters from Angelicals Reviewed

  Religions build theories about the world and then prevent them from being tested. Religions provide nice, appealing, and comforting ideas, and cloak them in a mask of “truth, beauty, and goodness.” The theories can then thrive despite being untrue, ugly, or cruel. In the end, there is no ultimate truth to be found and locked up forever, but there are truthful theories and better or worse predictions. I do defend the idea that science, at its best, is more truthful than religion.

  Suzan Blackmore

  Introduction

  Many live their lives as if they have a soul. Yet, there is no evidence the soul exists. Neither is there consensus regarding the definition of soul. Customarily, the soul has been regarded as the spiritual counterpart of the human—a manifestation called spirituality. If so, the soul is a vehicle for human consciousness. But what if the soul is not breathed into man by God, as suggested in faiths?

  Sadly, religions stagnate due to their precepts being frozen in time. Yet, their dogma thrives on untruth, ugliness, or cruelty behind the mask. There is no ultimate truth to be discovered and preserved forever, but there are sound theories and predictions that have proven reliable as they unfold. I, too, defend the idea that science, at its best, is more honest than religion. And although incomplete, hypotheses such as the big-bang and evolutionary theories remain compelling. The same should apply to the soul: despite scrutiny, the evidence supporting it must be credible.

  For the greater part of history, evolution has gone unnoticed. After 13.8 billion light years of cosmic expansion and nearly 4 billion years of life on Earth, it is only over the past two centuries that the biological change of species over generations has found its way into our understanding. Knowledge of the process, however, does not mean everything is understood about evolution. As enlightened as we are as humans, we have yet to characterize spiritual evolution.

  The purpose of this book is to posit that the soul has become part of human nature through eons of evolution. Rather than God bestowing a soul on man, life through evolution is achieving this feat by its own momentum. Spirituality is therefore a destiny, not a doctrine or belief.

  Homo sapiens, until now, has personified the zenith of life. But is that the case? Allow me to show how Homo sapiens has been superseded by Homo angelicansis: the hybrid of two beings—the cross between physical and spiritual natures.

  To discover how I reached this conclusion, read on . . .

  Chapter 1

  The Soul—Before Christ

  The earliest evidence of the soul being regarded as the vehicle to immortality is found in the culture of ancient Egypt. For this civilization, the soul was ka, or breath. At death, a person’s final breath represented the departing soul. For the Israelites two thousand years later, it was only after God had created man in His image that humans acquired a soul. Genesis records how, “… the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life; and man, became a living soul.”

  Adam received a soul, and that soul was synonymous with an immaterial life-giving force. Although Adam was not the first human, the Torah and Old Testament pinpoint him as the first human to receive a soul when God breathed life into him. This text implies that God, in a singular act, created man. God breathed spirit into man and man became a living soul. From the text, however, it is not clear whether man was biologically alive before the breath, and even then, whether he was alive before becoming a living soul.

  The interpretation of soul and spirit at that time is similar. In the original Hebrew text, soul is nephesh. Derived from nâphash, its meaning is to breathe or be breathed upon. Nephesh can represent a breathing creature, but in the abstract form it denotes vitality. Spirit is rûwach: to blow as in breath or to smell. It can also be neshâmâh, which is derived from nâsham: to blow away, a puff of wind or a vital breath, or divine inspiration, intellect, inspiration, soul, or spirit.

  Describing the coming of the Messiah, Old Testament Ezekiel thinks even bones can be resurrected by spirit. The prophet’s vision of the valley of the dry bones describes the Lord as a Being from whom emanates Spirit as the bestower of life. Dating around 600 BC, it is perhaps, for its time, the most insightful view of the issues of life and death. Ezekiel 37: 1 “The hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the Spirit [rûwach] of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, 2 and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. 3 And he said unto me. Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. 4 Again he said unto me. Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath [rûwach] to enter into you, and ye shall live, 6 and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath [rûwach] in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath [rûwach] in them. 9 Then said he unto me. Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind. Thus, saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath [rûwach], and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath [rûwach]came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. 11 Then he said unto me. Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say. Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: humans are cut off for our parts. 12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, 14 and shall put my Spirit [rûwach]in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed, saith the Lord.”

  Giving life to bones requires breath, and therefore spirit (Spirit of the Lord). Yet, the soul is not mentioned. Either both the spirit and the soul are conceived as being the same, or else the soul is not seen as the life-giving force. As far as Ezekiel is concerned, it is not the soul that is breathed into a body
to have biological life, but the spirit. The soul, then, must be something else. From this viewpoint, the soul does not give life, but like the biological organism, it seeks life.

  The Greek writer Homer, credited with the ninth century epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, distinguishes between the soul and the body, but he is doubtful that the soul exists on its own. Once severed from the body, the soul is much like a shadow, and though the soul has the power to survive death, it cannot sustain life. The early writings do not include the non-material soul of later Greek and Christian thought, but rather equates soul with a faded, semi-material shade or ghost, whose life in the underworld is dull, destitute, and almost functionless.

  Around 500 BC, in what is today Nepal, the teachings of Buddha emerged. Buddhism is unique in its teachings that the individual soul does not exist, but is an illusion produced by various psychological and physiological influences. Buddhism is the only religion without a God: a form of agnosticism, since it does not acknowledge or deny the existence of gods. For Buddhists, the constitution of humankind consists of five parts, known as skandhas—the material body, feelings, perceptions, karmic dispositions, and consciousness, which are all subject to continual change. None of the elements is permanent and therefore cannot be regarded as a blueprint for the soul, known in Buddhism as atman. It seems strange to deny the soul and yet have a name and rank for it. Buddhism teaches that belief in an individual and immortal soul leads to egoism and its resultant suffering. Buddha taught the doctrine of anatman—the denial of an immortal soul—and rejects the existence of atman; there is no belief in a concept of a soul or of a self that survives death. The Buddhist view of reincarnation is unclear and seen simply as a chain of consequences, but the subtlety seems lost in translation since adherents to Buddhist practice regard the dead as transmigrating souls.

  The meaning of karma—the sum of the consequences of one’s actions, both good or bad—is also contradictory. Karma is believed to be attached to the soul, especially regarding transmigration and reincarnation—the creation of each new body is then determined by the karma of previous lifetimes. The consequence of karma can be rebirth in a form other than human, such as animals, ghosts, denizens of hell, and, in fact, any form of life. Enlightenment is achieved through continual spiritual exercise and proper living, and only then can one shed the burden of karma and constant reincarnation. Enlightenment is only reached through a cycle of reincarnation through which individuals must pass to transcend human desire and suffering. Purification through reincarnation comes through opportunities to learn from the lessons of life.

  If this is how enlightenment is achieved, then a record of each lifetime must be kept. One would imagine the soul to be the ideal vehicle for this information, yet the Buddhist has no belief in the soul. The paradox seems not to lie in the belief system itself, but rather that the philosophy is not consummated. The problem of an immortal soul in Buddhism persists and prevails in the doctrine to this day.

  Philosophers from around 500 BC, and typically the scientists of the time as well, saw the soul as more than just mere breath. This prompted the idea that the soul is the prime motivator behind the mind—and perhaps even is the mind itself. Pythagoras, the sixth century Greek philosopher and mathematician, fused ancient mythology with the growing discipline of science. Known as Pythagoreanism, his philosophy combined ethics, supernature, and mathematics into a unified view of life, wherein the soul is a prisoner of the body.

  Underpinning one of the earliest concepts of transmigration and reincarnation, Pythagoras believed the soul was released at death and— depending on the degree of virtue achieved—the soul moved on to a higher or lower form. In other words, the soul would undergo a series of rebirths in other bodies. The human, to purify the soul, was required to cultivate intellectual virtues, refrain from sensual pleasures, and practice religious rituals. Between death and rebirth, the soul would rest and undergo purification in the underworld. A series of rebirths would eventually enable the soul to become sufficiently purified to escape the cycle of life and death and to become eternally free.

  Anaxagoras, the fifth century BC Greek philosopher, introduced the notion of nous, which is mind or reason. For him, the cause of beauty and order is the mind. Animals have a soul (the moving cause of things), but mind as intelligence appears not to exist in animals—and, indeed, not even in all humans. Although he distinguishes between the soul and the mind, in practice, Anaxagoras treats the two as a single entity.

  Heraclitus, another fifth century BC philosopher, described the soul as cosmic ether or fire—the subtlest of the elements and a nourishing flame imparting heat, life, sense, and intelligence to all things, in several degrees and kinds. The spherical atoms of fire are identified with the soul, with both having similar qualities of universal permeation and the ability to set other atoms in motion by their own movement. His view implies that the soul is the informant of movement in humans.

  At the turn of the fourth century BC, Greek philosopher Democritus expounded the atomic theory. Promulgated initially by his mentor, Democritus’s view is that everything stems from minute, invisible, indestructible particles of pure matter (atoma), which constantly moved about in infinite empty space (kenon or the void). For him, therefore, atoms are the stuff of the soul.

  Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers, connected the soul and the mind. Everyone has access to full knowledge of ultimate truth through the soul and only requires awakening to become sufficiently conscious to experience knowing. Plato describes the soul as the prisoner in the material body, with the body being the prison, tomb, or even the hell of the soul. His concept of the soul changes over time. In The Timaeus, he describes a world soul, created according to mathematical laws and musical harmony, which incorporates two elements: sameness (tauton) and otherness (thateron). In The Republic, his longest and most complex work, he describes three elements within the unity of the single soul: a rational soul situated in the head, a passionate soul in the breast, and an appetitive soul in the stomach.

  The idea of a freestanding soul is the focal point of discussion throughout the history of philosophy. Sharing Pythagoras’s belief, Plato considers the soul pre-existent, eternal, and entirely spiritual. Once it enters the body, it becomes contaminated by association with bodily passions, and congruent with the doctrine of karma, it retains knowledge of former existences. Both Pythagoras and Plato believed in the transmigration of souls from one species to another, or from one body to another, after death. Plato suspected the soul was released from the body after it had passed through a series of transmigrations. A soul of integrity, forged over several existences, would return to a state of pure being. A soul that had deteriorated during transmigrations ended in a place of eternal damnation.

  Aristotle, Plato’s most renowned student, was critical of the idea of the soul separating from the body and maintained that the soul is contained within the body as the form or actuality of the body itself. Nature is an organic system with different species, purposes, and modes of development. Humans have a rational soul that is higher than terrestrial species and only superseded by the higher order of nature—the heavenly bodies consisting of an imperishable substance, ether, which moves eternally through the cosmos.

  Aristotle’s definition of the soul as the first entelechy of a physical, organized body that potentially possesses life, or the forming principle of a body that has the potential to give life, emphasizes the union of the soul and the body. The challenge, though, is to determine how distinct the body is from soul. The soul of a living being is its capability to be a part of the activities that are characteristic of its own natural makeup: self-nourishment, growth, decay, movement, and, importantly, perception and intellect. Aristotle describes an organism with the ability to nourish itself, to grow, to move about on its own, to perceive, think, and be alive, and when death comes, to decay. The capacity of the organism to execute these activities constitutes its soul. The soul is the cause of the animate behavi
or of living organisms and is not separable from the body, for its very nature is capacity, not the organism. For Aristotle, the exception exists where the soul can separate from the body, and that is when it becomes pure thought that has rid itself of the trappings of personality.

  Aristotle rejected transmigration or the reincarnation souls. The soul does not exist without a body, and though it is immaterial, it is not, in itself, a body. And although not a body, it belongs to a body and exists in a body of a specific kind. The soul is therefore spiritual substance encased in matter. He imagined a hierarchy of soul functions, such as the nutritive soul (plants), the sensitive soul (all animals), and the rational soul (human beings). The soul has little to do with personal identity and individuality, and he did not differentiate between individual human souls. This led him to believe there is only a singular soul, not souls. People only appear to have different souls, because they are different people. Despite slightly different bodies, all still have the same set of capabilities determined by the same soul.

  Aristotle’s view of the soul is the most comprehensive for its time. The competing views of his time appear limp by comparison. After Aristotle, though, Stoicism—a philosophy founded in ancient Greece and one of three leading movements contributing to the culture and civilization known as Hellenism—rekindled the earlier idea of pneuma, or breath, and despite its simplicity, greatly influenced the Empiric courts of Rome, and hence, Christianity.

  In Stoicism, pneuma gives unity and identity to the individual. In lifeless objects, this unifying characteristic is state (hexis) and in plants, nature (physis). The latter are bodies and as such have causal usefulness. All reality is material, but matter is passive and distinguished from the life-giving or active principle, logos, which is both divine reason and a finer kind of material entity—an all-pervading breath or fire. Living with nature and reason is living in harmony with the divine order of the universe. All existence is material, and the soul is breath pervading the body. The soul consists of the finest grained atoms in the universe, even finer than the wind and heat they resemble, hence the fluency of the soul’s movements in thought and sensation. However, soul atoms themselves cannot function if not kept together by the body. If the body is destroyed, the atoms escape and life is dissolved. If the body is injured, part of the soul is lost, but enough is retained to maintain life. Ironically, the soul is the center of the cognitive and emotional life, its seat—the heart.