“Windows To Spirituality”
Spirit and Soul
Spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality. A spirit is a supernatural being, often, but not exclusively, a non-physical entity; such as a ghost, fairy, or angel. The concepts of a person’s spirit and soul, often also overlap, as both are either contrasted with or given ontological priority over the body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions, and “spirit” can also have the sense of “ghost“, i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person. In English Bibles, “the Spirit” (with a capital “S”), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.
The soul, in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal essence of a living being. Soul or psyche (psū́khein, “to breathe”) are the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal.
Pre-existence Pre-existence, preexistence, beforelife, or premortal existence, is the belief that each individual human soul existed before mortal conception, and at some point before birth enters or is placed into the body. can encompass either the belief that the soul came into existence at some time prior to conception or the belief that the soul...
Holy Ghost Synopsis of the dogma The doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the Holy Ghost forms an integral part of her teaching on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of which St. Augustine (On the Holy Trinity I.3.5), speaking with diffidence, says: “In no other subject is the danger of erring so great, or the progress so difficult, or the fruit...
Soul Explained The question of the reality of the soul (psyche, anima, ame, Seele) and its distinction from the body is among the most important problems of philosophy, for with it is bound up the doctrine of a future life. Various theories as to the nature of the soul have claimed to...
What Is The Soul? This article covers the answer to the question: “What Is The Soul?“ In many religious and philosophical systems, the word “soul” denotes the inner essence of a being comprising its locus of sapience (self-awareness) and metaphysical identity. Souls are usually described as immortal (surviving death in an afterlife) and incorporeal (without...
Spirit Explained The English word spirit comes from the Latin “spiritus” (“breath”) and has several interrelated meanings: Metaphysically, a spirit is an incorporeal energy force that is present in all living things but distinct from the soul. (The distinction between soul and spirit became current in Judeo-Christian terminology.) A spirit may also be...
Jiva In Hinduism, the jiva (जीव, jīva) is a living being or any entity imbued with a life force. The word itself originates from the Sanskrit verb-root jīv, which translates as ‘to breathe or to live’. The jiva, as a metaphysical entity, has been described in various scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and the Vachanamrut (the teachings of Swaminarayan). Each...
Mediumship Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as “mediums” or “spirit mediums”. There are different types of mediumship or spirit channeling, including seánce tables, trance, and ouija. Mediumship gained popularity during the nineteenth century when ouija boards were used by the upper...
Out-of-body Experience An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally “seeing self”), although this term is more commonly used to refer to the pathological condition of seeing a second self, or doppelgänger. The term out-of-body...
Ghost In folklore, a ghost (sometimes known as an apparition, haunt, phantom, poltergeist, shade, specter or spectre, spirit, spook, and wraith) is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or...
Nafs (The Soul) Nafs (The Soul) is a substance that is essentially free of matter but which is in close connection with it in its acts and functions; it is the origin or essence of something or its self. There have been those who have used it in the sense...
The Diseases Of The Carnal Self Is There a prescription for the diseases of the carnal self? This consists of Five Paragraphs which contain prescriptions for truth to which the rebellious, and arrogant carnal self has to yield. First paragraph Since things exist and have been made with skill, then...
The Spirit And What Follows This article covers the Spirit and the Afterlife. Based on al-Milal wa’n-Nihal (“The True and False Ways of Belief and Thought”) by ash-Shahristani,[1]Tahafut al-Falasifa (“The Incoherence of the Philosophers”) by Imam al-Ghazzali,[2] Mawqif al-‘Aql wa’l-‘Ilm wa’l-‘Alam (“The Place of Reason, Science, and the Created World”) by Mustafa Sabri...
Ruh In Islam, especially Sufism, ruh (rūḥ; روح; plural arwah) is a person’s immortal, essential self — pneuma, i.e. the “spirit” or “soul“. The Quran itself does not describe ruh as the immortal self. Nevertheless, in some contexts, it animates inanimate matter. Further, it appears to be a metaphorical being, such as an angel. In one instance, ruh...
Exorcism In Christianity Exorcism in Christianity is the practice of casting out demons from a person they are believed to have possessed. The person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or...
Orisha Orisha or Òrìṣà (original spelling in the Yoruba language), known as orichá or orixá in Latin America, are the human form of the spirits (Irunmọlẹ) sent by Olodumare, Olorun, Olofi in Yoruba traditional identity. The Irunmọlẹ are meant to guide creation and particularly humanity on how to live and succeed on Earth (Ayé). Most Òrìṣà are said to be deities previously...
Exorcism Prayer There are a number of Exorcism Prayers which can be said… even on a daily basis to “exorcise” or Drive Out Evil forces which may have slipped in…. Exorcism (εξορκισμός, exorkismós “binding by oath”) is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that are...
Ahriman Angra Mainyu (Avestan: Aŋra Mainiiu) is the Avestan-language name of Zoroastrianism‘s hypostasis of the “destructive spirit”. The Middle Persian equivalent is Ahriman (Angra Mainyu is Ahura Mazda’s adversary. In the Avesta In Zoroaster’s revelation Avestan angra mainyu “seems to have been an original conception of Zoroaster’s.” In the Gathas, which are the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism and are attributed to the...
![The Demon Seated by Mikhail Vrubel (1890), a symbolist painting inspired by the Russian romantic poem demon by Mikhail Lermontov.[46]](https://slife.org/wp-content/uploads/Vrubel_Demon-520x276.jpg)
List Of Theological Demons This is a list of demons that appear in religion, theology, demonology, mythology, and folklore. It is not a list of names of demons, although some are listed by more than one name. The list of fictional demons includes those from literary fiction with theological aspirations, such as Dante’s Inferno. Because numerous lists...
What Is Nafs? Nafs (نَفْس) is an Arabic word occurring in the Quran, literally meaning “self“, and has been translated as “psyche”, “ego” or “soul“. In the Quran, the word is used in both the individualistic (verse 2:48) and collective sense (verse 4:1), indicating that although humanity is united in possessing the positive qualities of...
Soul In The Bible This article covers the soul in the Bible. The traditional concept of an immaterial and immortal soul distinct from the body was not found in Judaism before the Babylonian exile, but developed as a result of interaction with Persian and Hellenistic philosophies. Accordingly, the Hebrew word נֶ֫פֶשׁ, nephesh, although translated as “soul” in some...