The Spiritual Anatomy of Man: Body, Soul and Spirit ( Albert Hoffmann – 2024)

[1] For man to understand his surrounding and his religion he first needs to understand himself. For how can man understand his surrounding if he does not understand himself? On the one hand we learn from the Bible that man consists of a spirit, a soul and a body (1 Thess. 5:23). On the other hand modern day philosophers and psychologists are divided between dualism, acknowledging the existence of a separate soul entity from the brain, and monism where all human intelligence is located in the brain only. Both the dualists and the monists, however, are completely ignorant to the divine spirit in man. With this short introduction, let us try to bring some order to the spiritual anatomy of man as given to us by the revelations of Jakob Lorber from the highest source possible.

[2] Indeed, man does consists of a body, a soul and a spirit. To explain the body soul relationship, it is necessary to make a short detour into the origin of matter in general. All scientists and all theologians are in agreement that there was a time when no matter existed anywhere. We also know that matter, in the form of subatomic and atomic particles, consists of tiny packages of energy held together by physical laws like attraction and repulsion, electromagnetic properties, light adsorption and reflection, gravity, spin, frequencies laws, etc. These physical laws are in essence nothing else than a form of intelligence, in fact a highly organized and structured form of intelligence, but nevertheless crude and low level. Irrespective the means, whether through a singularity, the Big Bang or divine intervention, all of matter had a beginning. And this beginning was and must have been preceded by energy and intelligence, because neither energy nor intelligence could have been "created" the moment matter started to emerge from the ether, but existed eternally before. Thus energy and intelligence are of an eternal nature. This however does not mean that energy and intelligence cannot transform itself into an infinite many forms of existence, of which some are visible to our physical senses while others are not, as it was the case before the "Big Bang" anyway.

[3] From the highly organized manifestation of intelligence as physical laws in matter, keeping many millions of keen observers busy day and night since the dawn of man, we must wonder what prompted the everlasting evolving intelligence and energy to express itself as matter in the first place? Because this seems to be a degenerative step for the free intelligence to imprison itself in the confined space of matter and thereby giving up its freedom. It must also be understood that only a very minute quantity of energy/intelligence transformed into matter, forming the universe as we know it, while the by far greatest and way more sophisticated part of energy/intelligence still occurs in its original free state. In fact not one single speck of space in infinite space, yes, even the "empty" space in atomic structure, is filled with invisible energy and intelligence. So, what does this intelligent world outside of matter looks like? Since we cannot perceive this intelligent world outside of time and space with our physical senses, we can only infer that this world must look very much like our own physical world in a corresponding manner, since the physical world of matter is a product of the invisible intelligent world. In addition, this invisible intelligent world must also be exponentially more intelligent than the natural world. And since physical man is clearly the pinnacle product of development of the physical world, also the indestructible, everlasting, invisible intelligence world must contain an infinite number of highly intelligent beings.

[4] By now you should have some idea where we are heading with the relationship between the physical world (body) and the invisible world (soul). Both consist of energy and intelligence - the former being a more crude, lower level intelligence compared to the more advanced, more refined intelligence of the latter. Whereas the human brain (body) can only receive and store the pictures and audio as observed by the five senses, the mind, located inside the soul, has the capacity to interpret these observations in a meaningful manner. Just like the natural world around us consists of matter in various stages of development, ranging from single elementary particles, to molecules, to minerals, to plants, to animals and to all of the physical universe, also the metaphysical intelligent world ranges from single, elementary intelligence particles called specifica to the formation of ever higher intelligent clusters of specifica, called nature spirits, to the highest, most sophisticated intelligent being called a human soul. [To obtain a better understanding of the intelligent metaphysical world, the reader is encouraged to read the article "Intelligence, the foundation of matter" by the same author.] Inherent in all intelligence, whether contained in matter or free roaming, is the drive to always strive to become more perfect by absorbing and amalgamating with other "like-minded"  intelligence clusters. And on a side note, just as all physical matter has form, also all objects in the metaphysical world have a corresponding form too, just much more rounded, beautiful and perfect than its counterpart in the natural world. And just like all matter can be broken down again into its elementary parts, also all intelligence can be broken down into single specifica particles.

[5] We now have progressed to the point where the soul can be defined as an indestructible, substantive, intangible, intelligent entity made up of a conglomerate of trillions of specifica, expressing themselves collectively as a unique human being with a human form. Our deepest inner desires, passions, thoughts, feelings, wishes, perceptions, motivations, love inclinations, hopes, impressions, etc. are all located inside the soul and are fed constantly with the soul's interaction with it's environment which includes the light/cosmic rays from all the stars. The body, being comprised of more low level, unfermented intelligence particles, has the tendency to call for an over-saturation of its desires and needs in every respect. It is the responsibility of the soul to guard against such excessive longing of it's body. The body does have a kind of own life with regard to heartbeat and the functioning of the organs, but the body does not have the independent intelligence to get up and prepare for itself some food to eat. Any actions of the body are initiated by the soul through the brain and nerve system, and the soul is ultimately responsible for how it used it's body during it's entire natural life. So where does the spirit fit into the body-soul relationship as described above? This will be dealt with in the following paragraphs.

[6] In paragraph 2 we clearly have demonstrated the existence of a highly organized intelligent metaphysical world, being the foundation for the origin of matter. This, of course, presupposes the existence of a supreme Godhead who, in its perfect wisdom, created the metaphysical or spiritual world out of Himself, from which in turn the physical world came into being. It must have been the ultimate goal of this eternal Godhead from the very beginning, to replicate itself in order to love and to be loved in return. This divine goal, for eternities in the making, is still manifested in every man-wife parent relationship today, who desire their own offspring to love and to be loved in return. So there is no other reason for the entire creation to come into being than just simple love. But the perfect Godhead did not want to be loved by a kind of string puppets, implying beings who were filled with God's love and could not otherwise than love their Creator. No, the perfect Godhead wanted to create completely independent, free willing beings who, out of their own free will, want to love their Creator. This means that the Godhead from the very beginning, had to accept the challenge that some of it's free willing beings would or could reject their Creator, and try to set up their own order of creation.

[7] Once the free willing beings were created, there was little the Godhead could do than to allow the beings to do whatever they wanted. It is impossible for the Godhead to intervene with the free will of the beings, because this would mean to judge them and basically destroy them, since the free will is their actual life. The only thing the Godhead could do, is to constantly educate the beings to the consequences of their free willing actions and use the outcome of their actions as lessons learned, either for the better or worse. And if you carefully observe all historical events since the inception of man through Adam and Eve, you will precisely find the latter sentence confirmed. For billions of years the earth flourished as a planet. It took the free will of man only 6,000 years to bring the planet to its knees (excessive greed for power and wealth, wars, weapons of mass destruction, over exploitation of recourses, global pollution, climate change, destruction of the rainforests, etc.), if it wasn't for the endless all wise, loving and merciful intervention of the Godhead.

[8] In order for God to create god-resembling beings, He had to place a tiny spark of His own being into each of the countless beings He created. This spark can be compared to a mirror pointed towards the sun. The reflection of the sunlight in the mirror would have the same properties of the sun's light with regard to warmth and light intensity, but it would not be the sun itself. In very much the same analogy we all carry a spark of the Godhead inside of us. But this invisible, tiny divine spark inside of us, is nevertheless immense powerful and must therefore be securely contained by a powerful shell in the heart of the soul. Just imagine what would happen if the earth is all at once placed next to the sun? It would just disintegrate instantly. The same would happen if the mighty powerful divine spirit spark would be fully exposed to the soul all at once. The soul needs first be strengthened and thoroughly prepared to be able to unite with the divine spirit spark. This unification between the soul and its spirit is the actual rebirth of the spirit as Jesus was trying to explain to Nicodemus in a lengthy conversation (John 3). To achieve this, the soul is given a life of about eighty years in a natural body.

[9] The soul for millions of years in the making in and outside of matter, is already present at conception but only enters the body in the seventh month of pregnancy, while the spirit is placed in the heart of the soul just before or after birth. The soul's intelligence on its own without the spirit, is still equal to the intelligence of an intelligent animal. But the specifica of the soul are very much suited to absorb live. Although the spirit is securely encapsulated in the heart of the soul, a minute quantity of light and power of the spirit is allowed to escape the encapsulation and penetrate the soul, providing it with a free will and a highly intelligent mind. That this is actually the case, is proven by the extraordinary talents of young children like Mozart who was able to compose music at the age of five. This happens when for some reason the influence of the spirit in the soul is a little stronger than normal. The spirit is every persons personal communication channel to God and through the spirit God lives inside of us. God can never be found through any external means like buildings, special places or clothing, ceremonies, rituals, dogma, laws, traditions, mass gatherings, etc., but only through a loving, caring humble heart.

[10] The intelligence provided by the spirit to the soul is sufficient to enable the soul to awaken the spirit inside of itself through a life of self-abnegation. This is why it was stated in paragraph 5 that the soul needs to guard against the excessive desires of the body. Self-denial promotes the virtue of unselfishness and humbleness and strengthens the soul for the spirit to blossom. Turning to a life of intemperance and indulgence fosters greed and selfishness and buries the spirit ever deeper in the soul. The spirit in every human being expresses itself through the soft voice of conscience distinguishing between right and wrong. The worst that can happen to a person is if he/she cannot hear this voice anymore, due to the mind increasingly tending to the body and matter at large. While still living in the natural world, the feeling of pain and emptiness in the soul caused by a growing loss of the influence of the spirit, is greatly absorbed by the body. But in the beyond when the soul has lost its physical body, the increasing separation of the spirit causes the soul immense suffering and it will not know why, nor does the soul wants to be educated about the reason of its suffering, because it has become accustomed to listen only to its own intellect/mind and longings.

[11] This brings us to the dual state of intelligence of every person ever living on this earth. On the one hand the soul has a free will and its own intelligence enhanced by the indirect influence of the spirit, called mind. On the other hand the spirit also has a free will and a divine wisdom intelligence, but hidden and is called the disposition. According to God's order, the soul is supposed to use its intelligence only to awaken the spirit inside of itself, who then should seek, recognize and love the Creator. The mind of the soul is not suited and powerful enough to recognize God. All religious wars and rivalry are the result where people tried to recognize God through the mind. The thinking of the mind is only a segregated understanding of the individual parts while the thinking of the spirit is a visualization of the whole. The mind, mainly focussed on only what the five senses of the body can present to it, is constantly asking for proof. The spirit, seeing the whole, does not need any proof. Imagine a museum as large as a whole city displaying all facets of life and you are standing in the middle of it but the dome is pitch black dark. The only tool available to you is a flimsy narrow beam flashlight to find your way around the darkness, allowing you to only look at one object or part of it at a time. But when looking with the spirit it is as if the whole dome is brightly lit and you can experience all the wonders of life at once.

[12] This mind-disposition duality inside the soul is presented to us in the Bible through the allegory of the garden of Eden which corresponds to the soul, where God planted two trees: The tree of knowledge (mind) and the tree of life (disposition). In this garden of Eden the soul should have dominion over all animals and flying birds, meaning having control over our desires and thoughts (self-abnegation). The snake symbolizes the desire to explore the mind and Eve represents the self-love in both Adam and Eve. The intention of God was that Adam and Eve should have used their mind to first awaken their inner spirit (disposition) to further strengthen the mind. But by eating the "apple" Adam began to explore his mind first with disastrous consequences. By doing so, Adam became so to speak the world's first scientist and regarded his mind superior to his spirit. Over time this mind superiority lead to heathenism and even complete atheism and eventually caused the deluge to take place. Still today, official science tries to convince society at large that the creation came into being without a God. Let me be clear about this, there is nothing wrong to be a scientist, I'm a scientist too, but in all humility one should not loose sight from whom we received our intelligence in the first place.

[13] We were created by God out of the purest love and are destined to love God in return out of our own free will. It took us and God many eons to develop our souls in and outside of matter, to a level of free willing intelligence and humility, that we now can unite our souls with the perfect divine spirit inside of us, to finally unselfishly love our Creator. The physical body and its natural environment is the final school ground where the soul is furthest removed from the almighty influence of God, to independently decide for itself to search, recognize and begin to love God.