What is the Soul of the Soul?
August 21st, 2026 by G.
My brain’s favorite 3:00 a.m. thoughts are the ones that make it hard for me to get back to sleep.
Here’s the doozy it woke me up with in the wee hours this morning.
It said, “If the intelligence is the spirit of the spirit and the spirit body is the body of the spirit, and intelligence + spirit body is the spirit of the body, and if the gospel is comfortable with infinite chains of regress, then does the intelligence itself consist of a composite of a spirit equivalent and a body equivalent? A prime intelligence plus an intelligence body? Does our body itself act as the soul for an even more physical, an even more material, body that we will one day possess?”
I don’t think I believe any of this. I don’t think there is an infinite chain of ever more conceptual and abstract and spiritual elements nested inside ever more physical and material and concrete bodies, but it is true that the body of flesh and bone seems to be more substantial and more physical than the flesh and blood body we now have. So who knows.
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August 21, 2026
If we are currently composite beings, and we are seeking to become more composite by becoming one with our spouses, the church, and Christ, it would follow that we were previously composite intelligences that became one, both literally and conceptually.
I’m not sure there was a “prime intelligence,” I think there might have been many of our aspects that were individual, conscious beings, but gave up themselves to become something greater.
Zen
August 21, 2026
In Hebrew there is not a single word for a person’s spirit. Mind/body duality is a relatively modern concept. There are 3-5 different kinds of spirits, each fitting over the others like a coat.
So infinite regress…. or at least a regress of many levels over vast eternities is not insane.
I think we do ourselves a disservice to oversimplify things like the Pre-Existence. It was probably more complicated and varied and different than we think. We study for years to understand the intricacies of physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. Why should the Spirit World be less complicated?
I have become more and more of a pan-psychic. In other words, I think matter itself has a spiritual aspect and an infinitesimal amount of consciousness. Over vast eternities, the dirt under our feet may become children in their own Pre-Existence or Mortal or Post-Mortal Existence. Or animals, or trees, or anything else.