The Soul

Of all the things to find out in Old Age:

I have a soul!

It’s a small one, as you might well imagine,

having gone undetected so long;

even now, it's shackled to Reason,

needing Mind to be seen at all.

However, it is not subordinate to it;

in fact, superior, but not indifferent.

And we have to give Reason a star,

or feather or something, for finding it.

I honestly didn’t know what was meant

by the common phrase, ‘Mind, Body and Soul’,

believing that Soul must be Mind.

But now I see how wrong I was! 

I was wrong! I was wrong. 

I was wrong because

Freud and others, most of them artists,

had shown for sure that whatever moves us

is very much more than Mind.

‘Moves,’ Gentle Reader, is the crucial word.

The Soul is Motivation:

Rightly or Wrongly, it makes us go.

Soul is other than Body or Mind.

Soul is the essence that drives them.

Then is The Soul The Unconscious Mind?

I can’t think of any alternative.

If you can and would like to set me straight,

by all means, send me an email.

What are the implications of this?

Is The Soul independent? No.

Is it above judgement? No.

Do we have to throw up our hands and declare

that no one has tamed The Unconscious? No.

It cannot be seen except by effect,

but can we say there are good Souls and bad? Yes.

Definitely, there are good and bad Souls,

and woe to Men housing bad ones. 

Women too, if it must be said.

Body Beware! You are in grave peril

if you are housing a defective Soul.

Some Body is in for some hard knocks,

the rack, perhaps, or worse.

If you are mighty, it may happen to others;

if weak, yourself. Does any Body deserve it?

Probably not, but your Mind does.

Your miserable, rotten, stupid Mind

shares the blame for a bad Soul.

It should have gotten a grip on the thing

and made it right, made it to lie down

in green pastures, in its own Body, 

and be content to watch cows eat grass,

or sheep or goats, or whatever was present,

or nothing. Let its own Body eat grass,

roll over sideways and take a mouthful,

chew on it greenly, with green drool,

anyhow, not be so defective,

acting the a-Soul, bad Soul.

What’s to be done with bad Souls?

Certainly not Capital Punishment.

Not even prolonged incarceration,

unless there’s danger from Body and Mind.

I really don’t know, maybe penal colonies,

but good ones, educational;

some will be needed to deal with the worst,

the worst of our Souls, our Souls, our-Souls.

I leave these matters to disciples.