STEERING THE POT Challenge – November 2025
THE SOUL
THE SOUL
Hello everyone! Welcome to the last installment of the body-mind-soul challenge. My name is Agata, and I want to invite you all to reflect on what the soul (your soul?) is to you. Or maybe you don’t think there is a soul whatsoever. That is fine too! After your reflection, please scrap about it. At the end of the month, I will randomly choose a winner who will receive a coupon from our wonderful Jenn of Joyful Heart Designs to her store. OK, let’s do it then!
As we move through these three aspects of human existence, we seem to go deeper and deeper, gradually leaving certainty behind. From the body—the most material, scientifically known, and easy to experience aspect of self—we moved to the mind, where we encountered a mix of scientifically proven elements of the nervous and endocrine systems and of psychology, along with philosophical theories of the mind. As we start to think about the soul, we leave behind proof-driven science and certainty and enter a plane of existence entirely ruled by various systems of belief, philosophies, and scientific theories.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Definitions (Merriam-Webster):
Soul is…
- the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
- the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe, OR the spiritual part of a person, believed to give life to the body, and in many religions thought to live forever
- the moral and emotional nature of human beings, OR the part of one's personality having to do with feelings and the sense of what is right and wrong
- the necessary part of something
In Christianity, the soul is considered the immortal, immaterial essence of a person (the part that is made in God’s image), encompassing their personality, will, emotions, and intellect. It is the part of a human that is spiritual and can connect with God. Sometimes the (sinful) body is depicted as a vessel for the (holy) soul (dualism implying constant struggle between good and evil, soul and body), and sometimes the soul is depicted as being intertwined with the body, meaning a person is a living, integrated being. The soul is separated from the body at death, awaiting reunion with it at resurrection at the End of Days, when it will be judged and sent either to Heaven (reward) or Hell (punishment). The soul is the part that is saved and purified through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The reward or punishment of the soul depends on a person’s faith in Jesus and, in some cases, also following his teachings, sharing them with others, and performing good deeds.
In Judaism, the soul is considered the divine spark in a person, often called neshama or nefesh, and is seen as the "self" that inhabits the body. It has multiple levels of existence, including the physical (nefesh), the emotional and intellectual (ruach), and the spiritual (neshama), with higher levels like chaya and yechidah representing deeper divine connection. Jewish tradition views the body and soul as partners in life, with the body serving as the means for the soul to act in the world. Jewish tradition discusses the soul's journey after death, including ideas of purification or the soul continuing to a higher realm.
In Islam, the soul is considered a divine creation that gives life to the body, with key terms being Ruh (spirit) and Nafs (self/psyche). The Ruh is the breath of life given by Allah, and the Nafs refers to the self or ego, which is the source of one's desires, will, and actions, and is supposed to be refined during a person’s life. Some interpretations suggest souls were created before this life and made a pact with God, though this is debated. In this life, the soul exists in the body, giving it life. The Nafs is the part of the psyche that engages with the world and makes choices. At death, life ends as the soul departs the body and goes to a temporary state or is held until the Day of Judgment, when it will be resurrected with a new body. After Judgment, depending on one's deeds in this life, the soul will either go to Paradise or Hell for an eternal life.
In Hinduism, the soul is called Atman, which is considered the eternal, pure, divine, and innermost, deepest essence of a person that persists across lifetimes. It is distinct from the physical body and mind. The Atman is seen as a microcosm of the macrocosm, with a part of the universal consciousness, Brahman, residing within every individual. The Atman is believed to be immortal and to undergo a cycle of rebirth called samsara, driven by karma —the law of cause and effect from actions in previous lives. The ultimate goal is to achieve moksha, liberation from the cycle of birth and death, by gaining self-knowledge and realizing the identity of Atman with Brahman.
Buddhism does not believe in a permanent, unchanging soul (anatman or no-self), rejecting the idea of a single, independent entity that continues from life to life. Instead, it teaches that what is often mistaken for a soul is a continuously changing collection of five aggregates (body, sensations, perceptions, mental factors, and consciousness). What is reborn is not a soul but a conditioned stream of consciousness, driven by karma (consequences of past actions) from one existence to the next.
Soul in Philosophy (also just a few theories):
Socrates and Plato thought of the soul as the rational, immortal self that is distinct from the body. Socrates saw the soul as the most godlike activity in humans, and Plato believed it continued to exist after death.
To Aristotle, the soul was the "first actuality" of a living body - the principle that makes something a living thing, like the form of a human body. He did not believe it to be separable from the body, but he considered it the essence of its life functions.
Medieval philosophy (e.g., Aquinas) attempted to reconcile Aristotelian views with Christian theology, arguing that the human soul, while the first actuality of the body, could exist independently because it has operations that are not dependent on the body's organs.
Dualism is the idea that reality consists of two fundamental kinds of substance: the material and the non-material. In philosophy of mind, this often translates to the soul or mind being separate from the body. René Descartes was a prominent dualist who argued that the soul is a non-material substance (the mind) that is separate from the physical body, though it interacts with it.
Materialism is the view that the soul is not a separate entity but rather a product of the brain and body. Some materialistic views hold that the soul does not exist (e.g., classical physics), while others see it as a material process (e.g., quantum physics).
Scientific or Para-Scientific Theories of Soul (not to be confused with quantum mysticism, aka quantum quackery
):Traditionally, science has dismissed the soul as a non-physical entity or reduced it to psychological concepts studied together with the brain. The dominant scientific view is that consciousness and the "self" are a result of the physical and chemical processes in the brain. However, the appearance of quantum physics, quantum field theory, and string theory brought some interesting concepts from the crossroads of physics and philosophy (empirical evidence is scarce). Here are a few examples:
- Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) - proposes that consciousness arises from quantum computations within microtubules - hollow, cylindrical protein structures in the cells inside brain neurons. According to the theory, these quantum computations are "orchestrated" by the biological processes within neurons and culminate in a type of quantum state collapse, or "objective reduction" (OR), which creates moments of conscious experience.
- Body-soul duality – in this theory, an analogy is drawn between particle-wave duality of quantum physics and body and soul, suggesting that a person's body (particle) and soul (wave) might represent a similar duality.
- Quantum vibrational field - some theories frame the soul as the content of a quantum vibrational field, suggesting that the soul, mind, and body are all interconnected aspects of a single quantum existence.
- Soul as information (Quantum Theory of Soul) – in this theory, the soul is the information carried within a quantum vibrational field. It is suggested that this information can be stored in a way that transcends the physical body, potentially allowing concepts such as life after death or reincarnation to be described in physical terms. This theory seems extremely interesting to me. There are two articles that are not difficult to understand for a layperson and are available for free online: Zhi, G.S., and Xiu, R.L. (2023). Quantum Theory of Consciousness. Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics, 11, 2652-2670, and Zhi G.S., Xiu, R.L. (2024). Quantum Theory of Soul. Qeios. doi:10.32388/I2DN27.
It’s suggested that another implication may be the existence of a universal quantum vibrational field carrying the information, energy, and matter of everything. This universal quantum vibrational field is like the “Akashic Records” (a concept in Eastern religions, Sanskrit), holding information about everything and everyone. Because everything’s quantum vibrational field extends over space and time, the summation of everything’s quantum vibrational fields makes up a universal field. This universal field holds the information, energy, and matter of everyone and everything. Maybe not exactly in this form, but it’s an idea close to me as well. I see it as a kind of eternal “library” containing the combined experience of everyone and everything that ever existed. It also emphasizes closeness with our ancestors (or the “communion of saints”).
These two ideas bring everything in existence much closer in both space, or horizontal plane (panpsychism), and time, or vertical plane (universal quantum vibrational field), which I really like. It implies a sense of continuity and community that ties all life through all time and space into one family.
Challenge:
OK, I had a much longer, more detailed explanation of the quantum concepts (mostly because quantum physics is rather complicated, confusing, and counterintuitive). Still, I am not going to put everything here. It would be WAY too long! If anyone is interested in my notes and how I was making sense of things I was reading, I can send them to you or post them in the comments. After all, we are here to make art, not study science! Here we go then!
It is your turn to reflect on the soul, preferably your soul or your understanding of it. It can be your reaction to some of the more or less controversial theories I mentioned above, or your own answers to the questions about soul (does it exist? What is it? What does it do? Do we need it and why? Etc.), or something else, whatever is soul-related and speaks to you. As far as layouts are concerned, everything is allowed: photos, no photos, templates, no templates, one-pagers, two-pagers, series of scraps, any size, etc.
Rules:
It’s a safe space, so you can be raw. Please follow the general Oscraps rules for the Gallery and Forums. Other than that, let it go and “dance like no one’s watching”.
Reward:
At the end of the month, one randomly selected winner will receive a $10 coupon for the Joyful Heart Designs store. Thank you, Jenn, for your generous sponsorship!
How to Post:
Please share your artwork in the "Members' Gallery" and then post it in the thread below.
Example:
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