On the Nature of the Soul

According to Socrates in Platos dialogue, the Phaedrus, the soul is immortal. He divides souls into two groups, those of the gods, and all other souls. He describes how the souls of the gods are free to roam the heaven and gaze on things outside the heavens, seeing the Forms, while the other souls are less perfect and have less freedom and ability to traverse the heavens as the gods do. And so they try to follow the gods in their motion trying every now and then to look up to see the Forms, which are only visible from the fringes of the heavens. They are confused however and cannot guide their chariots as gracefully as the gods do and so they do wrong, and fall down to earth being unable to remain in the presence of Being.

During their initial fall to earth these souls are always incarnated into human beings. According to Socrates the types of souls are arranged in a hierarchy of nine levels. Lovers of wisdom beauty and art are on the top, next come leaders and kings, then politicians and money makers, lovers of work in general, prophets seers and mystics, poets and actors, craftsmen, sophists, and finally, at the very bottom, tyrants. In order to best understand this classification I think it must be made clear that these labels (tyrants, kings, seers, etc) are archetypal in nature, not literal; they are attitudes towards life rather than actual professions or occupations. Those who are tyrants by nature see only themselves. They are blinded to the world, their sight is very limited if in fact they can see at all. They are ignorant in all sense of the word and so their actions are completely subjective. Sophists dont see much

either, for they spend their time arguing over nothing and going in circles taking pleasure in such activities, the difference may be drawn between them and tyrants in that sophists know how to speak, regardless of how meaningless/useless what they have to say is. Next come craftsmen, who again dont see much, but in this case they can actually make things that work and that are for the benefit of them and their folk. There is no art in what they do, they merely use techniques. Next comes the realm of poets and actors who fall under the more general label of imitators. They see not what is underlying but what is apparent. Take an actor playing the role of a lover, for example, he acts that he is in love and does a very good job, for people believe him. Yet, he remains ignorant of what love really is.

The fifth best soul is that of a prophet, a mystic, or a seer. In contrast to the former four who see nothing at all, the fifth best soul sees what is. They attempt to transmit that knowledge to the people, calling on them to wake up so that they too may remember. Next come lovers of toil such as doctors and gymnasts to use Socrates examples. Like seers they see, but they also do (whatever it is they do). Politicians and managers of sorts are next. Again like seers they see the way things work and also see their power over them. They can change the way the world works so to speak through knowing how it does so. Next come kings and leaders who are like politicians in that they can change things but have a clearer vision such that their actions are more encompassing and truly beneficial to their people. A good example is Tolkiens character, Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Above and beyond all are the ninth type of soul, lovers of wisdom and beauty. Those who see and know enough to realize that there isnt anything to be done in this world, and that it can only be used as a reminder to where the true realm of their souls is, in the presence of Being. In the words of British author Cyril Connolly, a.k.a. Palinurus, where those who are fortunate are like competitors in a treasure hunt who, while the others are still elbowing each other and knocking things over, in silence discover the clue, know that they are right and sit down. They sit down and acquire wisdom, go after beautiful things, or study music and the arts since these are clearer images of the true forms, closer to the forms purity.

Seen in this way several patterns emerge. First it is clear that Socrates nine types of souls are subcategories of two larger ones, the wisdom lovers who have a chance to escape and go back to Being earlier than the rest, and the eight others which are earthbound, and must stay in the cycle till it ends of its own accord. Of the earthbound, there are those who see and are guided in their lives by what they see, and those who dont and who are therefore squabbling in the dark. Having isolated wisdom lovers in a class of their own, another pattern would emerge as follows: Kings vs. Tyrants, Politicians vs. Sophists, Workers vs. Craftsmen, and Prophets vs. Poets. In short those who see vs. those who dont. On the one hand there are those who act from a position of knowledge (the source of which is simply by nature since these are archetypes), and those who act from ignorance. Translating these archetypes into civil society we see the four main groups that constitute a society. Namely, leaders, mediators/manipulators, workers, and inspirers (I am reluctant to call them visionaries since visions are by definition real

and true as opposed to illusions/delusions which also inspire people). Again the pattern of ignorance vs. knowledge appears between the two groups of earthbound humans. Kings and tyrants are in control, politicians and sophists speak talk and argue joining the worlds, toilers and craftsmen both make things and provide services, and prophets as well as poets inspire people, each guided by that which he sees and knows.

It is strange to see that over 2000 years later another model of souls (this time called consciousness) has emerged with the same basic principles as the one Socrates explains, even the same number of levels and hierarchal arrangement. Put forth by Dr. Timothy Leary in his book Exo-Psychology published in 1968. He calls it the eight circuit model of human consciousness. Whereas Socrates model suggests that there are nine clear cut types of humans, Learys work is a model of individual humans stating that all eight levels are present either totally or potentially in every human, waiting to be activated as we evolve from one level to the next. His model consists of the following: the bio-survival circuit, the emotional circuit, the dexterity-symbolism circuit, the socialsexual circuit, the neurosomatic circuit, the neuroelectric circuit, the neurogenetic circuit, and the neuroatomic circuit (the quantum non-local circuit), the latter being the most advanced.

As Socrates nine types of souls are responsible for the actions of nine different types of humans, Learys circuits are each responsible for certain abilities, or certain levels of being, of humans. The first circuit is concerned with basic survival and the binary categorization of externals as harmful or safe; a one-dimensional approach. The

second circuit is that concerned with basic emotions and territorial politics/power struggles; a second spatial dimension is introduced. The third circuit is concerned with logic and symbolic thought, and, as the name suggests, dextrous movement. That is the handling of objects skilfully and introducing the third spatial dimension. The next circuit is concerned with humans as social animals, the development of moral values and culture and the introduction of the fourth common dimension, time. Like Socrates model the eight circuit model is also divided into two groups, the past four falling under the heading larval or terrestrial. Moving onto the next four, called the stellar circuits (implying an extra terrestrial influence/source). This group starts with the neurosomatic circuit, that which Leary says is responsible for the transcendence of traditional Euclidian space-time, into multidimensional space. The next circuit is where the mind becomes aware of itself, developing a sort of meta-mind which sees itself work and can therefore cause changes (in the way it works). The seventh circuit is that which grants access to what Jung calls the collective unconscious, the collective memory of Man rather than man. The last circuit of the eight is concerned with the transcendence of known human limits and is said to allow communication with pre-creation entities; God, the Divine, or Being so to say. Learys friend and contemporary Robert Anton Wilson adds a ninth level of consciousness, called intelligence, which allows the person in which it is activated to see everything completely objectively.

Regardless of the terminology used, which is in accordance with the times each model appeared in, parallels may be drawn between both models, especially between the

first four levels of both models. Both the tyrant and the circuit one consciousness are very basic, one dimensional and ignorant, concerned only with survival. The sophists may be likened to circuit two consciousness since both are involved with power struggles and superficial politics. As was mentioned before circuit three is concerned with logic and skilful manipulation, just like the craftsmen who make things with skill. Poets are responsible for cultural production, they are often called the conscience of the time in the sense that you can tell how a society was at a certain time by reading its poetry, and so is the fourth circuit consciousness which is concerned with the emergence of societies, the creation of cultures and their maintenance. Moving on to the next four levels the similarities become harder to pinpoint and the different terminology as well as the different causes surrounding each model come into play. While Socrates was a philosopher who seems to explain these things with disinterestedness as philosophers tend to do, Leary was a psychologist/ software programmer as well as an advocate of psychedelic drugs and research. His theory is not merely to explain or state phenomena, but, at least he and those follow or believe in him see it as such, is to be used as a guide for human evolution.

The last clear simile may be drawn between level five of both models. Like Socrates seer, mystic, or prophet, humans with active circuit five consciousness see things. They are no longer bound by space-time but are one foot above the ground as the Zen metaphor says. After that things get complicated and are beyond the scope of this paper besides being rather irrelevant.

I find it important to note that around the same time as Socrates, Vedic thought, that of Buddhists in India and Tibet, had come up with a model which states the presence of eight energy centres or chakras within humans. While this model is more spiritual, as compared to Socrates literal and Learys technological models, the similarities are much like those between the two models discussed above. Regardless of all these models, theories and formulations, I find that as Socrates says in The Phaedrus, quoting the Delphic Oracle, knowledge of ones own self is the most important and more important than understanding any of these. In Wittgensteins words, the world is that which is the case, and thats that.

Works cited: Plato, The Phaedrus Palinurus, The Unquiet Grave 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8Circuit_Model_of_Consciousness Timothy Leary, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary The 8 Circuit Model, http://deoxy.org/8brains.htm

Submitted: 2005 Fall