Division of the Self:

Life After Death and the Binary Soul Doctrine

Today, many believe they truly know what awaits us on the other side of death's door, while others are just as convinced that this, the greatest of mysteries, will never be solved. Adding fuel to the latter argument, disagreement remains the status quo among those who assert they do know; disputes and conflicts and contradictions seem to abound between the current afterlife models of different groups, sects, researchers, and psychics. But long ago, this was not the case. Instead, virtually the same model of death was once held in common by cultures all across the globe. And this lost vision of the afterlife, which appears to be fully consistent with the latest findings in modern psychology, neuropsychology, and near-death studies, carries the most profound implications for all facets of modern afterlife research.

The Ancient Binary Soul Doctrine

From Egypt to India to Hawaii to America, cultures all over the world once believed very much the same thing - that people had not one, but two souls, and that those two souls tended to divide apart from one another at death, each going on to an entirely different afterlife experience. But if those divided parts could be reunited back together, the person would be restored to wholeness, thereafter enjoying an eternal divine existence. Alien as it is to our ears today, this peculiar concept was probably the closest thing this planet has ever had to a single world religion. Its origins are, in the truest sense, pre-historic; the Binary Soul Doctrine seems to have already been in existence, seemingly already hoary with age, at the dawn of civilization. Yet, its story turns out to be a familiar one : it uses the very same model of the self described by modern psychologists and neuropsychologists, and it seems to anticipate, even predict, the very conditions being described by modern research into NDEs, past life memories, past-life hypnotic regressions, ghosts, apparitions, and other afterlife phenomena.

Egypt's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

From its very earliest days, Egyptian culture (now recognized as the earliest civilization in history) embraced the legend of Osiris, his doctrine of eternal life becoming the center focus of their religion. Osiris, the legend reports, was divided apart into pieces when he died, but when those fragments were reassembled, he became restored to a divine and eternal existence. This model of death seems to be reflected in Egypt's doctrine of the division of the two ba and ka souls after death, and the expectation that if the ba and ka could be reunited, the person would then be fully reconstituted and perfected, transfigured into a divine being like Osiris himself.

This was extremely old information, even then. Many of the prayers of the Egyptian Book of the Dead found in tombs were already so ancient that the scribes who copied them were sometimes uncertain just what those prayers were supposed to mean (Budge, 1967). But today, those prayers reveal much about the afterlife beliefs of Egypt - strongly suggesting that Nile culture, so very long ago, was aware of a subtle truth that our scientists have only rediscovered and verified in recent years - that the human mind is indeed fully differentiated into two distinct components - the conscious mind, which possesses the rational intellect and the autonomous free will, and the unconscious mind, which possesses the emotions and the memory (Schiffer). Ancient Egypt believed much the same thing - that human beings possess not one, but two souls, two distinct non-material, psychological components, which, they believed, both survived death. While Egypt also distinguished and named a number of other different elements of the individual, only two of these, the ba and ka, were thought capable of surviving after death (El Mahdy).

A third soul-like element, the khu or aakhu, was also often said to exist after death, but this soul only potentially existed - it seems to have been created out of the reunion of the ba and ka after death. The aakhu was not an additional, third soul one also possessed; rather, it was an entirely new kind of soul one could potentially become. The aakhu didn't exist at all prior to death, and after death, it merely had a chance of coming into existence, but only if all went well with the ba-ka reunion.

The Ba as the Conscious Mind

Like the conscious and unconscious of today's science, both the ba and ka were considered to be integral elements of the self. In fact, both the ba and ka carried, independently of one another, the meaning of "the self". The ba was the living conscious self. Just like the conscious mind of today's psychology, the ba was considered to possess its own independent and autonomous free will, focused self-conscious awareness, intelligence, and the ability to move and communicate (Ries). Like the conscious mind, the ba embodied the objective perspective, always cooly viewing the outer world as an object separate and distinct from itself. Like the conscious mind, each ba was the lone master of its own decisions, lone witness of its own inner domain; the ba was the inner, private self, the utterly alone experience of being that can never be truly shared with another (Wheeler). And like the conscious mind, the ba seems to have been conceived of as the fount of intellect: while the ka was credited with making the body talk, the ba was what caused the words to make sense (Effland).

But quite unlike modern science's current depiction of the conscious mind, the ba was also credited with permanent possession of both the spark of life force and the power of motion and animation (Ries). The ba could never die, never cease to exist, never cease to be conscious and aware (Budge, 1967). The ba would always be alive and would always be aware of its own existence. But its sense of continuity - the coherence of its sense of self - that was quite a different matter. That was not guaranteed, and all the funerary rituals and efforts of ancient Egypt had but one purpose - to maintain the coherency of that self-experience while passing through the doors of death (Wheeler).

The Ka as the Unconscious Mind

Unlike the ba, the ka could cease to exist (El Mahdy). In a twist that has confused scholars for centuries, the ka, a different element altogether, was somehow also considered to be "the self". Actually, "ka" is the Egyptian word for "you", a pun-like choice of words that emphasizes the ka's role in relationships (Wheeler). In a great many respects, the ka parallels modern science's concept of the unconscious half of the human psyche (Crehan). Like the unconscious, the ka was associated with dream activity during sleep (Effland). Like the unconscious, the ka was thought to be able to work in secret, without its owner's knowledge, even able to deceive or betray its owner. Like the unconscious, the ka could either work for or against its owner (Wheeler). Like the unconscious, the ka was thought to contain a record, or be a model, of all one's personal memories and subjective emotions, and thus, one's sense of self-identity (El Mahdy). Like the unconscious, the ka was polarized towards a subjective or intersubjective orientation, providing one's ability to relate to and interact with others; it was, like the unconscious, the source of one's subjective sense of belonging, of living connection with others. And therefore, it was, again like the unconscious, thought to be the source of one's sense of morality and conscience. And like the unconscious, the ka was considered to be moldable, changeable, and potentially unreliable (Wheeler). Even Egyptian art suggests identifying the ka with the unconscious - just as the unconscious is thought of as the equal-but-opposite dark interior to the conscious mind's lighted exterior, so too the ka was often depicted in art as a blackened reverse image of the person (Effland).

The ka was said to be the person's "double"; it embodied the pattern of one's person by molding itself into a perfect image or likeness of the individual and his character ( El Mahdy). In fact, the ancient Egyptian word "ka" still lives on in our language, in words like "character" and charisma" (Wheeler). Like the unconscious, the ka preserved within itself a complete record or pattern of one's life history and personal nature; in other words, it contained the shapes of one's memories (on which the continuity and coherence of one's sense of self-identity depends, as any amnesiac will testify). It constituted a complete database of all one's individual characteristics, disposition, and attributes, all one's feelings, emotions, needs, desires, fears, expectations, and appetites (El Mahdy). In short, the ka was yin to the ba's yang, the "form" that gave shape to the ba's "substance". The ka was closely associated with the concept of form and image - it was what allowed different shapes to be taken (Ries).

The Relationship of the Ba and Ka During Life

There was one thing the ka lacked- sustenance. The ka was not thought to inherently possess its own spark of life force that could keep it eternally alive, energized, and active, so it needed to look to other, outside sources to acquire a regular supply of its necessary nourishment (Davies). The ba, which was thought to possess that eternally-living spark of life force, was said to nestle inside the ka during one's human life (Davies); the ka held this ba within it like a cup holds water, embracing it. In fact, the symbol for the ka was a pair of upraised arms, stretched out in a welcoming embrace, yet also raised up in a way that brings to mind the image of a cup ready to be filled. In the same way, the conscious mind can be said to be contained, and therefore shaped, by the unconscious. The conscious has no shape of its own, no unique personality, except as informed through the memory shape of the unconscious (without the unconscious with its memory and emotions, the conscious, although aware, would be as blank and featureless as a sheet of white paper). And just as the ba was thought to animate the ka, so too the conscious mind animates and activates the otherwise dormant unconscious.

During life, the ka dwelt within the heart, and the ba dwelt inside the ka. This union of the ba and ka during life was intimate; the two could not be separated prior to death. The ka was the personal possession of the ba; they were like two embracing lovers, two conjoined beings (Davies). The ka was thought to travel away from the body in dreams while the person was alive (Effland), but such journeys did not sever the connection between it and the ba (Davies).

The Division of Ba and Ka at Death

But after the person died, the ba and ka, which until then had known only partnership, functioning for all intents and purposes as a single unit all during the person's life, now found themselves separated, alienated, divided apart from one another (Watterson). This abrupt, disorienting division seems to have been associated with the ba experiencing a loss of memory; multiple chapters in the Egyptian Book of the Dead are dedicated to praying that the deceased's memory be returned to him after he has left the body (Budge, 1967). How could this be accomplished? By re-connecting the ba back to the ka, which contains the full pattern and record of the person's life (in other words, his memories). In fact, all the funerary prayers of ancient Egypt were designed with but a single purpose in mind - to reverse this division - to get the ba and ka to reunite back together again so the deceased could become a completed, perfected being, an aakhu (El Mahdy).

The Transfiguration of the Aakhu

If this reunion of the ba and ka was successfully accomplished, it was thought, the person would be transformed into an aakhu, something akin to a shining, glorified, immortal angel. Often called an Osiris (meaning one whose parts have been reunited), the aakhu was the true, complete self in its fully awakened and perfected and whole state after death (Budge, 1967). The word aakhu carried the sense of one who had been "pulled back together", one who was now fully "self-possessed" (Wheeler) meanings which appropriately reflect the reunification of the ba and ka, and the reacquisition of one's past memories, personality, and sense of self-identity that would thereby occur.

The Second Death

But if the ba and ka did not reunite, then the ba was thought to flit away freely and without concern to heaven, where it would still enjoy unlimited freedom and happiness, doing and going where it pleased, and conversing with other ba's in heaven (Ries). Meanwhile, the ghostly-appearing ka would remain behind, trapped in a feebleminded, (El Mahdy) cold, hungry, needy, and vulnerable state in the tomb (Budge, 1973). The ka was thought to have many very regular and pressing requirements after death, but, without the animating mobility it received from the ba, its needs went unmet, and it would eventually disintegrate. If the ka was rejoined to its ba, the two of them together becoming an aakhu, then all those needs of the ka would be thereby instantly and eternally fulfilled (Budge). But failing that reunion, the ka would perish in a "second death" which, to the Egyptian, was the worst disaster imaginable (El Mahdy); the ka would be utterly annihilated, made as if it had never come into existence (Watterson).

A Common Model of Death

This ancient tale of dividing souls, or something very similar to it, is found repeated in culture after culture. This simple little idea is like the Forrest Gump of life after death concepts - it seems to turn up, again and again and again, in early afterlife traditions all over the globe. Ancient Egypt, Israel, Persia, Greece, India, Islam, China, Australia, Hawaii, Alaska, the Dakota tribe of North America, and literally dozens of other indigenous peoples of North and South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa all subscribed to such a Binary Soul Doctrine. The specific details are sometimes quite different, but the core message is always the same - that people possess two souls which can and often do divide apart at death, each going off into a different afterlife experience. And these otherwise very different and alien cultures consistently described these two souls in similar ways, uncannily paralleling today's scientists' descriptions of the conscious and unconscious. Again and again, the reader finds one soul being described as objective, masculine, rational, intelligent, active, and possessing independent free will, while the other is described as subjective, feminine, emotional, responsive, and in possession of the memory records.

Greece's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

When one peers back into the dimmest, most distant traces of the ancient Greek civilization, one finds the Binary Soul Doctrine already in full flower. In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Greece' s oldest literary texts, two distinct types of souls are distinguished - the psuche and the thymos. Thought to be free, unencumbered, and immortal, the psuche held the spark of life, and while it could not exit the body without causing the death of the individual, it was thought to be able to reincarnate. And while the psuche was not thought to possess any feelings or emotions, it was thought to be the center of all abstract intellectual thought. The other soul, the thymos, possessed one's feelings, emotions, needs, and urges. After death, the thymos separated from the psuche, and was lost (Bremmer).

India's Early Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

Vedic India also held that people possessed two soul-like elements - an asu and a manas (Rgveda). The asu was active, conscious, sentient, and immortal, carrying the spark of life. The manas held the internal feelings, emotions, and subjective perception, providing a person with his ability to perceive and comprehend his various relationships with others.(Soul: Indian Concepts). After death, the asu could simply reincarnate again, but the manas could be greatly harmed by death; if it separated from the animating and cognizing asu after death, it would become inert and lifeless (Ries).

India's Later Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

Modern Hindu philosophy also holds that two non-physical elements of the self survive the death of the physical body. And again, one of these two, the sukshma sharira (often called in English the "subtle-", "astral-", or "emotional-" body), contains one's emotions and memories, while the other, the karana sharira (the "causal" or "mental" body), holds one's rational intellect and independent free will. During life these are integrated deeply together, but after death, the two divide apart, after which the astral-emotional body starts to severely deteriorate (Bhattacharyya).

Persia's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

Ancient Persia also held that the human soul was composed of two twin parts: the urvan and the daena. The urvan was conscious, active, and verbal, and was immortal and unharmed by death. The daena, created or shaped by the thoughts, words, and deeds of the urvan during life, contained the conscience and a perfect mirror image or pattern of the person's self, including a perfect memory of the person's life. During a great Judgment after death, the two often had a great falling out, when the urvan found itself confronted by the full memory record carried within the daena. Immortality required the successful reconciliation of the urvan and daena after death. (Ries) .

China's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

Ancient China's Yin/Yang philosophy parallels the Binary Soul Doctrine in many respects, asserting that not merely the human soul, but all reality was based on and comprised of two equal-but-opposite interplaying forces. Instead of leaving this concept in the abstract, China's Chou dynasty but brought it down to the level of the individual, asserting that each person had two distinct souls: one corresponding to the Yin force, the other to the Yang force (Wei-Ming) The hun was the Yang soul, conscious, active, intelligent, masculine, and dominant. The p'o was the Yin soul, earthy, emotional, only semi-conscious, feminine, and passive. After death these two souls parted company - the hun soul left the body unharmed, returning to heaven from whence it came, while the p'o soul would find itself trapped in a dark underground realm in a dim-witted state (Seidel).

Hawaii's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

In Hawaii these two souls were called the uhane, which was thought to be masculine, intelligent and possess free will, and the unihipili, which was thought to be feminine, emotional, and possess the memory. If the uhane became separated from the unihipili after death, it would lose its memory, and end up wandering in a great helpless confusion, often going on to reincarnate. The unihipili, meanwhile, would still recall its memories very well, but would become feebleminded, behaving in a very automatic and suggestible fashion. Hawaii's ancient Kahuna sorcerers claimed to be able to control, manipulate, and enslave the separated unihipili souls of the dead, commanding them to do their bidding much as a hypnotist controls the thoughts and actions of his or her subject. And like Egypt's aakhu, the Hawaiians also named a third, higher sort of soul, the aumakua, which was created out of the two binary souls when they would successfully unite into a singular unit (Long).

Israel's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

Ancient Israel also held that people are comprised of two spiritual elements - a ruwach (commonly translated "spirit") and a nephesh (commonly translated "soul"). The ruwach was active, strong, conscious, intelligent, (Strong) and communicated with words . (2 Samuel 23:2) It was immortal, pre-existing the person's birth and surviving his death unharmed, always "returning to god who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). But the nephesh, which embodied one's emotions, memories, and sense of self-identity, was vulnerable could be greatly harmed by death, becoming trapped in a weak and feebleminded state in She'ol, a dark underground dreamlike netherworld (Ries).

Islam's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

In ancient Islam, the two souls were called the ruh and the nafs (notice the linguistic similarity to Israel's ruwach and nephesh). Like Israel's ruwach, the ruh carried the spark of life, was associated with the rational intellect, and was capable of communication, and like Israel's nephesh, the nafs was associated with one's feelings, needs, and desires (Ries).

Christianity's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

Early Christianity also distinguished between the soul and the spirit, and, as one Biblical passage reveals, it was openly taught in the early days of the Church that the soul and the spirit were capable of dividing apart from one another:

"The word of God is living and active

and more powerful than any two-edged sword,

and cuts so deeply it divides the soul from the spirit."

- Hebrews 4:12

An archaeological discovery in 1948 has raised the intriguing suggestion that the Binary Soul Doctrine may have played a far more central role in early Christian theology than today's culture has been led to believe. A nearly 2000-year old cache of lost early Christian scrolls was unearthed in Nag Hammadi, Egypt (Robinson), indicating that early Church teachings once credited great relevance to the distinction and interaction between the soul and the spirit (The Secret Book of James 11:38-39, 12:1-6). Three lost Christian gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and the Gospel of Philip, return again and again to the issue of division, mysteriously insisting that Jesus somehow divided into two halves when He died on the cross (Robinson, Gospel of Philip 68:26-29), that all people were in danger of such a division (Robinson, Gospel of Thomas 11), that the division of the soul and spirit (Robinson, Exegesis on the Soul 133:4-9), or of Adam and Eve (Robinson, Gospel of Philip 68:22-26), was the origin of death, and that "making the two one" was key to achieving eternal life (Robinson, Gospel of Thomas 22).

Other Western Versions of the Binary Soul Doctrine

The Mandaean religion, a still-living offshoot of the gnostic branch of early Christianity, believes even today that the living possess both soul and spirit, and that these two elements of the self split apart after death. Three days after burial, Mandaean priests celebrate a ritual called the masiqta, the aim of which is to reunite the soul and spirit in the afterlife, thus creating a new "Lightworld" body for the deceased that will allow him to live among the blessed dead (Buckley).

Manichaeism, another offshoot of Gnostic Christianity, also believed there were two distinct halves to the human soul. The nous was the half of the self that was immortal, while the psuche was the half that was vulnerable and in danger of being destroyed during the transition of death.

Immanuel Swedenborg, founder of the New Church, also spoke of two distinct halves to the human soul, calling them the inward and outward thoughts. At death, these two elements park company, according to Swedenborg, and the outward thought, which holds all one's insights and data and the capacity for logical thought, was lost, while the inward thought continued on in a dreamlike netherworld (Swedenborg).

Rudolph Steiner, theologian and founder of the Waldorf School for children, also recognized both soul and spirit, and taught that these two permanently part company after death, after which the soul would slowly disintegrate and cease to exist altogether. Again, like so many other traditions did, Steiner viewed the soul much like today's science views the unconscious (crediting it with possession of the memory and emotions) and the spirit like the conscious (crediting it with objective rational thought). But Steiner held that the eventual separation of spirit from soul in the afterlife was a good thing, necessary for the higher evolution of the spirit (Steiner).

The celebrated modern psychic James Van Praagh also maintains that discarding half of our being after death is an advantageous eventuality. He teaches that human beings possess two halves to the self, both an astral body and a mental body, which divide apart at death. The astral body, he maintains, is made up of all one's emotions, yearnings, memories, and desires, while the mental body carries with one's rational, objective, logical thought processes. During life, these two bodies intermingle and are interdependent on one another, making us whole beings, according to Van Praagh. But in death, we completely slough off the emotional body, leaving it behind to disintegrate in an event Van Praagh identifies as the legendary "second death" spoken of in Hindu, Egyptian, and Christian traditions (Van Praagh). However, while some, such as Steiner and Van Praagh, may hold that discarding the emotional half of the self is necessary and good for one's subsequent spiritual evolution in the afterlife, it seems that Leo Buscaglia would vehemently disagree. Buscaglia, America's beloved cultural guru on "being fully human", spent his entire public career arguing just the opposite - that one's feelings, emotions, memories, and interpersonal, intersubjective sense are the most valuable aspects of the self (Buscaglia). If Buscaglia was correct, it seems, no afterlife without these qualities would be worth the bother.

Tribal Versions of the Binary Soul Doctrine

The belief in a dividing binary-soul is also found in many primitive cultures across the globe. The two souls of Inner Asia's Tunguz tribe is a typical example, in which one soul is free and independent after death, returning to heaven to wait until it reincarnates again, while the second soul becomes eternally imprisoned in an dark netherworld. The Australian aboriginal tribes also believed that people possess two souls, one which reincarnates into another human body after death, and another which takes up eternal residence after death in a dream-like realm known as the "Dreaming" (Ries) . Africa's Mossi Tribe believe that human beings have one masculine and one feminine soul, and that death divides these two apart (Riviere). Africa's Samo Tribe call their two souls the ri and the mere; the ri soul contains the person's thought and life force, reincarnating after death, while the mere soul contains a perfect record of that person's nature and characteristics, and becomes permanently trapped in a netherworld after death (Ries).

The Binary Soul Doctrine was once extremely widespread in the Americas; tribes from Alaska to South America believed in a "Corporeal Soul" which gave life, consciousness, and the faculty of movement, and a "Free Soul", or "Dream Soul", which would become trapped in the realm of the dead after death. The Corporal soul provided the life force, and could not exit the body without resulting in the death of the individual. But the Free Soul could leave the body during life, and was thought to do so often, such as during dreams, trances, and mystical experiences. Alaska's Inuit believed in two souls, one which held the life force and reincarnated into a new body after death, and another, the tarnneg, or double of the person, which permanently entered a realm of the dead (Ries). North America's Dakota Tribe called their two surviving souls the nagi and the niya. The nagi held the power of movement and independent free will, and after death, it could either join the world of the spirits, or be forced to wander aimlessly. The niya held the conscience and memory, and helped a person to relate to and interact with others. After death, the niya was thought to testify against the other soul in a great Judgment after death, much like Persia's daena and Egypt's ka (Riviere).

Linguistics Reveals a Cultural Memory of Binary Souls

As an idea about what happens to us after death, this ancient idea of two dividing souls has been largely forgotten by contemporary culture. But while modernity may have lost sight of dividing souls as a model of death, we have not lost sight of binary souls as a picture of the makeup of a human being. The idea that people are three-part creatures, having one body which holds two soul-type elements, is still a very familiar image, an ancient insight that still lives and breathes in the words we speak. We regularly describe ourselves as having body, soul, and spirit, or body, mind and soul, or body, heart and soul, or some other variation of this theme. We're not even all that sure what we mean by these terms anymore, but we use them nonetheless. Still, most references to "soul" or "spirit" have been generally regarded as pointing to more or less the same thing for much of the last 2000 years.

Science's Version of the Binary Soul Doctrine

But all that seems to be changing in this century. One of the most astonishing facts of this age is that our culture, after thousands of years, has found reason to again resuscitate and embrace the ancient concept of binary souls. Having spent nearly a whole century applying the most rigorous scientific tests possible, humanity has again arrived at the conclusion of the ancients - that we are indeed two-part creatures, comprised of a conscious mind and an unconscious mind.

Humanity actually reached this same conclusion not once, but twice in the 20^th century. In the early 1900's, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung first (re) introduced and popularized the notion that the human psyche is composed of two distinct parts. And then (as if that weren't enough) science then went on to describe and define those two parts in virtually the same language the ancients used to describe the two souls of the Binary Soul Doctrine - one was active, objective, logical, intelligent, masculine, and had free will, while the other was subjective, emotional, feminine, and held the memory (Jung, 1960). And with the advent of neuropsychology over the last 30 years, the basic premise of the two-part mind has been powerfully reinforced and substantiated; the study of the two hemispheres of the brain has again concluded that two entirely separate and distinct minds do indeed co-exist in the brain, one residing in the right hemisphere, and one in the left (Ornstein). As recently as 1998, Neuropsychologist Fredrick Schiffer of Harvard Medical School maintained (Schiffer, p. 79, 80, 84-85):

"We have two minds, one associated with each hemisphere." " The two minds are different [...] The dichotomy of mind is entirely normal - it is, in fact, the way we human beings are made." "The two minds can cooperate with each other ... or they can sabotage each other [...] the two minds constantly interact." " Not only have we discovered two intact minds in split-brain research and in psychology, but we have found that in both cases, the two minds seem to interact in similar ways [...] A number of authors, including myself, have turned to the split-brain studies to advance the notion that the right hemisphere is the site of the Freudian unconscious [...] The basic idea emanating from the split-brain studies - that of mental duality - offers a profound foundation for any psychological thinking."

So, just as Freud and Jung maintained at the turn of the century, and just like the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, and so many other peoples also maintained thousands of years ago, today's most advanced neuropsychologists are also finding themselves repeating the same ancient story, perhaps the most ancient of all revelations - that human beings have two minds, or two souls. However, modern science has not merely rediscovered humanity's two souls, but has greatly added to the scant information about them that had managed to trickle down to us through history. And what modern science has added to our knowledge about the nature of the conscious and unconscious seems to explain a great deal about the afterlife traditions of the ancients, as well as the reports of today's afterlife researchers.

A Pairing of Opposites

Science has taught us that the conscious and unconscious are exact opposites in many respects : the conscious is active, while the unconscious is reactive and responsive; the conscious seems to exercise autonomous free will, functioning under its own initiative and volition, while the unconscious functions automatically and instinctively (Freud); the conscious is objective while the unconscious is subjective; the conscious is intellectual when the unconscious is emotional (Jung, 1953). And modern neuropsychology has added even greater depth to our comprehension of these dynamics, teaching that the conscious mind is verbally-oriented while the unconscious is nonverbal, thinking and communicating via symbols, pictures, gestures, and metaphors (Ornstein).

Neuropsychology has revealed that the conscious mind sees the differences and distinctions between things, while the unconscious is geared to do just the opposite - see the connections, relationships, and similarities between things (Springer). In a nutshell, the conscious sees the trees, the unconscious sees the forest; the conscious reads the text, the unconscious perceives the context; the conscious sees the details, the unconscious sees the meaning (Ornstein). This division of labor seems to explain why the ancients insisted that only one of their two souls possessed independent free will. Being blind to the differences and distinctions between things, the unconscious does not realize the existence of choices, options, and alternatives. Unable to realize the existence of choices, options, and alternatives, the unconscious is unable to choose or decide. Unable to choose or decide, the unconscious cannot exercise self-determination. Unable to exercise self-determination, the unconscious lacks autonomous free will. Lacking autonomous free will, the unconscious is like a mindless machine running on automatic.

Remarkably like the Yin and Yang of classic Chinese philosophy, the unconscious and unconscious seem to be closely embraced in a dance, with the conscious always leading, by making new choices and decisions. Whenever the conscious mind initiates a move, the reactive and responsive unconscious makes a corresponding move. Whenever the conscious mind chooses or acts, the unconscious mind reacts immediately and directly to that choice or act, automatically generating its own responses, in the form of feelings, emotions, impressions, and insights, that are then released back into the conscious mind.

The conscious and unconscious are so tightly intertwined in this dance, they give the compelling illusion of existing and functioning as a single unit. Just as one's left and right eyes both produce a separate and distinct vision, but these two visions are united and integrated together in one's mental experience into a single vision, so too the two halves of the psyche are so intimately integrated together in one's mental experience that they too seem to be a single unit, a single experience, a single self. This illusion of singularity is so persuasive that it has taken our most sophisticated scientific research and analysis to penetrate. Each eye, by itself, only produces a two-dimensional image, but when integrated together they produce a new thing that never existed before - a three-dimensional image. In much the same way, each of the two spheres of human consciousness are, alone, greatly limited and inadequate, but when they are integrated together, it produces the fullness of human consciousness - a self-aware individual.

These two halves of the psyche remain bound fully together during life. They are always dancing in unison, and although one or the other may seem to have the upper hand at any given moment, both are always involved in the overall experience we register at any given time. Thus, when the conscious mind seems to have full control, such as when one is most fully awake and involved in logical thought calculations, the unconscious is still there in the background, still intimately involved in producing one's psychological experience and mental processes. And in the same way, when one is most deeply asleep and dreaming, and the unconscious seems to be in charge, the conscious mind is still also present and actively involved in producing one's experience.

Embodying the Dichotomy Between Form and Substance

Ancient Egypt credited the ka, or unconscious soul, with the ability to assume different forms, and the nature of the unconscious does seem to explain this as well - the unconscious excels at form-recognition. Because the unconscious is designed to recognize the connections, relationships, and similarities between things, one of its jobs seems to be to recognize meaningful patterns within data. In other words, it seems to be the half of the mind that can discern form (Sagan). The neuropsychological studies of the last 30 years show that the Right-Brain unconscious is far more adept at recognizing patterns, forms, connections, and relationships than the Left Brain conscious (Ornstein). Thus, the classic philosophical dichotomy between form and substance also seems to be embodied within the distinctions between the conscious and unconscious - the conscious is like an eye that only recognizes substance, the unconscious, an eye that only recognizes form.

Embodying the Dichotomy Between Autonomy and Relationship

Arthur Koestler coined the marvelous word "holon" to refer to a thing that is simultaneously both a whole and a part, which, as he pointed out, most things are. Individual atoms, for example, are distinct and autonomous wholes that are, at the same time, also mere parts of other wholes - molecules - which are themselves parts of whole cells, which are parts of whole organs which are parts of whole creatures which are parts of whole families which are.... These two different natures - wholeness and partness - are always in a state of dynamic conflict: one is concerned with preserving the holon's sense of "wholeness" - its independent distinctness and autonomy , while the other is concerned with preserving the holon's sense of "partness" , its interdependent, integral relationship to the world around it (Wilber).

This functional dichotomy of holons is perfectly reflected in the two halves of the psyche. Perfectly performing the functions of "wholeness-orientation", the conscious mind tends to recognize the distinctions and differences between things (always seeing that "this" and "that" are different. "You" and "I" are different.). The conscious mind tends to view itself as independent, separate, and autonomous, complete onto itself. The unconscious mind, on the other hand, seems to perfectly perform the functions of "partness-orientation ", always focusing on the similarities and relationships between thing, always bringing the implicit assumption that "I am interconnected with all else - I am a part of everything I see, and everything I see is a part of me." Thus, it seems that the two natures of holons have manifested in human psyches as two distinct spheres of consciousness.

Every holon, Koestler realized, is equally dependent on its "wholeness" and its "partness" for its continued survival; if a holon lost either its distinct autonomy or its integral relationship with its environment, he warned, it would cease to exist. This, of course, has sobering implications for the dividing soul doctrines of the ancients, especially since the conscious seems to embody the function of "preserving wholeness", and the unconscious seems to embody the function of "preserving partness".

The Unconscious as "The Double"

The unconscious is receptive, a perfect memory-machine, forming itself into a flawless record of all the person's experiences, both internal and external, all his memories, thoughts, deeds, impressions, convictions, desires, dreams, hopes, loves, hates, etc. (Jung, 1960). In this it is easy to see a possible origin for the curious fact that so many cultures, including Egypt and Persia, specifically described the unconscious-like soul as being a perfect double, or image, of the individual.

The Conscience Function of the Unconscious

Many early traditions maintained that the unconscious-like soul contained (or produced) the conscience, an innate moral sense of right and wrong (Jung maintained much the same thing), and the combination of two of the unconscious' chief characteristics - responsiveness and memory - does seem to explain how this conscience function is produced. Whenever the conscious mind makes a new choice or decision, the unconscious automatically reacts by comparing that latest choice or decision with the full gestalt of all that person's memories, all his or her previous thoughts and impressions and decisions. Like a mirror, the unconscious forces us to look back upon ourselves and our own past decisions, conclusions, perceptions, and attitudes. This "conscience" function of the unconscious deceives many into assuming that the unconscious is actively judging our actions and decisions in life, but in reality, the unconscious is, throughout the entire process, functioning automatically, without will or intent. Instead of our unconscious judging us, we judge ourselves. The unconscious merely records all our decisions and conclusions, treating them simply as commands to be followed, carrying them out like a computer carries out its programming, or a hypnotized person carries out the commands he or she is given. Thus, if the unconscious contains the assertion "this is bad", then if the person does that "bad" thing, the unconscious will compare the present act and the previous judgment, and then generate and release appropriate and corresponding psychological material - i.e., bad or guilty feelings. Like a mirror, the unconscious always responds in kind, good for good and bad for bad. As we will see, this conscience function seems to be directly responsible for the intense "Judgment" experience that so very many have reported during NDEs, as well as the heavenly or hellish experiences that often follow.

The Question Deserves To Be Asked

As curious as it is that so many ancient cultures seem to have known, somehow, about the conscious and the unconscious, it is even more curious that they all somehow managed to also agree that these two souls divided apart at death. So the logical question is - what would happen to the conscious and the unconscious if they did divide apart after death? Where would they be? What would each experience? Fortunately, this question answers itself : each would, obviously, lose what the other half gave it, and would be forced to rely exclusively on its own capacities.

The conscious half, then, would lose all its memory, all its emotion, all its subjective sense of connectedness and relationship, all its sense of pattern and context, everything it had previous received from the unconscious. But it would continue to possess its own objective perspective, rational intellect, verbal communication skills, and independent free will volition. Meanwhile, an afterdeath division would affect the unconscious very differently, causing it to lose the ability for objective, rational, independent thought, its verbal communication skills, and its independent free will ability to make new choices and decisions. It would, however, still retain its subjective perspective, emotions, memory, and ability to perceive patterns, context, connectedness, and relationships.

Many of those ancient cultures held that, if they divided apart, the conscious-like soul (the one possessing intelligence and free will) would reincarnate after death, while the unconscious-like soul (the one having the emotions and the memory) would find itself in a dreamlike netherworld-type experience after death. The amazing thing is - these scenarios are uncannily close to what modern science would seem to predict as likely experiences if the conscious and unconscious did divide apart after death. In fact, if the conscious and unconscious were to divide apart at death, such a division would account for the vast majority of reports that are emerging from modern afterlife research.

In the next issue, the companion article to this piece, The Darkness and the Light: Afterlife Phenomena and the Binary Soul Doctrine, will present evidence that an afterdeath division of the conscious and unconscious would account for many different kinds of afterlife reports, including NDE phenomena, reincarnation and Past-Life Regression phenomena, ghost and apparition phenomena, and more.

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