It has become popular in New Age culture to scoff at suggestions that a person could ever lose their own soul. "You are your soul," they insist, "and so never have to worry about losing it."

But this is a new (read that "questionable") teaching on the planet, and doesn't have the support of many traditional beliefs. Shamanistic cultures around the globe not only held, like the Christian church, that it was possible to lose one's soul, but also believed that it was common for people to lose their souls a piece at a time, a little here, a little there.

Ancient Binary Soul Doctrine cultures believed that we have two souls, and that they split apart from one another at death. DivisionTheory takes this concept a step further, suggesting that the reason we lose our souls at death is because we have been discarding them, one piece at a time, for all of our lives. Every time we reject, deny, and ignore the insights, feelings, and advice (read that "conscience") that rises up from the depths of our unconscious mind, we in effect push our soul a little farther away, alienating ourselves from ourselves and violating our own integrity.

And when we spend all of our lives pushing our own souls away, we shouldn't be surprised to find them missing altogether once we stride across the threshold of death. Why do they leave entirely then? Because there was nothing left to stay for. You get pushed away all your life and see how fast you leave the scene at the first opportunity.