Soul and spirit (Mandarin: Hun Po) 魂魄, (Saamlawnese: Win Pie) is something that most people misunderstand when they try to learn about Taoism. Knowing about your soul and spirit allows you to understand how life works and be aware of your spiritual and mental health besides physical health. In this article, we will go deep into this subject and get you the best lesson you can find on the internet: soul and spirit.
As explained in our article “Why We Dream,” we have three bodies in different dimensions locally, which follow you around like your shadow. The soul body in dimension 6 (D6) is what we are talking about in this article.
Three Souls
Souls are like a bunch of grouped energy shaped like a cloud, but when you are dead and living in that dimension, they can also be turned into a “human” looking form. In that dimension, everything can shapeshift. You can become a tiger, a mouse, an ant, or a human at any time. Having said that, if your cat or pet dies, their soul can also turn into a human being’s appearance and talk to you when they meet up with you in the same dimension later! This is also why many Chinese fairy tales talk about some spirits that were animals in their “true form” but later can shapeshift to look like human beings. It’s a good visual and metaphor. It also means that you can turn into a flying fish or swimming chicken when you are dead; it is all controlled by your intention and how you want to appear to others. Imagine how you want to look on an internet forum; you can change your profile picture anytime too. Don’t worry; others will still be able to sense who you are!
Most people misunderstood three souls as three different souls, like three balls. It is not like that. A good visual would be the science diagram of atoms with neutrons, photons and electrons. The soul is made of many little particles, which we call Ling Jee 靈子 (Nieong Ju); we can call them spiritual particles. Every particle would contain these three properties inside, which gives them neutral, positive and negative powers. The particles would gather up and form a “cloud,” form which we call Ling Hei 靈氣 (Nieong Ki), and these clouds are the spiritual energy which we refer to as the “soul.”
There are parts of the soul body with more negatives, some parts with more positives, and some parts are neutral. These soul particles will group up in different layers of the soul body and generate powers for us in reality.
The neutral soul, Tin Wun 天魂 (Tian Win), connects the three bodies in D1, D6 and D8. It gives us the power to feel, be conscious, have direction in life, and have the power to generate emotions and make decisions. It carries the power from the heart into the soul, which keeps us alive.
The negative soul, Yum Wun 陰魂 (Yim Win), gives us the power to think and digest information, which most people call “brain power.” It provides mental health and allows us to absorb and remember information temporarily, like the “ram” of your computer, which stores some memory for quick access. Whenever we try to think and ponder, this soul is working.
The positive soul, Yeung Wun 陽魂 (Yang Win), gives us the power to move and take action, which most people call “physical power.” It provides physical health and allows us to output and exert power from the inside to the outside. The body is all powered by this soul to move, including the organs’ movements.
When three souls combine, they are called the “spiritual soul” Ling Wun 靈魂 (Nieong Win).
Inside the cloud of energy, if there are many particles packed inside, it gets dense and energetic, which makes it illuminate, and the light it generates is called Ling Gwong 靈光 (Nieong Gwong). If the same cloud has fewer particles inside, the light will become hazy and not as vibrant, it is less energetic, and we call that a weak soul. It’s like turning an image’s opacity down in graphic software; the soul would look not as solid in appearance.
What the soul generates that could be witnessed from the body is called the spirit, the Paak 魄.
Seven Spirits
The seven spirits are the seven phases of the energetic level in the soul body, which describes the soul’s health. When one phase is completed, it is said to have “light,” but it’s more like it has been completed and moved on to the second phase. The spirits are something that you can witness!
The first spirit phase happens when the PreHeaven energy body connects, which comes in white light. You sense this spirit when you have the vision of doing something, or in other words, when you have an idea of what to do in life. If someone is bored and cannot see what they can do, you can say their first spirit is very dim, the white light is hazy, foggy, or even faint or non-exist. Vision in life makes you see what you can do next, and it keeps us feeling good and hopeful for the future. For example, you wake up and know what you want to do next; that’s vision. Some people wake up and are clueless about what they could or should do! You do not “think” to witness this spirit; it’s an instant feeling that requires no time to “think” or process.
The second spirit phase is when the desire is born. Its colour is black, which makes the white grey and less vivid. Once you have the first light and see what you could do with your time, this spirit makes you “want” and desire to spend the time on this idea. Do you feel like doing something? Do you feel the passion and want to do something? Does it hype you up to take action quickly? All these would question your desire, which shows your energy in the second spirit. For example, you are in a classroom, listening to a lecture, but you do not want to learn and feel that this is useless. You can say that your dark energy is very low. If this dark energy is low, you feel the time is moving slower. When this energy is high, you feel that time is flying fast.
The third spirit phase is when senses and inspirations come to you, which forms a light green colour. This happens after you have decided to put the time into committing to an idea. For example, you had the idea of eating lunch, then the desire kicks in, and the third spirit will follow and give you many senses around the head, which tells you the options of what you can eat. During this stage, you will have all sorts of ideas and creativity. If you feel there are not many options, you can say your green energy is weak and hazy.
The fourth spirit phase is when the power to think is born; it will bring the light green colour into a darker colour, like leafy green. This is when you start to think of the idea you picked from the previous stage. If you start to think and feel stuck, you can say that your green energy is weak or not flowing well. This is also the stage where our logic kicks in, and we start to break down information in our “head.”
The fifth spirit phase is when the power to make decisions is born; it will turn the energy into yellow. During this phase, we would give ourselves approval for what we have chosen to do, and it would make us feel confident, righteous and focused. If we feel that what we are doing is guilty or wrong, then our yellow energy is dim and shaky. This power is very important as it affects our magic power’s character. If our yellow energy is weak, we will not be confident and lose faith in ourselves, which means the magic power will also have trouble exerting, leading to our magic failing to project outward.
The sixth spirit phase is comparing, waiting, and finalizing your ideas. It will turn blue, light blue, and cold white at the final stage. The more powerful this energy is, the more pressure we have inside our guts, and the more we feel suppressed, and the urge will build up. It pumps up our motivation and makes us want to take action. If one is weak with this energy, they would not be able to contain things in their gut for long, like people who always rush to do things and cannot wait or think a bit more before they take action. It often leads to careless mistakes and bumping into obstacles because they don’t wait and observe before taking action.
The seventh spirit phase is when you want to express something by speech or action physically. This will make the energy turns from cold white to red. When this energy goes to the physical reality, it will turn pink like cherry blossom flowers. The more red energies you have, the more “firepower” inside, and the more power you will exert through the actions. A person with low energy of this type would have trouble speaking up, always wanting to be quiet, low-profile, and not wanting to show their feelings.
Soul Energies Interactions in Life
Our soul energies interact with external elements all the time. When you think about anything, your negative soul is going to those things and interacting with them already. Let’s say you are thinking about a friend in Hong Kong then your soul is already reaching out to that person. If that person also thinks of you simultaneously, the souls are reaching out and making contact in the middle. There is no distance in D6; the souls can meet anytime without the need to travel like our physical bodies.
If one person thinks of another while the other side is not thinking of them, this is a one-way soul contact; as a result, the soul from the thinker goes into the other person and will cause influence that person’s thinking. For example, you thought of your mother and how you enjoyed a meal with her last week. Then, as a result, your mother might be influenced to think of something related to eating, food, or you. The thinker projects their soul when thinking; therefore, they are the giver and influencer.
If you always have someone pop into your head (not you thinking of them first), then that person might have been thinking about you all the time. However, it could be more complex in reality.
Your positive soul energy will interact with things when you touch and physically interact with things. For example, if you touch a door, sit on a chair, or walk on the floor, some of your positive soul energy will be left behind. These soul energies will slowly detach or “fade out” and return to you if you don’t contact them for a while.
The neutral soul energies will interact with things you feel, own, and connect to. That includes anything that your negative or positive soul energy made contact with. In the positive soul energy example, you can see that if you walked through the bus station today, some of your soul energy is left behind. As your heart detaches from there after arriving at your destination, your neutral soul will bring the positive energies back to you and regroup with you. As your mind is “off” from something, the other soul energies on it will also detach and be brought back to you.
That is also why we can do magic with things that connect to something, such as their photo, email, or anything they have contact with because all we need is the neutral soul energy that they have put into that object. We can trace back to their body and deliver the magic to them. The neutral soul can also be triggered by something non-tangible such as the name. Calling someone’s name can trigger their neutral soul to connect over. That is why when we summon the soul of someone, we often call their name in the air to pull their soul over.
Souls are always intertwined and blended with other souls, creating a mega-complex interaction between all living things. When we dream, the soul fragments of other people will influence our dreams, which is why sometimes people you know would appear in your dreams.
When We Die
When we die, the seven spirits will fade out one by one, and we will die completely when all seven spirits are gone, bringing us to the real “ghost” stage.
First, you will slowly lose the ability to talk and move, which makes you feel physically weak and have no energy to move your body. This is when your 7th spirit dies out from D8.
Then, you feel that your gut is empty, getting hungry, and you will have issues recognizing things around you, comparing things, or even remembering things. This is when your 6th spirit dies out from D8.
Then, you will feel weak-hearted, scared, afraid, anxious and unstable with your confidence. You don’t know what to do and lose the power to control yourself. This is when your 5th spirit dies out from D8.
Soon, you will lose the ability to think and process in the “brain,” and it’s like you enter a state of brain fog. This is when your 4th spirit dies out from D8.
Senses will die one by one, losing the ability to smell and the sensation of touch, and soon it feels numb, and you are slowly entering a sleep state. This is when your 3rd spirit dies out from D8.
A pitch-black phase will be there, which makes you feel very “peaceful,” and all the desires are gone, like you are “rested” in darkness. This is when your 2nd spirit dies out from D8.
In the end, you will exit the pitch black and enter a full white zone, and then you are transitioned fully into the D6 world, being a new ghost in the spiritual dimension, living your life in a new world that you have never seen. This phase is painful initially because you will have poor senses and vision, which freaks you out. This is when the 1st spirit dies out from D8.
Knowing how souls and spirits work allows us to understand how magic and the other spiritual worlds work too. This knowledge is not just something you “believe,” but something that we apply to our everyday life and magic practice. It explains many things in great detail!
Don't forget to also read about the Yuen Sun, your spiritual planetary body, which your souls connect to every day!
Ordain today to become a Taoist to learn more about the secrets of nature! Most importantly, you want the power to protect your souls!
