Socrates said,

“It really has been shown to us that, if we are ever to have pure knowledge, we must

escape from the body and observe things in themselves with the soul by itself. It seems likely that

we shall, only then, when we are dead, attain that which we desire and of which we claim to be lovers, namely, wisdom…”

Welcome to The Soul Podcast. I’m Stacey Wheeler

Socrates was onto something. When we rely on our intellect alone, it leads us sometimes, to reject what is obvious. When we can’t prove something intellectually, it gets put on a shelf and we gaze at it with skepticism. And there it sits until we can prove it. 

In season one we looked at the history of the Soul. And we saw back as far as we can into the human journey. We saw that people have known for at least 70,000 years that we are more than just the body. The evidence is there -and has been piling up since the start of recorded time. Long before religions were formed, abandoned -and more religions were created… people have known that something about us survives the death of the body.  

There’s been an acceptance of the existence of the Soul since before saber tooth tigers and mastodons went extinct. But should people of today believe in the Soul, or should we see the belief as superstition? Did the belief grow from the fear all humans have in the uncertainty of what happens after death? Or because we once didn’t understand the scientific explanation for the death of the body?  Why, when the body dies, the person that was once there is now gone…

I believe we’ve always had a deep knowing that we are more than the body. The evidence we looked at in season one shows the great lengths people have gone, to try to connect to, the deepest part of themselves -and the abuses many have suffered, to try and make their Soul reunion. 

I believe that a belief in the Soul matters. Knowing we are more than just this body, adds a greater depth and meaning to our existence. A belief in the Soul makes us feel more connected to others, which has the ripple effect of making us more kind and more empathetic. We become less fearful of death when we move through the world knowing we are a Soul. 

Socrates spoke about this when he said, 

“…those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying, and they fear death least of all men.”

And losing this fear of death allows us to live life more completely. We’re less weighed down with unnecessary fear. And these are only some of the more tangible benefits we gain with a belief in the Soul. There’s so much more in the way it helps us relate to humanity, to the way love lives in us, and in the way it changes how we move through the world. Could you be more specific… maybe give an example or two?

In the long gap between season one and season two I’ve been busy researching. I’ve been interviewing people, reading (a lot) and writing. It’s taken a long time to put season two together, but I wanted to make sure I got it right. There’s an idea that to succeed in podcasting you need to constantly produce new material. In this show, my intention is quality over quantity. It takes much longer to make a souffle than a pop tart. And I hope you’ll agree, season two was worth the wait. Could use a softer tone on this line (you sound a little edgy on the first recording)

In season one we laid the groundwork. We saw the history that shows that the Soul is undeniably a universally held belief. All cultures and all languages have a word that means the Soul. And we’ve been writing about it since we first developed a way to record our thoughts.

This season, some of the topics we’ll dive into are:

·         Dear Death Experiences -How the research around this has gone mainstream

·         The common occurrence known as Terminal Lucidity, which is a sudden and unexpected awakening before death. How does a person in a vegetative state, or in a post-stroke body suddenly reawaken for a short time and speak and act normally, just prior to death?

·         We’ll look at the newest research and cases established around Reincarnation

·         The history of accurately predicting one’s own death will also be covered. We’ll even look at a few cases of famous figures who predicted their own deaths. 

·         We’ll go deeper when we look at one law of science, which seem to support the idea of the Soul 

And, you know, the history we covered in Season one is also evidence. A belief in the Soul seems to have been a universally held belief for tens of thousands of years before the modern age. 

If you listed to season one, you probably already get what I mean. But let me cover this for a second before we continue on. 

Consider the idea of love. Every language on this big, beautiful planet has a word for it. It’s universal. But what is it? Can we capture it? Can we offer a scientific diagram of what it is? Some say we can explain it through chemicals made in the body… and there is some good evidence of this. But can we explain all the nuances of love using this “chemical” explanation? Love cannot be captured or fully explained. But do we question if love is real? No, of course not. We simply know it. Knowing is enough.

The Soul is also universally understood. But the idea of the Soul is still recovering from a PR setback. The Catholic Church hijacked the idea more than a thousand years ago. They laid claim to it. And told the world they were the gatekeeper to this deepest part of ourselves. Then they used the word as a weapon and killed people who questioned the church. What was echoes of hundreds of years of abuse. Today we’d call is generational trauma. As we came out of the dark ages and into the renaissance period, the word Soul started to evolve. We started using words like Consciousness to mean the same thing… as scientific minds kept colliding with the idea while researching seemingly unrelated topics. The word Soul -at least for westerners- became a loaded word. Something beautiful that had been used as a weapon against us. 

So, the word evolved and morphed. But the Soul remains universal, no matter what we call it. 

 In season two we’ll look at evidence. Some of it is modern and some stretches across time, back hundreds of years, in writings that have been forgotten.

We’ll also look at evidence that spirituality is on the rise. And if you don’t understand what spirituality is -or if you are like I once was, and you cringe at the word “spirituality” don’t worry. We’ll bridge that gap in season two. 

So, let’s start here. For clarity, let’s pause for a second and look at the difference between proof and evidence. IN season two, we’re looking at evidence. Proof is something that shows us with near certainty that something is true. And Scientific proof is the hallmark of what is “truth.” 

For instance, let’s consider water. You may not think about it each time you sip water, but water is a compound made of two elements. The chemical compound H2O is a shortcut to say that water is made from two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom. It is a scientific fact, and we can prove what water is.

Science!. Hard proof. 

Evidence demonstrates that something is probably true, even though we may not be able to prove it. Maybe our eyes tell us to believe it, or we have a deep knowing that it is true, even without science backing it up. Love, as we talked about earlier if a good example of accepting something that’s not fully understood. We accept what we feel to be true, even if we are short of proof. 

Probability is where ideas live until we figure out how to prove them and call them “science.” 

And we accept many things in our world without proof of how they work. And you might not realize some of the things which have no scientific explanation.

For many people – call them “skeptics,” It’s easy to doubt the unprovable. A skeptic might tell you they refuse to accept anything that isn’t provable. But I’ll show you, that’s not true. 

This same skeptic will accept at least one thing all day long, which is unprovable.

Gravity. It’s clear that gravity is undeniable. I’ve never heard anyone argue that gravity isn’t real. Have you? But did you know we can’t scientifically explain what makes gravity happen? Yeah, there’s a lot of theories… but no accepted scientific explanation.  There is, however, a lot of evidence. When Sir Isaac Newton wrote about the apple falling from the tree, he was talking about evidence.

We all accept it -and it may be hard to believe, but the cause of gravity continues to remain one of the great mysteries of science, even to this day. There is still no accepted scientific explanation for this ghostly force we call gravity. 

Yes, it is undeniable. We’ve named it and accepted it… And we all seem to agree it’s real, but we are basing this belief on evidence alone. 

Evidence matters. 

We accept what we know to be true. Even if we can’t prove why. And it’s possible that there are very true things that we’ll never be able to explain with our meager minds. 

There’s a limiting factor in our ability to prove things. That is our intelligence. You see, all our exploration begins with the assumption that we are the greatest intelligence. If it can’t be proven by our greatest minds, then we deem it unproven (or false). 

But consider the fact that there are many types of intelligence. Nature has the intelligence to create a flower and the scent that comes from it… which creates a symbiotic relationship with bees or birds and the plats they pollinate. This relationship assures the continuation of both species. 

Nature creates amazing things. Both in detail and in scale. Did you know the largest organism on Earth is a fungus? In the Blue Mountains eastern Oregon, USA there is a honey mushroom which has a root and structure that covers 2,384 acres (or 965 hectares) of soil. Put another way, this humongous fungus would encompass nearly four square miles (or 10 square kilometers).

Nature seems to create without thinking. And of course, it seems that way. We can’t understand the consciousness of nature. So, we assume nature is reflexive and has no consciousness. But consider a person who could create the beauty in nature. The flowers, the plants and the symbiosis it creates. We would call that person an artist. We would call them genius. We might even choose the word god.

 Meanwhile, humans try to create scents and flavors which mimic those in nature, yet we can’t get the same results. 

So, we can easily see there are many types of intelligence. 

To assume something isn’t real because we can’t prove it with our minds, it an arrogant way to approach the world. Learning to find balance between our minds and senses, may in fact might be the best way to make new discoveries. Gravity is a very good example. Our senses say “believe this and trust it” as our scientific minds try to figure out the magic trick nature is showing us. 

There’s a lot we can’t explain with our intelligence. 

And it’s not just big things like gravity that we can’t explain… but we still accept. Science also can’t explain:

Why cat’s purr… But do we doubt that they purr? 

Why people can ride a bicycle…. No one has ever been able to explain this ability scientifically… But does it stop us from riding?

Why it takes more genes to make a tomato than genes to make a person…. Weird, right? It doesn’t make sense to me that a tomato is in some ways more complex than a person, but still end up on my salad.

We also don’t know why we yawn. We don’t know why… but have you ever heard anyone argue that yawns aren’t real?  

So, there’s plenty that we accept as truth using only “evidence” as a way of deciding. So why do so many people push back on the idea of the Soul? 

I’ve got my theories. And we’ll look at them in season two. 

In the second season, the evidence we get into - when taken as a group – is convincing. If you already believe that there is a Soul, the evidence we look at will likely solidify your belief. If you have doubts about the existence of the Soul. I’m glad you’re here. The evidence may move your opinion closer to belief. But I guarantee you will learn something new. 

And I get it. The Soul seems fanciful to some people. Perhaps you believe the only way we can survive the death of the body would be through a miracle. And you reject the idea of miracles.

Who can say with authority other than someone who has gone to the other side? But as you listen to the evidence keep in mind what Albert Einstein said, 

"There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle."

There are many unexplainable things in this life -far more than there are things we can explain. What if all of this is a Miracle? What if we are all miracles?

I appreciate that you’re listing to The Soul Podcast. It’s evidence you have a curious mind and proof that people are interested in this thing we call the Soul.

Welcome to season two of The Soul Podcast.