Sunday, March 28, 2010

Is There a Difference Between the Soul and the Spirit?

Waterhouse painted "The Soul of a Rose" in 1908. I thought about this image the other day after seeing a patient with a reduced sense of smell. He breathed through a tracheostomy, bypassing the nose and the olfactory (sense of smell) apparatus because of prior total laryngectomy to remove vocal cord cancer.
The word soul brought to mind the quote "Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul" Oscar Wilde  
That led to "You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body" CS Lewis From there, I spent the remainder of the evening on an interesting Internet and eLibrary journey, reading and thinking about the soul and the spirit, how these words are defined and how they tend to be used in the Palliative Medicine literature.

Here is a sample of what I read:
  • Our Spirit represents our true self, the spark of light. The Soul represents human/animal physical being. The Spirit is the life force that uses the soul (the body).
  • Is there a difference between the Soul and the Spirit? The Greeks certainly thought so as they had different words, with completely different meanings, to describe each one. The Greek word for 'spirit' is pneumatos which means air, or wind. Wind/air (breath) is associated with the quality of having life, or being alive. The word 'Soul' derives from the Greek root psukios, which means mind, the seat of human consciousness, and cognition. Today, the soul and the spirit are mostly viewed as being the same thing, but the topic allows for an interesting exercise in describing the spirit as the expression of our soul while we are alive (with abilities and senses) in our bodies. Burke McKay 
  • The human mind comprises the brain and all its workings — memory, perception, reason, emotions. It is, in other words, the “hardware” of human existence. The human soul is what governs the human hardware — the “software” of human existence, our very own “operating system,” unique to each of us. The human spirit is the “electricity” that animates us. 
  • Our spirits are the expression of our souls in relation to how we feel, what we sense, and how well we are able to feel and sense. Our senses are gratified by movement, tasting food, breathing fresh air, seeing, smelling, touching and hearing. If we are in pain, our spirits may be more limited than when we feel well, how much more difficult it is to interact with and enjoy the world when pain is present. Sometimes our spirit is broken. Rarely is it ever said that the soul is broken. Perhaps the combination of body and spirit serve to develop our souls until we no longer have functioning bodies. Then life continues in the form of the soul and the spirit, in pure form, with no need for sensory inputs or for physical interaction with the world. Elizabeth M. Young
  • The soul is the essence of humanity’s being; it is who we are. The spirit is the aspect of humanity that gives us the ability to connect with a higher power (God). The word “spirit” refers only to the immaterial facet of humanity. The word “soul” can refer to both the immaterial and material elements. Unlike human beings having a spirit, human beings are souls. In its most basic sense, the word soul means life.

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