Many shamanic cultures say yes, though they count differently, some speaking of twenty or more souls and others of only a few. Therapeutic Shamanism works with four main parts of the selfParts of the self. There are four parts of the self, the realm-corresponding members of the Inner Tribe: the Body and the middle-world self (both of the middle-world), the Soul (of the Lower-World) and the Spirit (of the Upper-World). The Aware Self, also called the Witness, is not a fifth part but a capacity: the awareness that can watch all four, with compassion and equanimity. Read the full answer, one for each realm, and two of them are called ‘soul’: the middle-world soul, with a small s, pieces of which can be lost and retrieved, and the Lower-World Soul, with a capital S, which is never lost but has to be found.
Do people have more than one soul? #
In many shamanic traditions, yes. Different shamanic cultures divide the self into different numbers of parts. Some say that we have as many as twenty or more different souls, or parts of one soul, depending on how you look at it, each with its own purposes and needs; others divide the self into far fewer.1 Psychotherapy has its own version of the same insight, seeing people as made of different internal parts or sub-personalities, and it too divides our inner landscape up in many different ways.1
Whatever the number, the shared point is that there is no one, single ‘I’. Each of us is a community, an inner tribeInner Tribe. The community of parts-of-self that a human being actually is. Health is not one part’s triumph but a well-run tribe: every member honoured, every member doing its proper job, the Adult in charge. Read the full answer of parts with different needs and drives, and much of shamanic practice is about bringing that tribe into balanced, respectful relationship, just as the wider practice is about living well within the great Tribe of all the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer.1 Most people assume there is only one ‘I’, and that assumption causes them all sorts of problems. See What is the inner tribe?
How does Therapeutic Shamanism count them? #
As four main parts, one for each of the shamanic realms, because each part is of its realm. The self can be divided into any number of sub-parts, but Therapeutic Shamanism concentrates on these four, keeping things as simple and uncluttered as possible.2 To live a healthy and balanced life, each of them needs to be honoured and accepted, allowed to express itself, and to have its needs met.
The Upper-World Spirit is pure consciousness, a part of Father Sky, in the way that a wave is part of the ocean or a spark part of a fire; it has some individuality, but not much. The physical body is not a vehicle that a soul lives in, but a part of us with its own consciousness, intelligence, wisdom, needs and drives, made of the chemical elements and so our closest link with the Stone People. The middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer, or ego, is built to let us live in this world, and is woven from the stories we tell ourselves, the introjectsIntroject. A foreign belief, message or story swallowed whole (often in childhood) and lodged inside as if it were our own; a type of intrusion. More about this we take on, our beliefs, entanglementsEntanglement. An unhealthy energetic tie hooking us into another person, a role, an object or a family story; released by disentanglement. More about this, roles and masks. The Lower-World Soul is our authentic, deep Soul, who we were meant to be: the Human that Mother Earth intended, both an individual and an interconnected part of the web of life.2 See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?
So which one is ‘the soul’? #
Two of the four, which is why the word causes so much confusion. The middle-world self is our ‘soul’ with a small s, our self-identity in this world and the thing most people mean when they say ‘I’. Alongside it we do have another soul, the Soul with a capital S, which is of the Lower-World.3 So in this approach people have more than one soul in quite a plain sense.
The two behave very differently. Pieces of the middle-world soul can be lost, and most shamanic soul retrieval is the finding and bringing home of such middle-world parts. The Lower-World Soul is never lost in that way. It is something to be found, if and when a person is ready, and then grown into over a lifetime; it cannot be fetched back by a soul retrieval. See What is the difference between Soul and a soul part?
Can part of a soul be lost? #
Yes, part of the middle-world soul. When we are hurt, or when a part of us is not welcome where we live, that part can leave: today most often our playfulness, confidence, sensitivity, anger and the like, sent away so that we can fit in. If all our soul, or souls, had left, we would have died. That we did not means that a part of us stayed behind and carried on, holding the fort, and that part may not be at all sure it wants the lost part back.4 See What is soul loss? and What is soul retrieval?
What happens to the different souls when we die? #
They go their separate ways. The Upper-World and the Lower-World are outside space and time, so our Spirit and our Soul are, in that sense, eternal, and death does not change them. The body returns to the Stone People. The middle-world self should pass over to the Land of the DeadLand of the Dead. The middle-world human place where the middle-world self belongs after death. Not the Lower-World, and not hell. More about this, and, like everything in the middle-world, it lasts only for a while.5
Which of these a person goes with at death depends on where they have put their awareness, and that depends a lot on the habits of a lifetime. This is one reason it is said that part of the point of practising shamanism is to prepare for death.5 See How does Therapeutic Shamanism understand death and what happens when we die? and What is the Land of the Dead?
Is the part of us that is aware another soul? #
No. The awareness that can step back from the middle-world self, and that does the journeying when we hollow out,6 is best understood as a capacity rather than as a further part or soul. It has no needs, stories or agendas of its own; it is simply our ability to notice, and to choose where our attention goes. Meditation, psychotherapy and the shamanic practice of hollowing outHollowing-out. The core, lifelong discipline of setting aside the middle-world self, its stories, agendas and preconceptions, so the Guides can work through us. The image: the shaman as hollow bone. Read the full answer all cultivate it. See What are hollowing-out and stalking our stories? and What are the different parts of the self in Therapeutic Shamanism?
