An Analogy

[sdi]

Soul is like the woody part of a tree. The trunk and all of its branches and sticks and twigs is the World Soul; the branches with their various sticks and twigs are the gods; the sticks with their various twigs are the angels of the gods; the twigs are individual souls like you and me. Thus, Soul is both unitary and divisible, a sort of fractal being.

The individual leaves on those twigs are bodies; separate; here today and gone tomorrow. All of the leaves on the tree are collectively called Nature. Thus, Nature is completely divisible.

(I'm still musing on how to extend this analogy to the Intellect. I'm not sure it's possible to extend it to the One. I suppose, traditionally, this tree is said to have seven major branches...)

Comments

[sdi]

I just finished re-reading it. Thanks for flagging it, I had forgotten about it!

I've been interpreting (re-interpreting?) a lot of various myths in terms of the descent of souls, following Sallustius... I intentionally skipped over The Lord of the Rings, as it tells a very different story with a very different vision (e.g. the ascent of the Christian Elect). Leaf by Niggle seems to me to tell the story of that vision, as well.

[boccaderlupo]

Fair point: it's been decades since I've read that one, as well, but your post for me stirred memories of the leaf-tree aspect of that story...beyond that I couldn't say, though.

Axé!