Soul Theory and the Spirit Flight, Native American Mythology

The following is from the book Mother Earth, Father Sky, which is on loan to me right now by a good friend who just joined our site. In any case, I find this theory interesting.

Within the Native American cosmos there is no seperation between the spiritual
world and material, between the natural and the human, between life and death,
or between body and soul. Any single body is likely to house a variety of
spirits or souls - one that emerges during dreams or sickness, one that dies
with the body, one that joins the afterlife, and one that manifests itself as a
delinquent ghost.

There was a debate that I was active in once upon a time in which the topic was Soul vs. Spirit and the difference. I unbelievable got lost in the concept because I have not studied in depth reincarnation and the different stages. I know the basics but the soul vs. spirit topic was among one of the more difficult topics for me to embrace. If I had to guess, I think the point was that the soul was the wondering ghost and the spirit moved on. Although, in my mind I cannot separate them and I'm not sure I buy this theory.



In any case, as such in the Native American beliefs was that the cosmos contained many souls - benign and malignant. Shamans were skilled individual who could direct the flow of souls and in some case tame them. Of course, this was limited to a more experienced Shaman or 'Soul Doctor'. An apprentice Shaman would have to retreat to a quiet and lonely area in which fasting would take the Shaman on a journey of psychic battles with more aggressive, invasive souls. Once the shaman was practiced enough in battling these souls, they could then take flight to other regions of earth or even the moon.



A shaman was also responsible for retrieving lost souls. Individuals who were attacked by mental illness where thought to have been possessed by a malignant spirit and were diagnosed with 'soul loss' (which is a bit different in Celtic mythology and Shamanism). The shaman would then have to journey to where the lost soul resided and battle the malignant spirit guarding it. If the shaman won the battle, he then brought the lost soul home.