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The soul-psyche self, moving through successive reincarnation, while also ascending towards God (or heaven), is also moving through levels of freedom. Ascension towards God, or the Light, or the One, is in some sense an ascension towards greater freedom. In God there is absolute freedom. For isn’t God absolutely free? So as we ascend into God, we must be ascending into absolute freedom. Of course though, this freedom is freedom in love. It is not equivalent to freedom of a selfish person, or the kind of freedom that justifies a ‘do whatever I want’ attitude without any love-consideration of others.

What is one becoming free of? One is becoming free of self desire, attachments, identifications, emotional pain and turmoil, mental confusion, anxiety, our mechanical habitual nature, and our past karma. Imagine having all of this float away. What a relief! This is freedom. So through reincarnational experience, and propelled by the soul ascension, one gradually climbs the ladder of freedom, moving up levels of freedom. This is real spiritual advancement. One is essentially freeing oneself of karma, becoming free of all past causes, and thus not being determined by anything. One can still be influenced by higher wisdom and by love; but one is not determined by past karma, by astrology, by society, by family, and not by one’s own physical urges, nor by the selfish or praise-grasping ego. This is freedom. Hallelujah, oh wonderful Heaven. No more lower self at all. No more illusory-self, no more karmic self. This is where the soul is headed, and this is the final goal of ourself.

But then how could we get to higher levels of freedom, if we are continually determined by karma, by cause-effect determinism? The answer to this is that karma and determinism is not all there is at play. Also present, or in presence, is the Buddha nature which is karmically free, or the indwelling soul which contains the divine (God) qualities including love and freedom. So our lives can be inspired by a higher Presence that is untouched by karma or determinism. This gives the capacity for freedom.

As the psyche becomes more free of attachments and identifications, the impermanent patterns of psyche dissolve more easily. But how can the psyche/mind become more free? How can a mind with attachment patterns free itself? This would be an inescapable situation of karmic cyclicity. But the psyche/mind is not merely a complexity of attachment patterns, nor does it merely function with mechanical cause-effect. Instead, there is more to the psyche/mind than mere attachments and personality stuff. There is a deeper level, and this deeper level is independent of the outer layers of personal attachments and personality patterns.

This deeper level is the soul^¹, which is the essence of who we really are. Soul is the deeper consciousness who is experiencing life. Soul is the deeper loving self, underneath and at the true core of all emotion, which sincerely wants to love and feel loved. Soul is the deeper wisdom within mind, a wisdom that has been accumulating through the experiences and lessons of many lifetimes. Soul is our core power of will, including the will-to-live, the will-to-love, the will-to-learn, and the will to be creative and expressive of our developing human abilities. And ultimately, the soul is the key ingredient of freedom, without which we would be lost in an endless chain of cause-effects, each link causing another effect which in turn causes another, etc. Our soul is our own personal savior. Though ultimately every soul depends on the Love and Wisdom of God, the One source of Light, the First Cause and Final Destination of all souls. All souls first came from the Divine Freedom, but then sacrificed some of this in order to incarnate into this world of structure and limitation; yet every soul is also on a path of return, which is the ascension back to God, or the Unity of Heaven, or Freedom Consciousness without any limitations or attachments^².

At every new step we are not merely fated by past karma. We are not merely in an inescapable karmic chain, completely being determined by cause-effects. Because at each new step we have an ‘as-yet-actualized’ inner potential (from the inner soul) for becoming free in our consciousness-mind, and also we have an inner-potential ability to master new circumstances. That is, in each new circumstance of life we can act with a new and greater freedom of mind and with a greater degree of self-mastery, rather than merely repeat the patterns from before (which keeps the karma going). This is because of our inner (as-yet-unrealized) potential (of our soul) is continually trying to emerge and actualize, and also because our intelligence is always in a process of learning – so after every experience (even from mistakes) we learn at least something from this, which then increases our mastery ability to do better the next time. Sometimes we are slow to learn and sometimes we are faster to learn. But eventually, a greater mastery should prevail. Therefore, we can do something the next time in a more intelligent and loving and masterly way, and in a more free way – free from our past patterns of egotistic reaction or mistake.

Mistakes in right-action are inevitable along any learning curve, so we need to forgive and be compassionate for both ourselves and others. Mistakes made (or poor response) cause negative effects, negative karma. But we need not become overly dreary about this, because along with these karmic effects there are also learning effects, in that we can learn from these mistakes and so modify our action the next time, and thus transform the old negative karma into new good karma. Thus, in spite of karma’s repetitious cyclical nature, karma is eventually being transformed, from negatives to positives, because of each person’s intelligence-learning process and increases in their mastering-abilities. This kind of back and forth play, as it were, between karma and intelligent mastery, continues throughout reincarnations. This should give us overall hope, that life should be getting better as time and experience goes on.

Reincarnation can be seen in both a positive and negative way. Positively, one is able to have more chances in life and also work on be successful at new challenges. Negatively, one might see reincarnation as an unfortunate return of one’s negative bundles and patterns – which include negative reactive patterns and attachment patterns. Positive karma created in previous lives brings positive influences into the next life. Negative karma brings negative influences. The worse negative karma is caused by hurting others and by intentional deceit, and also by participating in actions that are unjust to others. But negative karma is mostly caused by more subtle activity, such as negative emotional patterns, false self-beliefs and negative thoughts, and compulsive self attachments and desires, and by a lack of gratefulness, caring and love. So this is not something the average person will be able to avoid. But that’s alright; we are all on a journey of learning and improvement. One gets more time later to work on transforming this stuff. Also, negative karmas are somewhat offset by each moment of new learning and accumulated wisdom gained from each life experience. For we have the power to transform negative karma into positive karma, which could be said as what we are here in life to do.

Positive and good karma is what we all want, yet we somehow manage to create or continue elements of negative and bad karma. Good karma is like a sweet surprise gift that may come anytime in the mail. Let us not even imagine what bad karma is. Yet most of us have negative states, negative thoughts, negative emotions, and other patterns that we wouldn’t want to carry on to our children, let alone onto ourselves in another lifetime. But if these are carried on, then how do we ever get out of these patterns?

First, we can learn from our mistakes. Though to do this, we have to self-observe and acknowledge that we are making mistakes, or that we are foolishly identifying with negative states, thoughts or emotions. Also remember that these negative states are often subtle and often hidden underneath normal awareness; therefore, one has to practice deeper self-inquiry and self-investigation. Second, we can develop greater mastery over our energies and mechanical patterns, and thus modify our responses to new situations in a way that does not merely repeat previous negative reactions. A tendency is to keep repeating the same general patterns of reaction or decision, in relation to similar situations. This is our mechanical repeating self-karma. But we can develop mastery, which is to have enough power and intention to actually modify or improve the next response we have. Thus, by learning from our acknowledged mistakes (to increase our wisdom) and by developing mastery over our energies and patterns, it is possible to overcome and transform the previous bundles of karma, these cyclical patterns of cause and effect. We need both, learning and mastery. And this is what the soul offers, because the soul learns wisdom and develops mastery over continuous reincarnation. This wisdom and mastery enters into the personal mind/psyche.

So what we have going are a number of factors. We have these repeating patterns of the psyche, self-karma, both positive and negative, which continues into each personal existence. And also we have the soul’s ever-increasing wisdom and mastery. And as well, we have soul-divine qualities, which help to heal and evolve all aspects of manifested life. So negative karma can be offset by learning and mastery. As each negative occurs, there is also a possible learning, and thus an increase in wisdom. This increase in wisdom gives us more insight into how to improve our future responses, our thoughts and actions. So this increase in wisdom, due to learning from mistakes and learning from observed negative patterns, gives us more ability to modify the upcoming karma and improve our lives. Then, with each new learning and with each new practice of our new wisdom, we develop more power of mastery, which then also gives us more ability to modify the upcoming karma and improve our lives. Therefore, karma is not an ever-repeating affair, due to our increased learning and mastery, which improves over each incarnation. And thus, negative karma is continually being transformed into more positive karma, in spite of the repeating nature of negative karma.

As a soul advances in its incarnating power and as the psyche (the outer part of the soul) advances spiritually, there is greater freedom and less attachment to old patterns. In one sense, and according to the Buddhist path, freedom is the ultimate spiritual goal. So as each self spiritually advances through reincarnation, higher levels of freedom are achieved; freedom from past patterns of identification, attachment, and reaction. And at each higher level of freedom, there is greater love and compassion for all beings, since ego selfishness and separate-self identification become less and less ‘real’, and self-understanding has expanded beyond all concepts of my-self.

Reincarnations are connected to one another in two ways. One is that each new life has the same inner soul of divine potentials. In other words, there is an individual soul who is reincarnating and essentially learning from these experiences. The other connection is karma, the law of cause-effect, such that patterns from one life are carried on to another – giving some degree of continuity, and yet these can be transformed and changed at any time through self-learning and healing.

Also continuing on into the next life are unresolved, unreleased traumas from past lives. Often, people carry past-life traumatic memories within their personal psyche, which are like blocks or stuck places within the psyche, and even manifesting in the person’s energy field and even into the physical body. These could be memory moments of intense emotional or physical hurt, or intense unexpected shocks to the energy system, or extreme fatigue within the energy system. They lodge in one of the seven energy centres (chakras) of the psyche/self. So these also need to be resolved, released, and healed. Sometimes this can be accomplished in the purgatory process between incarnations, but if not then some part of such past trauma will continue on into the next life through the psyche energy field.

Note also that as the soul takes back its energies from the personal self, which occurs during the purgatory and distillation process, the personality self gradually dissolves. That is, the self-memories and self-identifications of this particular person will gradually dissolve (into nothingness). The person, as the person knew oneself and as others knew this person, will gradually fade into non-existence. As the Buddhists say, ‘all selves are impermanent.’ This is the final sober truth about death. Our personalities and specific memories will finally fade away, and there will be nothing of who we normally think we are. The essences of our life experience and learning and service and self-qualities will carry on through our soul; but our personalities finally fade away and die. This is sad, but it is the way of life. This is the temporality of life. I, as I regularly experience myself, will ultimately die, and the same with everyone. Blossoms ultimately return to just seed; where upon new blossoming will later occur. This is life. This is death and life.

Modern scientific thought studies the physical, and thus it commits itself to placing the physical as fundamental in relation to mind. Yet esoteric science, basing itself on intuition and reason, suggests that mind is primary in relation to the physical. Modern science claims that mind, or mental experience, is absolutely dependent on the physical body; that mind and consciousness are epiphenomena of the physical. Yet esoteric science suggests that the physical body is an outcome of mind, rather than mind being an outcome of the physical. In other words, mind is primary and the physical body is its effect. Thus in esoteric science, as well as in most religions, the mind of a person lives on beyond physical death, because it is not completely dependent on the physical body. On the other hand, if all of mind were completely dependent on the physical body, then any individual mind or experience would cease to exist once the physical body deceased. The physical senses and appetites, as well as pleasures and pains of the physical, are truly dependent on the physical body. Therefore, these sensations and experiences can no longer be after physical death. As well, after physical death, there can no longer be any more practical and sensory experiences involving the previous physical life, besides memories.

Memories, past experiences, are not necessarily accessible to our normal wakeful consciousness. So in normal consciousness, we probably do not remember but fragments of the past. Yet the past is nonetheless recorded in mental space, in which time is more fluid. This mental space includes much more than what normal consciousness remembers or is aware of; and thus we can call say this is mostly sub-conscious because it is below or un-recognized to normal consciousness. Yet, it is possible to access any content of the subconscious, which is more possible in the dream state, probably because the practical waking ego is not in control in this dream world. Also, problematic factors of the physical body can hinder one’s access to past experiences. For example, some people in old age have trouble recalling memories and knowledge. This is not merely due to the ego’s inaccessibility to the subconscious. Rather, the problem can simply be physical, that is, to do with the physical brain – which is the needed medium for the physical self to have mental awareness and wakeful memories. But upon physical death, the mental self or personal psyche becomes liberated from physical constraints and can then function independently of the body; just like if the whole of one’s vast subconscious were to be fully awake and with access to all memories and knowledge content.

Note that self-karma or karma-body, personal psyche, personal mind, astral body, the mental-emotional field are all really the same; just different terms of emphasis.

People have many different ideas about afterlife. What people believe has much to do with religion, culture, and also personal temperament. The following description is not intended to convince anyone but might at least provoke some further thought and intuition on this subject. There are three main ideas in this description: dream experience, self-transmutation, and reincarnation.

In our experience of the outer world we can observe death in nature, and we see how death of one phase begets life in another. Death is a transition phenomena, as one phase transforms into another. We also might notice how there is often a kind of resting phase, as in winter, followed by a phase of rebirth, as in spring. So reincarnation is a very plausible idea, in regards to death.

In our inward experience we have two possible kinds of death experience while we are physically alive. One is in meditation or worship, and the other is in dreams. In meditation or in worship practices, it is possible to ‘die’, not physically, but in mind, emotion and ego. Usually these are mini-deaths, as it were, rather than an absolute death of mind, emotion or ego. What dies, or what can be transmuted, are energy complexes of fixed obsessive beliefs, emotional turmoils, and even the personal ego or the identified sense of my-self. In meditation or in worship practices, these energy complexes can be transmuted by a willing surrender of ‘my-self’, or this emotion, or this held concept, or this recurring thought about oneself or about life in general. One surrenders, which causes a kind of death or annihilation, and from this a transmutation takes place, whereby a new kind of experience is born, a more expansive experience of self and world is born, which is like reincarnation at a higher level.

Another possible kind of death experience is in dreams, when our normal waking mind and controlling ego takes a rest, and instead, the mind and imagination is free to explore. The subject of dreams is itself worthy of a book chapter, but for now it is relevant to point out some important functions of dreams. One function is to work through or resolve upset emotions and discords in beliefs. This ‘work’ of dreams cannot so easily occur during the waking hours because the world-conscious mind/ego gets to preoccupied with more immediate concerns and so there is not time given to this inner work of trying to resolve tensions in our emotional and mental life. So there is this necessary dream work of exploring how to resolve the various troubling emotions and discords of belief which accumulate over the waking hours of living. These unresolved emotions and beliefs fester in a subconscious realm of the self, and the normal conscious mind/ego does not want to deal with them so it suppresses them into the subconscious. We could, of course, work on resolving these emotions during the waking hours if we give ourselves enough meditative time, but for most people this resolution work happens during dream time.

The next important function of dreams is to help reveal truths about ourselves and others. For in the dream time there is a relaxed time for our mind and psychic intuition to explore truths about our own self and also about others and the world. These truths most often are not presented as rational language statements, but instead are more likely presented as images, symbols, and dramatized analogies, or as riddles and metaphors. So dreams can be a way for the mind to imaginatively and metaphorically explore and express truths about either my own self or about others I relate with. Some teachings claim that all dreams are just reflections of oneself, but this is wrong, because it is obvious that mind tries to understand how others are, especially if they are in close relation, and we would not sanely say that all understandings about other people in our lives are merely projections of how we are. There are times when ideas and dreams are indeed about oneself and there are times when we do indeed project onto others what we do not yet accept as traits of ourself; but to claim that every dream or every belief about to others is a self-projection is a gross over-simplistic generalization. The practical point about studying dreams is that one should be open to learning about both one self and others, because dreams can reveal truths which our normal waking mind is avoiding or overlooking.

So now that we have set forth this introduction, we can move into the subject of physical death or afterlife. First we need to understand that two parts of oneself are at work during this time. One is the individual soul, the inner core of self; and the other is the personal mind, the outer layer of oneself. The soul holds and develops divine qualities, powers, and wisdom. The personal mind directly interacts with the physical world and acquires life experience. It can also interact with the soul and learn about divine truths. At this point we are making a simple distinction between soul and personal mind, but personal mind is actually more complex because it includes emotions, memories, beliefs, and also the self-ego sense of I/me as uniquely separate from others. Another term for personal mind is psyche. So, the self is both soul and psyche. Some systems equate these terms, but then one should say that soul is the inner core of psyche, and psyche is the outer personal mind of soul.^³ But also important in this distinction is that the qualities of a soul are uninterrupted by physical death and continue to develop through reincarnations; while a psyche, or personal mind, gradually loses its personal content after death, as its essences only pass into the continuing soul (its core or seed) and at each incarnation a new psyche is developed over that life-time.

Upon death, some fundamental processes begin, which all may work simultaneously. The first process is a gradual ascension of the soul, which is like a waking up of the soul and a return of the soul to the greater Divine Light, or to God, or into Nirvana, depending on the terms we use. This has two important effects. One is a greater experience of Divine Light and Love, as the soul gradually ascends into this. Two is an influencing soul-urge, within the personal layers of mind, to resolve its held identifications, attachments and turmoils. This soul ascension is also a soul renewal and reintegration, which will latter be discussed in more depth.

The second process is a mental and emotional review of one’s life, and resolution (or working through) of all the various incidences of emotional or mental tensions. This is a ‘purgatory’ time and process of reviewing the past and resolving or letting go of unresolved memories, which all occurs in a dream-like subjective state. Unresolved memories and emotions might include various upsetting reactions, regrets, disappointments, resentments, remorse, and feelings of one’s inadequate or failed response in past situations. For the most part, this is a time of reviewing the past and working out resolutions to past unresolved situations, and most of these unresolved memories involve some kind of negative reaction in need of being transformed into some kind of positive emotion, forgiveness, love, or acceptance.

One is not literally going back into the past; rather, one is working through unresolved feelings and tensions - which are from the past but have carried into the present, and which have remained in the person’s emotional energy field (called astral body – the active personal body of the afterlife). During life we all carry emotions, involving the past, into the present; but we are seldom aware of this because these ‘past’ emotions remain in our subconscious part of self, though they are often still actively influential in present situations and into the future, until they are resolved or transformed. Whatever has not been resolved and transformed in life-time then becomes work for the dream-time in the purgatory process. Very often the final resolution and transformation of these emotions involve forgiveness and compassion, which the divine soul urges.

This review of the past, one’s life, is not merely like a movie screen of memories. It is not merely observing the past, or memories, but rather it is a re-living of them in the dream world. Past moments and situations come back to life, as it were in dream time, and one feels and thinks this is immediately happening. This immediacy and living through is the usual phenomena of dreams anyway. So the first tendency is to react similar to how we did before and repeat the scenario. This might re-occur a number of times, like going over the same memories, again and again. Yet each time one goes through the experience, there is some degree of understanding and learning from this. And as understanding increases, our responses in this dream will improve. Then, after some periods of review and re-living process, regarding a memory or life incident, one’s responses change and so then does the dream experience; until eventually there is a relaxed resolution, a release of the emotional tension, a learning essence digested, and some degree of transformation within the psyche. So, emerging from these re-lived experiences are new changes in one’s emotional patterns within the psyche, distilled essences of wisdom and self-understanding, and release of stuck energies. A sufficient degree of success in all of this is the meaning of resolution. Then one moves on to work through other past moments and experiences, and the whole period of this review process may take quite some time, though experiences move faster in the dream time world.

Also during this dream state there may be times when this astral body actually meets with close friends or relatives, and works through emotions with them in their dream state. In other words, in the astral-dream world the living and deceased might meet to work out feelings and unresolved issues, because remember that we all have astral bodies in the dream world. Astral bodies are created by either imagination or memory. There are also times when the deceased person meets with other deceased persons (in their astral bodies in the dream world). So in this dream state of the afterlife, there is a personal review of one’s life, which is predominately a subjective process, but also there are real emotional and mental encounters with other people, objectively, though occurring in the dream-astral world - which even the living have partial experience in. So this process of review and resolution is mostly a working through of unresolved emotions and experiences with other people. Mostly this will involve one’s own subjective experience with the ‘past’ (as it is still held in the psyche energy field of personal mind), yet partly this will involve others in an objective present-time and in a meeting in the dream-astral world.

Resolution can be a new understanding of a situation. It can also be a better response to a situation, solving conflicts and tensions, and moving towards harmony. Fundamentally, resolution eases tensions and releases stuck energies. Tensions and conflicts arise in life because of inharmonious interactions and also because of frustrations. Social or relationship conflicts are inevitable in life, but there are many ways to deal with these conflicts, including negative ways such as ego-based reactions or some form of personal frustration. Yet conflicts are better solved with love and often resolved by forgiveness. Often, we need forgiveness of both ourselves and others.

Throughout life and throughout relationships, tensions often build up and reactive patterns as well, Moments of negative reaction and conflict-tension accumulate in the memory field of our emotional body and in our subconscious mind. Similar moments will eventually turn into patterns, which are even harder to release. And until these are resolved, until these energies are released, they remain stuck and continue to influence future experience, even after death experience, and even into a subsequent incarnation. So there are these moments and patterns of unresolved conflicts and tensions, which remain in our memory field (or astral energy body). They are like emotional energy bundles or emotional clouds stuck in the astral energy body. These bundles need to be unraveled. These clouds need to be released. This is resolution.

How to do this? Awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance and forgiveness help to resolve and release these stuck energies. As already said, resolution involves understanding, forgiving and letting go, and a new compassionate response to the relationship or to the memory. In many cases, the needed resolution is a transformation from negative reaction/emotion into positive forgiveness, compassion, and love. This positive approach is urged on by the soul which is simultaneously ascending towards the greater divine Light and Love.

Another feature of the astral experience is a playing out of one’s desires and emotions. In this astral dream world, desires turn into vivid fantasies and these fantasies are experienced as real. This could be said to be the fun stuff. But not just pleasant fantasies come into experience. Fears also turn into imagined scenarios. So the person has a vast variety of dream-like experiences, involving one’s carried on desires, hopes, fears, jealousies, and other kinds of emotion. Some of these experiences are happy, some sad, some joyful, some tragic, some surprisingly sensual, and some painfully awful. It all depends on what desires and emotions the person has been carrying through life, and remember that the emotional body is also called the astral body. All of this emotionally charged dreaming keeps on going (for many years) until the resolutions come about and also self-learning.

Along with this purgatory process of resolution, there is also a complimenting purgatory process involving self-reflection and understanding, and which also involves working through self-projections. During this process the personal mind (the psyche) self-reflects, or has contemplative moments reflecting on who one really is and the qualities one has. This is a process of self-understanding, which also occurs in the dream state; and of course we can all do this in meditation while physically alive. The experiences of this reflective dream process involve self-symbols and understanding them. In dream-time and in dream-process the personal mind has to understand and work through a variety of self-projections. These are feelings and beliefs that are held about oneself, and which have been held within the subconscious mind during life.

These feelings and beliefs about oneself are ‘projected’ or ‘externalized’ as dream symbols, images, objects, and metaphorical dramas.^⁴ These can range from simple to complex, and from fairly obvious interpretations to quite subtle. For some minds or at certain points in the process, these projections of self-belief, self-traits and feelings may be quite scary, which then become phases of hellish purgatory experience, until they are fully experienced and understood. Mind has to attempt to understand these projections, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, beautiful or ugly; and then also accept them through self-acknowledgement. And from each step in self-understanding and self-acceptance, the projections (the symbols, images, dramas) transform into new ones – to represent the self at a newer level of belief and understanding.

Furthermore, during these processes of life-review and emotional resolution, and of self-understanding through reflection, the soul (or core of self/psyche) is distilling essences of wisdom and other soul qualities. The soul is also the motivating urge behind these very processes of review, resolution, self-reflection and self-understanding. The soul needs such resolution and transmutation of the personal layers of self, and it needs the mind to work through some degree of self-understanding, in order for the soul to ascend into higher levels of divine purity and wisdom. The soul also needs such processes for a distillation of essences from the personal experiences of self.

At some point, the purgatory and distillation processes are as good as they can get, and the soul ascension process is as good as it can get. So at this point there is a moment (however long this moment is, we do not know) of repose and balance, as between the in and out breath, and then the soul incarnates once again^⁵, incarnating the core-seed of self and also its outer layer of self which is its mental-emotional body (called either personal psyche or astral body or karmic self).

Most likely the next incarnation will continue on certain patterns of negative emotions and attachment, if these could not be resolved and transmuted during the purgatory phase. So besides having soul essences, each new incarnation will usually carry some unresolved patterns from the previous emotional and mental life, which will somewhat color and determine the relationship and attachment and reactive patterns of the next life. These are the bundles of self-karma, the attachments and identifications that could not be resolved or released during the last lifetime. Existential influences, such as social and family, will of course also determine patterns and circumstances of the next life.^⁶

1 In Buddhist terms, this is the Buddha nature, the inherent free consciousness, which also is our true wisdom nature. Without this pre-existing nature of freedom and wisdom, how else could the karmic structure of self ever become free? Our Buddha nature gradually dissolves our karmic bonds. Though this may take many lifetimes, and it is complicated by the fact that each incarnation produces its own new karma, so as some karmas dissolve, others are created. Overall, though, the dissolving will prevail; especially since each karmic structure requires sustaining energy but all energy structures gradually dissipate or entropy.

3 If one were to only accept psyche as what the self/mind is, then one would have to acknowledge transpersonal qualities in the psyche, rather than the psyche be merely personal.

5 The soul may incarnate into the physical at any point between gestation and early infancy.

6 Extra-terrestrial, astrological influences also come into play, but present astrology teachings have become so distorted that they are not really worth mentioning.