The Three Body Problem

No, not the old three body problem of Newton’s half-assed mechanics. Kepler solved that way before Newton bloviated on the subject, and he didn’t need no theory of gravity, either.

Nope, I mean the three body problem in Christian metaphysics, which is largely ignored by most of Christianity. The three bodies which St. Paul, in English, called the body, the soul, and the spirit.

Now, in the Greek koine, the version of Greek that was the actual language of most of the Roman empire, from which we get the word coin, and in which the whole of the New Testament was written, those bodies are called sarke, psyche, and pneuma. Sarke, as in sarcophagus, means flesh, psyche as in psychology is the soul, and pneuma, as in pneumatic and pneumonia, is the breath of god. Underlying these terms is a view of the universe, and of man, that is left out of most of modern Christianity.

Paul took these terms from the ancient Mediterranean mystery cults and the metaphysics taught in the mystery schools. Those schools included Plato’s Academy and the older Pythagorean communities. Yes, that Pythagoras, good old A squared plus B squared equals C squared Pythagoras. The Pythagoras who wore white robes and a golden crown, whose disciples said could walk on water, heal the sick, raise the dead, and calm the ocean’s waves.

I’m throwing all this at you just to tantalize you, much as Tantalus was tantalized in Tartarus. Now back to the three bodies.

The way these three bodies are ordered is backward. The pneuma, the spirit, is the cause of the psyche, the soul, which is the cause of the sarke, the body. Most of us know what the body is and do not distinguish between soul and spirit. You gotta be more discerning.

I will now go a bit Hindu on you all, even sound a bit New Age-ie.

If the spirit, which also actually means breath, like inspire and expire, is from god, do you think it just pops right into a body? From, in the Hindu point of view, the ocean of all consciousness, all loving bliss, of which our spirit is a spark, in which, as Paul said, “We live and move and have our being”, from there smack into something as gross as a physical body?

No, there must be a subtler interface, more particularized than pure spirit, but not as dense as this world of bodies and senses. Therefore the soul.

But where does the soul exist? In the Astral world, is the New Age response. The soul is the astral body.

Hindu metaphysics breaks the whole thing down in greater detail, as did the Greek mystery schools, but, like unto the pagan temples, built in the countryside in sacred groves, only to be smashed by the Church, the profound metaphysics of antiquity was stomped down by Christian theologians. Then we had the Dark Age.

You know, looking at the what is on TV, on the internet, I’m afraid we’re now heading into, not a dark age, but a dork age.

First declaimed on the Squatcher’s Lounge Podcast:


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