The Encyclopedia of World Religions

428 S soul, concepts of

teries of consciousness can be explained through the brain and its psychology.

give it to the other woman. The other woman agreed that the baby should be cut in two. Solo mon realized that the first woman must be the baby’s mother. Recognizing Solomon’s wisdom, Jews and Christians have traditionally attributed to him three books in the Bible: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, sometimes called the Song of Solomon. ( See WISDOM LITERATURE .) At the end of his reign, Solomon’s empire split into two parts, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, with much of the discontent coming from forced labor on Solomon’s building projects. soul, concepts of Ideas about the spiritual essence of a person. In most religious traditions, there exists some concept of a soul or spirit in human beings, which is distinct from the physi cal body and has religious importance. The soul is invisible to ordinary eyes, though words for it in several languages associate it with the breath. Being nonphysical, the soul is commonly believed to survive the death of the body ( see AFTERLIFE IN WORLD RELIGIONS ). It then may receive the reward or punishment earned in its earthly life, whether in a spiritual HEAVEN or HELL , in a new REINCARNATION , or in a resurrected body. Some traditions have also believed in the preexistence of the soul in a heav enly realm or in previous INCARNATIONS before its coming into the present life. Beliefs about the exact nature of the soul differ. In H INDUISM it is in essence divine as the atman or divine within. B UDDHISM rejects the idea of a separate, eternal soul, though it believes in reincarnation. The Western monotheistic religions, J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , and I SLAM , generally believe that each soul is a new creation of G OD , rather than itself divine, infused into each person at concep tion or soon after. Some PRIMAL RELIGIONS believe in multiple souls, perhaps reflecting a person’s differ ent moods, and perhaps with different after-death destinies: reincarnation within the family or tribe, hovering around the grave, going to the heavenly world. Nonreligious persons, on the other hand, reject the idea of a soul, believing that all the mys

spirit possession An altered state of conscious ness, usually producing unusual behavior, inter preted within its religious culture to be the result of a spirit entering the subject and taking control over his or her mind and body. It can be either benign or malevolent, depending on whether the posses sion is by good or demonic spirits. In the former case, possession can be deliberately induced by chanting, drum-beating, ecstatic trance, or RITUAL as a part of religious activities. Examples can be found in PRIMAL RELIGION , SHAMANISM , Haitian V OO DOO , Afro-Brazilian religions like Macombo, Spiri tualism, and elsewhere. In Voodoo, for example, in the context of religious services persons may dress in the part of a god, dance or otherwise go into trance, and, undergoing impressive personal ity changes, “become” that deity for a time. During this time the possessed one is treated like the deity, made much of and even prayed to by the congrega tion. Divine possession can also happen spontane ously, as a religious experience. Cases of malevolent spirit possession call for a different religious response, that of the exorcist or specialist in driving out EVIL and demonic spir its. Traditional and even contemporary accounts of demonic possession make hair-raising reading as they describe the horrible grimaces and bizarre behavior of the afflicted one. The process of EXOR CISM is said to be a difficult and grueling one, for the demon struggles and will not go out easily. In T AOISM priests use ritual swords, in R OMAN C ATHOLI CISM holy water is employed in this spiritual war fare, but in the end it is a battle of wills and the relative power of good and evil. Spiritualism A religious movement based on communication with the spirits of the departed through persons called mediums. Typically the medium goes into trance and speaks words believed to be from the spirit, although other means, such as the Ouija board or rappings, may be used. The spir