Cytat:Usually, soul means whatever part of a person is permanent and survives physical death. Allegorically, this can also mean the core essence of something. In religious, spiritual and esoteric discourse, this word is used in a bewildering confusion of meanings.

In FOTCM discourse, soul usually means that part of an individual which is permanent in the sense of surviving physical death and specifically belongs together with that individual and no other. Whether such a thing even exists may depend on the individual itself. For example, an "organic portal" or "preadamic man" would not have a soul in this sense, although there would be some sort of non-individuated animating energy in the "individual soul's" place.

If a soul in this sense exists, it may be more or less evolved. Even if one exists, it may have very little to do with the run of one's life. It may be and usually is for the most part asleep and dissociated from the body's and mind's experience. Using the metaphor of the coach, we could say that the passenger is asleep and the driver/horse take the coach (body) where they please, having quite forgotten about the passenger.

The soul in this sense is linked to the concept of acquiring a real I and gaining access to one's higher centers. These higher centers will exist at least in potential if there is a soul, as we use the word here. At the end of Fourth Way evolution, this soul may be substantially identical with the "real I". This is however vanishingly rare and various intermediate stages of development are needed before this soul is truly anchored into the body as the conscious master of thought, feeling and physicality.

Much of New Age culture looks for ways for whatever passes for consciousness to deliberately leave the body, experience astral travel, produce psychic effects etc. Quite unlike these, the Fourth Way seeks first to bring the soul, if there be any, into the body. The soul needs to first claim its own incarnation from all the forces of personality, biology etc which normally run the show.

Soul is however not completely disconnected and may appear as impulses of conscience, deeper emotions, sense of purpose etc. Man is, even if not run by the "soul", still answerable for what transpires through him. In the usual state of matters, the soul gets to karmically pay for the personality's mistakes and predilections even though it is not really in control.

Maybe with reference to this, George Gurdjieff says, "Blessed is he that hath a soul; blessed also is he that hath none; but grief and sorrow are to him that hath in himself its conception."

Even within Fourth Way writings the concept of soul does not quite have a fixed meaning. The soul is there sometimes also called astral body and is something that man must build by producing suitable "higher hydrogens" for its raw material. This may then survive physical death. However, if the soul is half-built, it will be stuck in limbo and will neither dissolve nor will it be able to take a new human incarnation.

A soul can grow or shrink over an incarnation. It is not stationary or immutable. Engaging in ritual magic for commanding higher spiritual forces for one's earthly gain can for example damage one's soul. The soul has no necessary relation to intellectual capacity, psychic senses or physical prowess, but it would seem that for a soul to be incarnate the physical body's DNA needs to be somehow compatible with this. Also, based on the Cassiopaea material, the soul-DNA interaction can be a two-way street with DNA being on one hand a prerequisite and on the other hand being affected by the soul's presence.

In FOTCM discourse, the word "spirit" has no distinct meaning from soul.

Numerous other usages of the word soul exist. We cannot enumerate them all. Sometimes the word soul carries a connotation of emotion while the word spirit is more general. It is said that one cries from the bottom of one's soul but not "from the bottom of one's spirit."