The Metaphysics of the Soul : As Revealed by the Old Absence

As is typically the case when it is late and we are gaming, the Old Absence, a small-god we call Uncle Si, has gifted us a stroke of inspiration regarding metaphysics.

We have spoken before on this blog of devils and daemons as gardeners, creatures that farm the potential of human beings so that they yield a particular fruit. While some daemons wish to grow fruits that are amenable to magi and worshippers, others will cultivate us to an unrecognizable end of their own.

That which we describe as the soul is the fruit of human labor, the fruit of informed action. The soul of an artist or a poet is cultivated through feeding it what it needs to grow: practice, discipline, creative inspiration, and exposure to other art and artists. So with the soul of a soldier, cultivated through dedication, strict pruning, and loyalty.

A soul that is never allowed to exercise its full potential will grow bitter and hard, never budging from outmoded behavior to ripen and change, while a soul that is allowed to become infested with corrupting influences will grow soft, sickly-sweet, and unpleasantly mealy. A soul that is attacked too often will ignore its fruit and focus instead on growing thorns and poisons to defend itself, while a soul that never faces a challenge will never yield fruit, instead lavishing itself with beautiful, but ultimately useless, flowers and leaves.

But a soul that has just the right amount of care, attention, and discipline– one that is watered with knowledge, shown the light of hope and duty, and pruned so that its energy is directed towards the fruit– will be healthy, fulfilling, and wholesome to the senses. These qualities are reflected in the personality of the souls’ keepers: hard, bitter souls make for hard, bitter people, and thorny, venomous souls make for thorny, venomous people, and so on. But a well-cared for soul may yield a wheatstalk bursting with kernels of wisdom, a stone-fruit with a sweet demeanor and a rock-solid center, or a peculiar and secretive herb with a great talent for healing– and so their keepers will follow suit.

It is important that humans, occupying the place on the Great Chain that we do, inspect our souls, care for them, weed out that which hurts them, and keep them hearty and hale. This is that which Death will reap from us, and place in the Pot That Runneth Over at the end of our days, when we go to our final feast. This is that for which we will be remembered. We believe we understand something more of Iohan Gardner’s gifts, now.