Interesting ruminations by our philosopher-selves.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The following is rumination by our Lucifer Davison:
The idea that there could be people born multiple instantly means that for a small minority, the system (no pun intended) is wrong. They are not matching the identity of the common person on the street. They are instead:

A subculture of bodies with multiple inhabitants. The ramifications of this are big, especially where religion is concerned. If people are born with more than one soul, then to them the Biblical proscription of "One soul, one mind, one body" is not accurate. If so, this means that there is a full-fledged option to be different from the common culture. Multiplicity, if divorced from the doctrine of mental disorder would potentially be far more upsetting than Homosexuality. If people can have experiences of living in a body and can be proud of that fact, then there is a consequence for society. The consequence is that simplicity, that panacea of Fundamentalism and Social conservatism, is thrown out with the bath-water. The same is true for the natural multiples that weren't caused by trauma. Psychiatry does not recognize them and tries to suppress them with all the power of the State. Multiplicity, specifically the natural and born versions, is a potential death-blow to the infantilizing notions of mental health and extremist religion. Multiples have the ability to grasp far more of human potential, if only they choose to reach for it. They can reach for their potential in ways denied Singletons. The Singleton seeks relief in religion, in alcohol, in fruitless activities that are harmful to him or her and cannot escape the grim realities of this world. People in systems can, and that is what causes members of systems to be regarded as coping mechanisms and arrested development. We who are united in the simple fact that we are people who reside not in houses of steel or brick but of flesh. If people can be born multiple, then the world is far more complex than the average Fundamentalist of any religion or creed can stomach. That is my view on why the Establishment fights to keep the knowledge of healthy, normal multiplicity from being known. Thanks for playing!

Comments, anyone?

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Is "one soul, one mind, one body" the actual wording used?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Man is a creature which has a body and a soul. One each.

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

If everyone in a group has their own bodies then there are many souls capable of sharing the earth body. :)

-Butterfly

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

*grins* If only they could be counted as earthworld bodies! Well, I might bring that up with Father at the orphanage sometime, but he's one of the real ones... says God's mysteries are infinite.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

No, it's not. I'll put the section below but the way it was explained to us is that the body and the soul are one unity, with a one:one ratio.

The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232


Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.237 "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.238

368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one's being, where the person decides for or against God.239

And this is an interesting article on the Church's thoughts (not an official position) on MPD and exorcism:

http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/disorder.htm