The Root of the Soul

This chapter is unusual. You are unlikely to encounter material of this kind in ordinary books on magic and occultism. Perhaps this is the first time you have come across the very phrase “the root of the soul” — unless, of course, you have already explored the subtler dimensions of spiritual knowledge. What is the root of the soul? And why is it important for beginning practitioners of magic, witches, occult practitioners, and all those drawn to mysticism to understand it?

We live in a world that, at first glance, may appear dense, rough, and deeply material. But this is only the surface. Some people are able to perceive the hidden connections that permeate the world, like invisible threads binding matter together. Others intuitively sense that there are subtler levels of existence — things that are almost never spoken of openly. And indeed, they are rarely spoken of. Not because they are unimportant. On the contrary, these are often the very things that matter most to those who step onto the path of magical, mystical, or spiritual knowledge.

What, then, do people usually speak about? Energy, chakras, the aura, and other popular concepts. But this is not the same thing. We may speak endlessly about the energetic centres of the human being, about the aura, and about the colour in which a person supposedly shines — yet all of this remains only a surface-level description. Behind these external ideas about the subtle world, something far deeper is hidden. And in order to approach this understanding, we must begin not with the aura, not with chakras, and not with the familiar schemes of esotericism, but with the question of the root of the soul. What unites every living being on Earth? The soul.

Everything that is ensouled has a soul. You may be surprised, or even feel an inner resistance: “How can this be? Do plants and trees also have souls?” The short answer is yes, they do. However, this is not an easy idea for the unprepared mind to receive. For this reason, conflicting thoughts, doubts, or even resistance may arise within you. Trees, plants, ants, all the animals that inhabit our planet, and, of course, human beings — all of them have souls.

Moreover, there are souls that remain in our world after death. There are souls that, after death, must stay here for a certain period of time. There are also those that, over time, evolve into destructive entities while remaining bound to our world. Others, by contrast, move on rather quickly and peacefully.

Some souls are capable of revealing many different secrets — both about themselves and about the people they knew during life. Others, by contrast, prefer to lie, mislead, or distort the information they transmit. Souls bound to a house may remain there until a practitioner leads them further. At times, one may encounter the souls of deceased people who become attached to a particular person and remain near them throughout their entire life path.

There are also cases in which a soul incarnates into this world specifically in order to accompany another person. Such a soul may have no other path of existence except the one connected with that individual. These souls may not even manifest in other layers of our world — or, to put it more simply, in alternative worlds. There are also rare cases in which souls from higher worlds are sent to a person in our world in an unmanifest form, without incarnation into a physical body. They act as a kind of spiritual guide or mentor for that person. This last phenomenon, as a rule, is extremely rare.

There is a magical theory according to which even stones possess a soul. Moreover, in certain traditions, it is believed that through the process of reincarnation a human being may become enclosed within a stone or another solid form of matter. However, such questions require verification, research, and a careful approach. They should not be treated lightly or accepted without inner and practical examination. The soul is the subtle quintessence of life. It animates and sustains the body, preventing it from falling into dissolution before its appointed time.

The soul gives us the capacity for awareness. It grants us the ability to choose, to judge rightly, to preserve an inner moral order, to hear the voice of conscience, to feel not only physical pain but also the pain of the soul — and much more that lies beyond the limits of dense matter. Yet the soul does not manifest itself in the same way in all beings. In animals, for example, the soul is limited to a certain degree in its possibilities and more often acts through the level of instinct. In the human being, however, it unfolds through higher functions that extend far beyond the lower instinctive plane.

Through thought and the ability to accumulate experience, we are able to make different choices. Through the development of the soul, we can learn to move beyond the limits of our own instincts and cultivate within ourselves qualities such as compassion, empathy, and the ability to feel another person’s pain — not with the body, but with the soul itself.

This is only a small part of what the soul is capable of learning. One could reflect for hours on the higher qualities that a developed soul should possess, and in the end arrive at a simple conclusion: our entire life is, in essence, the development of the soul. Witches, magicians, and other practitioners must understand the subtleties of the soul’s development, as well as the question of reincarnation, especially well. This is part of their way of life and their professional Path.

We may reflect on why one person lives primarily through instinct, while another feels the need for higher thought, a connection with the subtle, and the search for hidden meaning. We may also speak of who, in a future life, may incarnate in an animal state, and who may ascend higher and be born into more elevated conditions — into a family capable of giving the soul another level of development.

But the question lies elsewhere. If, with ordinary people who are not magicians, everything is more or less understandable, then what about the souls that are drawn to magic? We understand that in our physical life, nothing happens without cause. There is always a certain “something” that influences the direction of our life path. Most people would agree: before the invention of the microscope, no one could see microbes. And yet, even in antiquity, people were able to suspect the existence of something invisible, something small, and at the same time capable of bringing a living being to death.

The same is true of the question of reincarnation. At the beginning of your Path, it is important to understand why mysticism attracted you in the first place. What was the hidden background of your arrival into magic? What contributed to it? What inner and outer circumstances came together in such a way that you found yourself here? Of course, this cannot be reduced to a simple “I wanted it.”

Usually, when the soul is being led towards the Path, there is a whole series of accompanying factors that gradually bring a person to this moment. It is like a mosaic. It consists of many small fragments, but when they are brought together into a single whole, a complete and beautiful image begins to reveal itself before you. When you learn to see the details of your own mosaic, you will also begin to understand the mosaics of others — the life paths of other people.

This is an important skill, one that greatly helps a practitioner remain precise, attentive, and rightly oriented within the world of magic and upon their professional Path. Where do you come from? What is your lineage? Who were your parents, your ancestors? From which line did you emerge? The soul must be examined in a similar way. Where does it come from? Who was it before? From what source does its root, its beginning, originate? And in this matter, regression will not help you.

Personally, I do not consider regression a reliable instrument in questions of magic and mysticism, because it lacks the magical theory and depth of thought necessary for a true understanding of the soul’s origin. Regression remains a technique connected with hypnosis, psychology, the subconscious, and the workings of the human psyche. It may reveal hidden thoughts, inner images, fears, desires, traumas, or subconscious experiences within a person. But it cannot fully answer the subtle questions concerning the origin of the soul, and still less can it reliably reveal its previous incarnations.

There are things hidden much deeper.To open them, one must engage a force that does not originate from our world. Regression, however, remains subject to the laws of the physical world: the laws of the psyche, the body, the brain, hypnosis, psychology, and thoughts born from human consciousness. I would say that regression may be used, but not as an instrument of mysticism or magic. Rather, it may be useful in the field of psychological support, inner relief, and work with human experiences.

But how can one come closer to understanding the most recent previous birth? This can be done through the same theory of the mosaic. Look around you. How do you live? What do you live by? What kind of people surround you — both those close to you and those more distant? Evaluate your life from the outside. Look at it as if you knew nothing about yourself. Learn to trace the movement of your life: your actions, your thoughts, recurring situations, and inner states. Through this method, you will gradually be able to understand whether your soul has descended into our physical world — or, on the contrary, ascended.

Yes, along the path of its incarnations, the soul may descend into denser layers of being, or rise upward from lower states. Our present life is, in many ways, a reflection of the past — like the surface of water, in which what exists above it and beneath it is revealed. If, throughout life, a person passes through difficult conditions, encounters constant limitations, suffering, or inner and outer factors that burden and darken their existence, then with a high degree of probability one may speak of a descending movement of the soul.

If, however, life unfolds relatively easily, and serious worsening factors are absent, this may indicate that the soul has risen from a lower state and received more favourable conditions for its further development. What exactly should be considered factors that worsen life, you will come to understand yourself when you begin to divide the years you have lived into the elements of your own mosaic.

When a soul incarnates for the path of magic, an important question arises: at what age does a person’s interest in mysticism begin to manifest? If the soul lives with magic from the very beginning of life, this is a good sign. If, however, an interest in mysticism appears only later in life, closer to old age, this may mean that your Path is only just beginning. In the next incarnation, with a high degree of probability, you will continue the magical life from its very beginning.

An attentive reader will immediately understand: an interest in magic from childhood indicates that the soul has already begun the Path in one of its previous incarnations. Perhaps this happened in the immediately preceding life. Or perhaps it began ten incarnations ago. It is impossible to give a precise answer to this question, but here it is important to remember the concepts of old and young souls.

Old souls are souls that have passed through an immense path of incarnations before arriving at the moment of “here and now”. As a rule, such souls carry special tasks, which they fulfil while living among ordinary people. They bring changes into this world, influence the souls of others, and take part in more global processes that are not always visible on the surface.

There are also young souls — those that have passed through incarnation only a few times. For them, earthly life is most often a process of education, accumulation of experience, and gradual unfolding. Such a soul will continue to reincarnate until it has formed itself and reached the necessary level of inner development. But all of this applies more to ordinary people who live the most ordinary kinds of lives. These rules do not always apply to those who spend their entire conscious life within magic, witchcraft, and mysticism. Souls that have come into magic are subject to more complex laws.

Working upon one’s own soul, the magician or witch — no matter what name we give to the practitioner — eventually comes to understand that their purpose does not lie in becoming fixated on themselves or on their own soul. Their purpose lies in interaction with other souls, and in bringing benefit to them.

This realisation does not come immediately. It reveals itself only when the soul of the practitioner becomes ready for it. It is precisely in such moments that the true professional Path begins to open before a person. By this time, the soul of the practitioner must already have a clear understanding of what is good and what is harmful. It must be able to see the relativity of the world, the interconnections between events, and the chain of cause and effect — both in one’s own actions and in the actions of other people. This will take time.

And it will be a good thing if the awakening of such magical consciousness takes place in this incarnation, rather than in those yet to come. But I suspect that if you are holding this book in your hands now, then a choice has appeared upon your magical Path. After all, nothing happens without cause.

What kind of person are you? Can you honestly say of yourself that you are kind or cruel? Good or harmful? How many harmful pieces of advice have you given to other people? How many times have you taken revenge, betrayed someone, deceived them, or deliberately caused harm?

Perhaps you have wounded someone. Perhaps you consider yourself a dark and fearsome sorcerer, capable only of bringing harm to others. Now imagine that you are standing before a court. The judge looks at you attentively, opens your case file entitled Life, and begins to examine everything written within it. What sentence would he pass upon you? Would he restrict your freedom — or acquit you? It does not matter what the prosecutor says. It does not matter what the defence says. It does not matter what the jury decides. Only one thing matters: how you yourself perceive your life. Try to give an honest answer — first and foremost, to yourself.

Our world is not composed only of a good principle or an evil one. No. As a result of spiritual evolution and the formation of the structure of existence, both principles have existed side by side for many thousands of years. But why do they exist in the world at all? What do you think?

If one reflects on this question for long enough, one may arrive at the conclusion that it is connected with the human being and their innate capacity for choice. If we are able to choose, then we are also able to choose between what we consider harmful and what we consider good. But imagine this: what if you had never seen human beings before, and had arrived on Earth from another world, observing humanity from the outside? What would appear good to you, and what would appear harmful?

How would you evaluate life on Earth and the role of human beings — not through the lens of a human, but through the eyes of a being from another world? Reflections of this kind help to form an understanding of the relativity of all things. Practise such inner experiments, and you will understand far more than words are capable of expressing.

Eventually, you will come to the conclusion that good and evil are relative, and that for this reason it is important to preserve the golden mean. The domination of one side — whether right or left, light or dark — may, in the end, lead to the destruction of balance and the ruin of all living things. Duality is present throughout our entire world. One need only look carefully, and you will become convinced of this for yourself. But it is not enough merely to understand the relativity of good and evil. It is also necessary to lead the magical way of life correctly.

Magic is not a matter of receiving people from eight in the morning until five in the evening, then coming home, lying down on the sofa, and spending the rest of one’s time living like an ordinary person.

Magic is a particular style and way of life. The practitioner should not perceive it dryly, as though it were merely an ordinary job. It must awaken not only an inner interest, but also manifest outwardly — for example, within the space of the home. When a practitioner knows which plants are connected with certain magical manifestations, they may grow them on their windowsill and, in this way, attract the necessary influence.

They may arrange their domestic life in accordance with their knowledge of the magical art. The home may be filled with the aromas of particular incenses, connected with subtle spirits, states, or forces. The magical atmosphere should be present even in the kitchen. Only in this way can the inner and outer worlds be united into a single whole. And it is precisely this union that will have a beneficial influence upon the magical soul of the practitioner.

When magic becomes a way of life for the practitioner, and when the soul begins to merge with it, one may then begin to reflect on where the soul of the practitioner came from in the first place. Here it is important to understand: all souls are connected to one another. The souls of the people who surround the practitioner, the souls of animals, plants, and other living beings — all exist within a web of interconnection. Ordinary people most often do not pay attention to this. But the task of the practitioner is to see this connection.

Every soul a person encounters has a certain reflection within that person themselves. It is for this reason that we may observe gatherings of people with similar inner qualities: harmful circles, noble circles, religious sects, closed groups, and other forms of association. This is not the only reason, but it is one of them.

The outer world is always connected with the inner one. All the problems we encounter in external life are, to one degree or another, reflections of inner processes, conflicts, or unresolved states. It should also be remembered that the people who surround an individual often carry within themselves certain qualities of that individual. This is important to keep in mind while observing one’s own life, because it is precisely such observations that help to assemble the correct mosaic. I think it is quite clear that, in the process of magical evolution, the practitioner’s surroundings will change. Some people will recede into the past; others will arrive. New acquaintances, new connections, and new lines of interaction will appear. This is natural.

What matters is that one’s surroundings should confirm the evolution of spirituality, not its degradation. If most of the people around you carry destructive, lower qualities, it is worth turning your attention towards your own inner world and carefully examining it for inner conflicts, weak points, and negative traits. But all of this is not limited only to the connection between souls and an individual person. No.

It is important to understand: all souls originate from a single Source. They all have one common root — the Root of Souls. And here, the practitioner is helped by the study of higher matters. In my own case, the path towards higher matters passes through Judaism and Kabbalistic knowledge. You may have another point of entry into the understanding of the higher.

The only thing I will say is this: Kabbalah, in its essence, is one of the most direct and shortest paths to this knowledge. But without Judaism, it cannot be fully absorbed or properly understood. At the same time, do not rush into fanaticism. Even the most disciplined religions must not become dry dogmatism, deprived of living thought and the ability to analyse critically.

It is precisely such points of entry into higher matters — or others similar to them — that are able to explain and arrange within the consciousness of the practitioner that ancient higher information which is necessary for their soul, and which remains hidden from the uninitiated. But there is not only the question of belonging to the Root of the Soul.

It is also important to understand something else: to which qualities of the Root a particular soul belongs, and from which world the soul of a practitioner studying the magical art has come. At this point, we may speak of ten principal worlds. Each of these ten worlds has its own components, which are also ten in number. In order to understand this and other similarly subtle questions, the practitioner will have to dedicate a significant part of their life to such study. But to know one’s origin is one of the most important tasks upon the magical Path.