The soul

Ham, Paul2024

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Summary

The Soul is a history of the human mind, from the earliest expression of self-consciousness to its unshakeable belief in the great religions and political systems. Almost everyone thinks they have one, but nobody knows what it is. For thousands of years the soul was an 'organ', an entity, something that was part of all of us, that survived the death of the body and ventured to the underworld, or to heaven or hell. The soul could be saved, condemned, tortured, bought. And then, mysteriously, the 'soul' disappeared. The Enlightenment called it the 'mind'. And today, neuroscientists demonstrate that the mind is the creation of the brain. The 'religious soul' lives on, in the minds of the faithful, while the secular 'soul' means whatever you want it to mean. In The Soul: A History of the Human Mind critically acclaimed historian Paul Ham embarks on a journey that has never been attempted: to restore the idea of the soul to the human story and to show how belief in, and beliefs arising from, the soul/mind have animated and driven the history of humankind. The Soul is much more than a mesmerizing narrative and uniquely accessible way of explaining our story. It transforms our understanding of how history works. It persuasively demonstrates that the beliefs of the soul/mind are the engines of human history.