Okay, the thing to understand here is that while a *soul* is asingle object, it is, like most everything else in the universe,made up of smaller bits -- "soul atoms", if you will. Those inthe know -- gods, friends of gods, certain professionals, amongothers -- usually call these soul components "Forces".
(Why "Forces"? I haven't the faintest, and the gods I've askedhaven't been too clear in their answers. Belldandy said it was"difficult to explain in less than 8 dimensions". Urd just wavedher hand and said I didn't need to know the details as long as Ihad the basics down. Skuld rattled off something I think was anexplanation, but it involved math beyond anything I'd managed tomaster. Marller agreed with Urd. And Chris said his "How To BeA God" correspondence course hadn't gotten to that lesson yet.
There are a half-dozen to a dozen good metaphors for what a soul
*is*, but none of them are actual explanations, and none of them
involve anything involving the usual meaning of "force".)
Anyway, there are three kinds of Forces -- Ethereal, Corporeal,and Celestial, and how many your soul has, in total, ranks you onthe scale between amoebas and gods. (In case you hadn't guessedalready, humans are on one of the bottommost rungs of *that*
particular ladder.) How many you have of each particular type
says a lot about what you are and what you can do. Ethereal
Forces, for example, are somehow connected to both your
intelligence and your sanity; if you somehow lose Ethereal
Forces, you will lose one, or the other, or both. Plants have no
Ethereal Forces. Animals have almost none. Humans have a couple
more than animals. Gods need a big bag to tote all theirs in.
You get the idea.
Corporeal Forces have some strange correlation to how physicallypowerful/adept you are, although how that gets expressed varieswith the type of critter you are. In mere mortals, a loss orgain of Corporeal Forces translates directly into a degradationor improvement of your body in some way. For Celestial beings,to whom 3-dimensional physical bodies are akin to a finger cotwith a face drawn on it, it reflects how much physical power they
have available to exert through their avatars, regardless of
their size or apparent physical fitness. (Practical example:
Skuld could effortlessly bench-press a tank if she were inclined
to do so, and disabled whatever it was that limited her to a
more-or-less human level.) It's weird, and part of that thing
that was "difficult" according to Belldandy.
I never did get a good grip on what Celestial Forces were about.I know they have something to do with perception and intuition,and they definitely provided some kind of link to your choice ofside in the Big Game the Celestials are playing. Beyond that,
well, I'm clueless, although I have some guesses. I *think*
they're kind of the framework on which all that makes you *you*
is hung, the metaphysical equivalent of a skeleton. But unlike a
skeleton, bits can be added and removed without too much fuss.
Most of the time.
And that's another thing. Celestials can add Forces to -- andremove them *from* -- lesser beings' souls just like snapping
Lego pieces on and off a model plane. That's what Skuld did when
she took Megumi as a Servitor -- she took a Celestial Force fromwho-knows-where and added it to the Megster's soul. This wasapparently enough to elevate Megumi from "mere mortal" to
"incredibly minor Celestial being". (Senbei outranks her
easily.) And if Meg ever does anything to seriously piss her
off, Skuld can take it right back again.
"Okay," you're saying, "that's all positively *fascinating* I'msure, but why are you telling me all this?" Well, bunky, it'sbecause of Voldemort and soul jars. Mortals have a couple waysthey can knock individual Forces loose from their souls. Becauseof the way these things work in 12 dimensions, they're not reallydisconnected fully, not like a Celestial would make it. They'remore, um, orbiting? Loosely linked to? Occupying a probabilitycloud around? Something along those lines in relation to thesoul they got knocked off of. In four-D space-time they can be
light-years away from the soul they came from, but in the other
eight dimensions they're still *right freaking there* and part of
the soul.
And if you attach them to something that has no Forces of its
own, like a diary, a ring, or four or five other things that
*can't die* because they're not alive to begin with, well then,
when you die, your soul can't go anywhere -- because the loosebits of your soul are nailed firmly to the universe and hold youthere.
The only problem with this method is that each of those loose
bits don't actually work very well with the others any more, so
every one of these anchors you make screws with you in some way.
Do it enough, and you'll end up a brain-dead cripple who can't
even conceive of what they did to get to that state.
This is why *competent* practitioners only move their *entire*
soul in one piece to a protected anchor. Because what good is
immortality if you're going to spend eternity in a basket,
drooling?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
(Why "Forces"? I haven't the faintest, and the gods I've askedhaven't been too clear in their answers. Belldandy said it was"difficult to explain in less than 8 dimensions". Urd just wavedher hand and said I didn't need to know the details as long as Ihad the basics down. Skuld rattled off something I think was anexplanation, but it involved math beyond anything I'd managed tomaster. Marller agreed with Urd. And Chris said his "How To BeA God" correspondence course hadn't gotten to that lesson yet.
There are a half-dozen to a dozen good metaphors for what a soul
*is*, but none of them are actual explanations, and none of them
involve anything involving the usual meaning of "force".)
Anyway, there are three kinds of Forces -- Ethereal, Corporeal,and Celestial, and how many your soul has, in total, ranks you onthe scale between amoebas and gods. (In case you hadn't guessedalready, humans are on one of the bottommost rungs of *that*
particular ladder.) How many you have of each particular type
says a lot about what you are and what you can do. Ethereal
Forces, for example, are somehow connected to both your
intelligence and your sanity; if you somehow lose Ethereal
Forces, you will lose one, or the other, or both. Plants have no
Ethereal Forces. Animals have almost none. Humans have a couple
more than animals. Gods need a big bag to tote all theirs in.
You get the idea.
Corporeal Forces have some strange correlation to how physicallypowerful/adept you are, although how that gets expressed varieswith the type of critter you are. In mere mortals, a loss orgain of Corporeal Forces translates directly into a degradationor improvement of your body in some way. For Celestial beings,to whom 3-dimensional physical bodies are akin to a finger cotwith a face drawn on it, it reflects how much physical power they
have available to exert through their avatars, regardless of
their size or apparent physical fitness. (Practical example:
Skuld could effortlessly bench-press a tank if she were inclined
to do so, and disabled whatever it was that limited her to a
more-or-less human level.) It's weird, and part of that thing
that was "difficult" according to Belldandy.
I never did get a good grip on what Celestial Forces were about.I know they have something to do with perception and intuition,and they definitely provided some kind of link to your choice ofside in the Big Game the Celestials are playing. Beyond that,
well, I'm clueless, although I have some guesses. I *think*
they're kind of the framework on which all that makes you *you*
is hung, the metaphysical equivalent of a skeleton. But unlike a
skeleton, bits can be added and removed without too much fuss.
Most of the time.
And that's another thing. Celestials can add Forces to -- andremove them *from* -- lesser beings' souls just like snapping
Lego pieces on and off a model plane. That's what Skuld did when
she took Megumi as a Servitor -- she took a Celestial Force fromwho-knows-where and added it to the Megster's soul. This wasapparently enough to elevate Megumi from "mere mortal" to
"incredibly minor Celestial being". (Senbei outranks her
easily.) And if Meg ever does anything to seriously piss her
off, Skuld can take it right back again.
"Okay," you're saying, "that's all positively *fascinating* I'msure, but why are you telling me all this?" Well, bunky, it'sbecause of Voldemort and soul jars. Mortals have a couple waysthey can knock individual Forces loose from their souls. Becauseof the way these things work in 12 dimensions, they're not reallydisconnected fully, not like a Celestial would make it. They'remore, um, orbiting? Loosely linked to? Occupying a probabilitycloud around? Something along those lines in relation to thesoul they got knocked off of. In four-D space-time they can be
light-years away from the soul they came from, but in the other
eight dimensions they're still *right freaking there* and part of
the soul.
And if you attach them to something that has no Forces of its
own, like a diary, a ring, or four or five other things that
*can't die* because they're not alive to begin with, well then,
when you die, your soul can't go anywhere -- because the loosebits of your soul are nailed firmly to the universe and hold youthere.
The only problem with this method is that each of those loose
bits don't actually work very well with the others any more, so
every one of these anchors you make screws with you in some way.
Do it enough, and you'll end up a brain-dead cripple who can't
even conceive of what they did to get to that state.
This is why *competent* practitioners only move their *entire*
soul in one piece to a protected anchor. Because what good is
immortality if you're going to spend eternity in a basket,
drooling?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.