The Nomadic Alternative – Page 233

for freeing the soul (whatever it may be) from matter, and for achieving immortality in this world. Besides, the welfare of the soul has been the object of the most obsessive care through the ages, and it is impossible to deny the existence of some guiding principle that enters an infant at birth and seems to fly off again at the end. Some have thought to identify the soul with the Breath of Life. But this is hardly possible. In ecstatic excursions the soul leaves the body, while the body continues to breathe, and the 'mystical' itinerary assumes it possible to release the soul before the body collapses. The soul, we are forced to conclude, is independent of breath. Furthermore, since the most obsessive wanderers in this world do not develop ideas of the hereafter, this suggests that the business of the soul is here on earth, not in Heaven or Hell. Only those who fail to live here plan excursions in the life to come.

Now in the first chapter we presumed that our capacity for symbolic thought is an orienting mechanism to chart our position in this world, and that the biological clock times our passage through it. I suggest we shall not be far from the mark to think of the soul as an interior broadcasting station, which transmits over the years its programme of messages or ideas. So let us imagine this programme to take the form of a symphony, divided into movements from the opening to the finale, and recorded in advance from a master pattern onto an interior gramophone record, which will obviously have to be played on very different sorts of equipment. The symphony is a long and difficult work. Some movements are exceptionally tedious. But to enjoy its subtle harmonies, the least we can do is to play it on adequate equipment. It must be loud enough; it must be played at a given speed; the pick-up must not get stuck in a groove or be allowed to play the same movement twice. To arrive at the finale of a happy death - when the symphony of the soul is finished and done - we must patiently hear out the tedious parts. As the annual cycle, if lived properly, is not altogether pleasant, the life cycle is not altogether pleasant.