Ensoulment

 

Porphyry of Tyre was an intuental neo-Platonic Greek philosopher who lived from approximately 234-305 C.E. He wrote on various topics, from music theory to vegetarianism to astrology, and, in fact, wrote An Introducton to the Tetrabiblost of Claudius Ptolemy. He is also responsible for the Porphyry system of houses. And this book — Ensoulment — may to some extent give you a clue as to why this house system is used so extensively by metaphysical and evolutonary astrologers — because in this book he delves into the intuence of the heavens on the soul and the ‘hows’ and ‘whens’ of the soul ataching to the physical body. He touches on questons such as “Does the heavenly tow intuence the life pursuit?”, “What if a soul is inexperienced at animatng itself?”, “What if father or mother does not furnish a soul?”, “What if a baby is born under peevish weather conditons (transits)?”

 

Now remember, this is philosophy. It alludes to astrology, but it isn’t a textbook and it certainly isn’t a cookbook. Also note that Porphyry is talking about incarnaton rather than reincarnaton. As he notes at one point, “Let us note that souls from outside have not been known to pounce on prospectve parents.” We’re in the realm of “those who will understand will understand” here. And no, all of your questons won’t be answered. But you’ll get plenty of food for thought.

 

At $24.95 for this slim volume, I suspect some will give it a pass as being too price-y and not worth it. However, for those spiritual seekers among you with a philosophical bent, this beautfully produced volume, complete with glossary, is a gem to be treasured. It is well rendered, worth looking at, and well worth reading. I enjoyed it immensely and will no doubt read it again.