Stealing Souls, Satan can do it..can we? Options

I am curious, not because I am a satanist but because I really would want to do this. I always here of people (usually satanists) selling their souls or making a pact with a demon or something but is it possible for another human to infact give away their soul to another? My reasons for wanting to know your opinion are quite private but I just am wondering what you think.

Enochian becareful you don't come off as overly dogmatic. You're perfectly welcome to share your beliefs but do not try to impose them on others. I will say however,

Jesus died for us, a bunch of murderers and betrayers that mostly hated him. So no the ends dont justify the means. No one can take a soul anyways so it matters very little.

I am not a murderer or a betrayer.

BloodArchon I understand you don't like Christianity but people are allowed to share their beliefs - just not impose them.

Now the topic has nothing to do with Jesus or the existance of God or the orgins of high magick. We're discussing the how's and why's somebody would steal souls.

So here is my take:

In order to come to a complete answer we should consider what a soul really is - currently members have shared the ideas that the soul is a part of greater deity, Enochian believes this is God. Some believe that souls are collections of energy that grant life to living creatures. And others believe that a soul is a product of consciousness, perhaps a collection of energy, and equates to being one's awareness will power and personal control. If any of you have other ideas on what the soul is it'd be good share.

Another thing to consider is that in order to *steal* something it must first belong to them. Thus if a soul is a part of a greater whole then one does not steal souls from those who bare them, but from the greater whole. This does, in my opinion, seem to indicate that taking a soul would be either very difficult or impossible because if we all have souls that belong to the same greater force or deity, however you want to call it, then we'd essentially be acting like God taking from God. It doesn't make any sense. In order to steal or even barrow a soul, because hey maybe you're just lonely or want a drinking buddy, it would have to be something that is owned by, or at least autonomously controled by, an individual person. Again if any members have ideas to share that would help enrich this topic.

So then that brings us to why somebody would want to steal a soul. Well what does it do? If the soul is merely a collection of energy with memories imprinted on it then about the only thing one could get from it is more energy for themselves or possibly extract the memories it contains. If the soul is a part of a greater whole, some deity or supreme lifeforce like Gaia, and it were at all possible to steal a soul then the reason why would likely be either to prevent another from exploiting its power or harnessing it for themself. Sounds somewhat similar. If the soul is owned/controled by an individual then the purpose of taking it would alse be to prevent another from exploiting their own will power. It sounds to me that control is the repeating factor here. Therefore I think its safe to say that regardless of what one thinks a soul is the purpose of stealing one from another person is to either take control of them or deny them self control. Are "bad" reasons to take souls? Sure but I think that depends on the circumstances of the situation. Are there good reasons to steal souls? Possibly but I don't personally think so.

Now what are some theories on how somebody would take souls? If souls are indeed a part of some supreme force we could not take souls like one could take cookies from a jar but it might be possible to usurp one's control over theirs. In Voodoo priests can make "zombies" out of people. Perhpas what they do is not actually remove one's soul but rather take control of it through drug induces psychological trauma. If the soul is energy, say like prana, then one would not really view souls as personal property like a tv but rather more like a swimming pool or pond in a nieghbor's back yard. Thus the thief, say a prana vampire, would steal souls in a fashion similar to somehow syphoning water out of a swimming pool and dumping it into there own. Or maybe stealing gas by syphoning it out of other's cars would be a better analogy. If the soul was more like one's will power and ability to control their own destiny, regardless if was a collection of energy or not then one could hypnotize or manipulate people into giving up control over their soul. People who follow, or give allegiance to another person for any reason be they a rock star or the alledged son of God, are for all intensive purposes, giving up their souls. I suppose its possible to steal souls through ritual magick. Voodoo priests at least appear to be successful at it. But I think it would be difficult through say spell craft. Something else to consider is that if the soul is not attached to a body anymore it makes it much easier to take. So perhaps the trick is killing a person or taking souls from dead people.

This post has been edited by Acid09: Feb 2 2007, 07:16 PM