Souls and the Journey within Realms by Onyeji Nnaji

Copied from the book, Cosmic Chain, by Onyeji Nnaji

One seeming inconsequential part of the human existence is the human soul. The soul remains an inconsequential part of the human existence because it's presumed consequential functions have always been predetermined by the function of the human body. This interdependence gave researchers the impetuse to conclude that man does not have the soul, but the body. For the activities which any human can control are those activities within the bound of the body. 

The Igbo view the soul in a different way compared to the conclusion drawn above. Igbo believe that, as the body consequently determines the respondent activities of the soul, the soul on it's own ways also plays certain consequential roles against the body. Thinking in the line of this symbiotic relationship, the Igbo see the soul as the human's unseen persona, man's chi.  The meaning of chi in the Igbo cosmology is multifaceted. For the Igbo see every aspect of the human's unseen essences as the concern of a persona which the human is unfit to reach out to but can exercise influence on, interdependently, as the human's chi. This is the take of Professor Chinua Achebe in the essay highlighted above.

Distinctly therefore, to particularise chi from the human soul, the Igbo speak of the human spirit through which humans attain certain spiritual height without the consciousness of the body. Addressed as the soul, but a residue type instead since it does not make any contact with the human's body. ie., The human soul live with man, but chi is the human double which only exist in the spiritual realm without making any contact with the body. Chi is tied to the human's fate, but the human soul is not. Chi is not the very human's double that allows him to transcend beyond the human capacity bodily. The Igbo call this very soul mkpuru-obi, not chi. This  transcendetal journey of the human via the soul is what we discus here as the soul's journey in realms. It is different from the manifestation of the human chi in various capacities as discussed in chapter two of this book under the caption, The Transcendetal Empiricism of the African Myth.

The journey of the soul takes two varying forms. One is temporal while the other is pperment. Temporary journey of the soul take effect while the composite body is still alive. When the soul embacks on a permanent journey it separates itself from the constituent body for ever. 

The Temporary Journey of Souls

Temporary movement of the human soul can occur in the form of dreams, trans, conjurals/teleguiding. The first two means occur to every individual while conjural and teleguiding occur through mystic means. The highest aspect of the temporary journey of the human soul occurs during purgation. The movement of the sould through dream and trans is often called the journey with. This is because it does not involve any form of coalition or conflict with another soul. 

In the journey within of the human soul, the entire being organized into human, spirit or body, is usually involved. This is the view of Elder Nnaji nwa Nnaji. Nnaji's view of body-inclusiveness made him to suggest that the soul would not be better explained as a substance. He believes the soul is an entity which can only be vividly explained with the help of any image that suits the the picture of an abstract being. As an elder who had given his year to unravelling the mystery behind life, Nnaji asserts that the relationship between the soul and the human body is relatively bilateral; it is not explicitly direct or indirect. It is relatively direct when the action or function of one affects the existence and survival of the other, while it is indirect when the soul is viewed to be existing as an entity, although within the limit of one body. The diagram above illustrates Nnaji's view about the human soul better.

According to Nnaji, the most significant part of life that connects the soul's functions to the human body is found within the wall of the latent vacuum. Latent vacuum is the space that keeps the soul connected to the mind (consciousness). The relationship of the mind and the soul here is not direct since the soul does not maintain a direct contact with the mind. But because the vacuum is a vibratory impulse maintained by the latent vacuum. Within the latent vacuum lies a substance he called the Umbilic. It is an ideal concept which metamorphoses to umbilici during the formative stage of a child.

Umbilici is infinitively elastic in nature. The sole function of the umbilici is to givve the soul a direct bearing through which it locates the body while on transit. This function of the umbilici is different from the role of the locus. As seen through the image of the soul, locus serves as the brain box of Renal Adrenal. The large connection maintained between the mind and the body via the locus gives the sensory part of the body the impetuse to define clearly issues connected with the senses. All the parts are however very necessary to life because life depends on the concomitant relationship of them all, but only the umbilic keeps closer contact with the soul because it serves as a compass for the soul.

As the soul travels, the body is usually at rest; only the umbilic does not rest. Umbilic creats the awareness which the body has any time the soul returns from the journey.  Just like the role of diamond to the archetypal anaconda, the unbilic serves as a the infinitively light that traces the soul's route back to the body. In doing this also, the umbilic goes the far to enable the consciousness which the body has anytime a sleeping body wakes up. The image belowY illustrate better the soul situation and the position of the unbilic as the soul returns from journey to the living body.

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Purgation: The Justification of Living Souls