See the update at the bottom of the post.

A common idea that much of our society seems overly invested in is the separation of the body and spirit or soul. Often, the soul is viewed as something that is contained by — or worse, trapped by — our body. At death, it moves on to some sort of afterlife. In my emphatic opinion, this line of thinking devalues the body in toxic and harmful ways.

I maintain that our bodies are both integral and essential to our experience as human beings. After all, without our bodies, we would have no way to experience this life. So while I believe that something of myself will probably “move on” from this life after I take my final breath,¹ that could never be fully me. Without my body, it is at best a shadow or a ghost (see what I did there?) of my full, living, and human self.

To my way of thinking, this issue isn’t just a matter of making sure we have the right theology or cosmology regarding the afterlife.² For me, this issue is much more important because the resulting devaluation of our bodies and an over-inflation of the importance of spirit or our souls leads to negative thought patterns and behaviors. To give just one example, I’ve noticed some people in the New Age and even witchcraft movement seem to be adopting purity culture style ethics. Some have gone so far as to view maintaining their virginity and/or embracing cisheteronromative, patriarchal relationship models as the only correct ones as some sort of spiritual ideal. I don’t know whether the people thinking this way are reinventing these ideas or if they’re former Christians who just haven’t abandoned those notions as they’ve moved into a new spiritual tradition. Either way, I find it a disturbing trend. As those who have spent years talking about purity culture in Christianity have repeatedly noted, that kind of thinking is toxic and harms people, often to the point of fully traumatizing them.³

I think that being a devotee of Freyja strongly impacts my view of this topic. As I continue to grow in my relationship with her, I find that Freyja is all about embodiment. Not only when it comes to our sexuality, but in all aspects of our lives. So to devalue the blessings of our bodies and the experiences we have through them in favor of some sort of focus on the spirit and/or soul just feels like spitting on those blessings.

And Freyja does not seem unique among the Pagan deities in this matter. Many of the deities in many cultures strike me as being embodied and make the experiences of our bodies an important part of their rites and mysteries. I’d hate to see modern Pagns and witches lose that.

This post was inspired a journal prompt I found online: Do I believe I’m a spiritual being in a human body? What does this concept mean to me?

Updated 07/19/2024: After I completed and scheduled this post, David Hawyard posted a tweet talking about how this divide between the body and the soul can also lead to ableism.

Did you know that July is disability pride month? This is a time for us to talk about access (and lack of access) for differently abled people.

Whenever I post a cartoon addressing disability, sometimes able-people come on and try to get us to be reasonable. Some even say we… pic.twitter.com/79JVsa7qBn

— David Hayward | Artist (@nakedpastor) July 17, 2024

I think he makes an excellent point and wanted to draw my readers’ attention to it.

Footnotes

1. Personally, I tend to envision that something as an “enlivening essence” rather than a soul containing my full consciousness and mental faculties. I’m open to the possibility that said essence might carry a vague imprint of some of my memories or personality quirks, but once again, this isn’t fully me. Heck, I doubt it’s even my full consciousness. ↩︎
2. Ultimately, I think such theology and cosmology is unverifiable and not that important anyway. I’m all for focusing on this life rather than what may come after it. ↩︎
3. Okay! Time for a break for nuance, lest my aro-ace friends (and others) who are sex indifferent or even sex-repulsed think I’m invalidating them. Not being interested in sex is entirely valid for certain people. And if you’re one of those people, you should embrace that rather than trying to be someone you’re not. But I thank all of those people who don’t want sex, yet manage not to turn it into some sort of sign that they’re somehow “more spiritual” than the rest of us. And I’d ask you to continue to call in those who tend to present their lack of sexual interest as such. ↩︎