The AK itself, / Body and Soul

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 140301

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "saraquel_omphale"
<saraquel_omphale at y...> wrote:
> Saraquel replying to Elyse, Raie, Ceridwen and Sandy
> ...edited...
> 
> Elyse wrote:
> >In PoA Lupin says if your soul is sucked out you become "an
> >empty shell" devoid of thought, feeling, you simply exist. So this
> >indicates not only that the mind and personality is a function of
> >the but also that your magical power - the ability to harness magic 
> >out of ether or whatever - still resides in you. Only now that you 
> >have lost your mind you cannot use it.
> 
> Saraquel:
> I can't quite follow you here, are you saying that because Lupin did 
> not actually specify that you lost your magical powers as well, that 
> they therefore must still be in you?  If so, I'm not totally 
> convinced about that as evidence.
> 
> ...edited...

bboyminn:

I'm just going to touch on this one issue and see if I can bring some
perspective to it. Let's use a vehicle analogy. The soul is the
'pilot' of the earthly vehicle-the body. What good is a vehicle
without a pilot? 

If there is no 'Self' to give indentity and purpose to the body, then
indeed the body is an 'empty' shell; a meaningless vehicle without
purpose or self-awareness. Much like a fanastic car that has no
driver; as nice as it may be, it's just a bucket of expensive bolts,
if no one exists who can drive it. So, memories mean nothing because
there is no 'Self' to give meaning to those memories. Thoughts are
nothingness because there is no 'Self' to form them. Magical power may
still exist in the body, but like a car without a driver, they are all
potential that can never be realized.

To complicate matters farther, it's not as simple as Black and White,
not a simple as alive or dead, certainly not as simple as soul-full or
not soul-full. The Dementors can create Body without Soul. When the
AK-Curse rebound from Harry to Voldemort, soulfull-Self was created
without body. Plus ghosts, have lost their body, but still cling to
their earthly Selves. They have earthly identity and earthly
personality, and logically still have soul, but they have lost their
body and live in the twilight of Spirit; neither body/earthly self nor
pure soul. 

Of course, it is just my personal perspective, but I think the Soul is
very much divorced from the earthly body. The soul identifies with the
body as long as it occupies it, and perhaps for a brief period after,
but that connection to the 'vehicle' doesn't last very long. It may
carry spiritual lessons from lifetime to lifetime, but any sense of
the body is lost. 

This is part of my belief that Harry is not a Horcrux because of the
'bits' of Voldemort that were transferred to him. Those talents and
skills are part of the earthly vehicle we call Tom/Voldemort, and are
not tie to pure soul which doesn't cling to things that are unique to
the body/vehicle. That and the fact that Dumbledore would have to be
the stupidest person who ever lived to have not considered the
possibility and, as the book make it appear, rejected it.

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bboyminn