Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00260)

d wrote:
> I have a question, regarding the theosohic view on the very soul 
> itself... When does it start? Does the soul join the body at birth, 
> or do you believe it is present even before birth? Does an unborn 
> child have a soul?
Well, in Blavatsky's writings at least, there is both an ephemeral and 
eternal part of the human body. The eternal part never dies; the 
ephemeral part does. She uses the term "monad" (sort of a philosophical 
atom) to refer to the eternal part (which gets confusing, because monad 
can mean a number of things). Through a mechanism which I won't go into 
for the moment, the monad starts to attach to the physical body. But the 
attachment process is not instantaneous. According to Blavatsky, it 
takes until the child is 6 years old before the attachment is complete 
(this turns out to match current theories of neurology, also in a way I 
won't go into, now). But abortion would still tear the monad away from 
the body, generating a large portion of personal karma.

Her belief was that abortion was a crime against nature. However, it is 
possible that allowing the fetus to live will create more personal karma 
than destroying it. In those cases, abortion might be considered a 
better choice.

Bart