The concept of three souls is something that can be found in ancient belief systems who spoke Uralic languages.
Outside our physical body people had two other souls.
The first one is called ruumissielu,
The body soul,
Also known as löyly.
Löyly was all the functions of the body,
Like the heartbeat and breathing.
It was believed that a person was born into their body and received their soul from the first moment when they caught their breath to the day they died and took their last breath.
Similar words to löyly can be found in different Finno-Ugric languages.
In Hungarian löyly is lelek,
Which means both spirit and soul.
In Estonian löyly is leil and it means life and spirit.
In Northern Sámi the word liil means spirit,
Steam,
Soul and breathing.
And in the Komi language word lol means soul and life.
The body soul was attached to the person's body and when the body soul left then the person died.
In the modern Finnish language löyly refers to the steam that rises when you throw water in the sauna.
The second soul was itse,
The self.
Itse is closer to the concept of the psyche and it was also known as vapaa-sielu,
The free soul.
Itse was the persona,
The identity of the person.
There were many ways itse could attach itself to the body.
It was believed that itse would become part of the person when the child was accepted as part of the family.
This usually happened during the naming ritual.
The concept of itse was tightly connected to the family and the community.
For example,
Among the Sámi in Lapland,
Child who had a name also had the right to own reindeer.
The concept of the three souls is connected to the belief in reincarnation.
People often named their children after their ancestors and passed away relatives.
There was a belief that the ancestors,
Itse,
Would reincarnate itself in the child.
Unlike löyly,
The body soul,
Which was always connected to the body,
Itse could leave the body and come back.
For example,
During nights when the person was sleeping,
Their itse might go out and return the next morning.
This is why it was forbidden to suddenly wake up a sleeping person.
Their soul might not have returned just yet.
The person who lost their itse became very ill.
The only person who could bring their soul back was a shaman.
Shamans were the only ones whose itse could travel in the underworld within the trance state.
The third soul was Haltia.
Each person was believed to have their own Haltia,
An invisible guardian spirit who would look after the person.
Some people were believed to have extremely strong Haltia,
Especially if they were successful in their lives.
A person who was not so successful,
They were believed to have very poor Haltia or a weak Haltia.
Haltia literally means spirit in Finnish.
Haltia could also abandon the person if they thought they were not worthy of them.
An aggressive person might have short-tempered Haltia,
Whereas a kinder person had a very good-willed Haltia.
The way Latvians and Lithuanians respected their ancestors was something very precious.
The respect of the spirits was an essential part of the Baltic worldview.
It was expressed in many different ways.
Beside of the special remembrance days,
There were multitude of ways that the people paid respect for the ancestors.
The connection to the ancestors lived within songs,
The customs and the language itself.
After passing,
The ancestors maintained their ties to the family in several different rites.
Often the worship of nature was intertwined together with the worship of ancestors.
In Lithuania it is said,
The souls of the dead are the trustees of their living relatives or their intimates,
Especially dead parents and trustees of their orphaned children.
The spirits of the passed away relatives also became the caretakers of the fields and the farmstead.
The living and the dead were united by the earth.
Their presence was honored by lighting candles and assured that they were not forgotten.
During hardships and joyous moments,
The living could feel their love and support.
The cycle of love and death in every family created a single undivided road.
The Lithuanian word for man,
Tsmogus,
Is gender neutral and it has direct connection to the word tseme,
Meaning earth.
As well as the word tsmona,
Meaning wife,
The symbol of a man is a tree,
Which is the symbol of the earth.
The tree reaches out to the heavens,
Which gives man heavenly aspects.
In folk songs,
The connection to the surrounding world is emphasized when the sun is called as the mother and the moon as the father.
The man is never isolated from nature,
But is always a part of it.
In each action or thought there are many possible outcomes and consequences,
Both for good and bad.
Another concept is the idea of lemtis,
Fate.
Man's life was a span,
Out like a yarn,
And when the spindle is full,
The thread is torn and man dies.
The goddess Laima is the one who conducted man's fate.
She was the spinner and the weaver of fate.
Siela,
The heart and soul,
Was the eternal force of life,
Which never left the earth.
But in the pagan worldview,
Siela reincarnated as trees,
Flowers and animals.
Siela could be seen as the divine energy,
The part within the man that always returns into the universe in one form or another.
Siela is not the same as the Vele,
Which is the soul of the dead and carries its existence separately in the life of the family.
It was believed that man was reborn among those who he loved.
Many thanks for joining me on this course about autumn festivities and I hope you learned some new insights about the ancestral beliefs.
Namaste.
