Colm Holland-Blog

DAY 4 - Anima Mundi - (Latin for The Soul of the World)

Meditation 4

Can you recite the first verse of The Emerald Tablet without a prompt? Don’t forget to go back to Mediation 1 and check you have it committed to memory.

Today’s meditation is on one of my favourite and probably most important concepts in Alchemy: Anima Mundi - as it was called by the ancient alchemists or The Soul of the World as it is referred to by Paulo Coelho in his story The Alchemist.

The Soul of The World is an extension of the concept of Prima Materia that we looked at in Meditation 3 - except it takes our thinking one step further. The great Greek philosopher Plato put the concept perfectly when he said:

‘Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.’ Plato, Timaeus, 30b–c, 33b.

You may want to pause for thought at this moment before reading any further. Let’s consider what Plato, the ancient alchemists and the story of the The Alchemist are suggesting here:

The world is a living being.

The universe is a living being.

Everything in the world and the universe is part of this single living being.

I am part of this living being!

This one mediation alone cannot begin to embrace the enormity and significance of the reality that is The Soul of the World, so I want to look into only one further aspect of this concept today for our meditation:

‘...this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence …’ Plato

Plato says that The Soul of the World has a soul and intelligence. When something has a soul for Plato it means it is the essence of a person, and that which decides how people behave. In other words - The Soul of the World has certain characteristics that determine its attitude and intent to all things that are part of it.

What is the personality and intent of the Soul of The World?

While many of the world’s great religions and philosophies have their own names for and variations on the nature of The Soul of the World, there is one thing they almost all completely agree on and that is:

The Soul of the World is Unconditional Love!

We will spend several days in our mediations ahead on the subject of Unconditional Love, but for now let’s meditate on this incredible thought today:

‘I am part of The Soul of the World and its nature is Love.’

And remember, to encourage you throughout these exercises I have asked Love to give you everything you need to be the Alchemist in your world.