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Hello, in Sailing to Byzantium, W.B.H. wrote, An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered

coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.

This week on in our time we will be discussing the soul.

For Plato it was the immortal seat of reason. For Aristotle it could be found in plants and animals

and was the essence of every being, but it died when the body died. For some it's the

font of creativity, for some the spark of God in man, for others it's a chimera. What is the soul made of and

where does it live? Is it the key to our individuality as humans and when we die will

our souls find paradise or purgatory,, Resurrection, or simply Annilation.

With me to discuss the solo Richard Serabji, Gresham Professor of Rhetorik at Gresham College.

Ruth Padell, poet and author of In and Out of the Mind, Tragic Images of Self and

Body, and Martin Palmer, Theologian and Director of the International Consultancy on

Religion and culture.

Martin Palmer, before we unravel them,

can you describe what you see is a three major

and distinct ideas of the soul?

I think there are three. That's slightly simplifying it to put it mildly but three core ones

one is what we call the Vedic view that comes out of the Rigveda in the traditions of India

and that is a reincarnational view that the soul essentially is migrating through a series of bodies, gaining experience it goes.

Sometimes it slides backwards, sometimes it goes forward, hence snakes and ladders, was actually originally a Hindu game of

reincarnation. I had an interesting thought when you're playing it next with your

...