Soulmate

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For other uses, see Soulmate (disambiguation).
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The feet of Saint Guénolé (Winwaloe, Guignolé) statue, in a Prigny (Loire-Atlantique) chapel, are pierced with needles by local girls who hope to find their soulmates.[citation needed]

A soulmate (or soul mate) is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity.[1] This may involve similarity, love, intimacy, sexuality, sexual activity, spirituality, or compatibility.

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Historical usage of the concept [edit]

Plato [edit]

In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present a story about soul mates. Aristophanes states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. He continues that there were three genders: man, woman and the "Androgynous". Each with two sets of genitalia with the Androgynous having both male and female genitalia. The men were children of the sun, the women were children of the earth and the Androgynous were children of the moon, which was born of the sun and earth. It is said that humans had great strength at the time and threatened to conquer the gods. The gods were then faced with the prospect of destroying the humans with lightning as they had done with the Titans but then they would lose the tributes given to the gods by humans. Zeus developed a creative solution by splitting humans in half as punishment for humanity's pride and doubling the number of humans who would give tribute to the gods. These split humans were in utter misery to the point where they would not eat and would perish so Apollo had sewn them up and reconstituted their bodies with the navel being the only remnant harkening back to their original form. Each human would then only have one set of genitalia and would forever long for his/her other half; the other half of his/her soul. It is said that when the two find each other, there is an unspoken understanding of one another, that they feel unified and would lay with each other in unity and would know no greater joy than that.[2]

Theosophy [edit]

According to Theosophy, whose claims were modified by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls—equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or "separation from God." Over a number of reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.[3][4]

Current usage of the concept [edit]

In current usage, "soulmate" usually refers to a romantic partner, with the implication of an exclusive lifelong bond.[5] This is to say, the word is used with more rarity than the terms also associated with 'romantic partner'. The term is a very versatile term, being defined differently by different individuals, as it is related to the concept of love. It commonly holds the connotation of being the strongest bond with another person,[6] romantically, that one can achieve. The term is not used as often as other terms representing the same idea, and this is likely to lead to its perceived rarity in meaning. The definition of it ranges widely, and cannot be pinpointed. It is commonly accepted that one will feel 'complete' once they have found their soul mate, as it is partially in the perceived definition that two souls are meant to unite.

Bashert: Jewish view of soulmates [edit]

Bashert, (Yiddish: באַשערט), is a Yiddish word that means "destiny".[7] It is often used in the context of one's divinely foreordained spouse or soulmate, who is called "basherte" (female) or "basherter" (male). It can also be used to express the seeming fate or destiny of an auspicious or important event, friendship, or happening.

The idea of basherte(r) comes from statements found in classical rabbinic literature.[citation needed] A proverb that "marriages are made in heaven" is illustrated by a story in a midrash collection:

A Roman matron, on being told by Rabbi Jose ben Halafta that God arranges all marriages, said that this was an easy matter, and boasted that she could do as much herself. Thereupon she assembled her male and female slaves and paired them off in couples; but on the morrow they all went to her with complaints. Then she admitted that divine intervention is necessary to suitable marriages

(Genesis Rabba lxviii. 3-4).

Even God Himself finds it as difficult an undertaking as the dividing of the Red Sea. Forty days before a child is born its mate is determined upon (Genesis Rabba lxviii. 3-4; also Babylonian Talmud, tractates Soṭah 2a; Sanhedrin 22a; comp. M. Ḳ. 18b; "Sefer Hasidim," § 1128).

In modern usage, Jewish singles will say that they are looking for their bashert, meaning they are looking for that person who will complement them perfectly, and whom they will complement perfectly. Since it's considered to have been foreordained by God whom one will marry, one's spouse is considered to be one's bashert by definition, independent of whether the couple's marital life works out well or not.

Films with soulmate themes [edit]

For the Seinfeld television episode, see The Soul Mate.
Destiny. Faith (Marisa Tomei) believes that two soul-mates can be united if they find each other. From the Ouija board, she has found the name of her missing half, and it is D-A-M-O-N B-R-A-D-L-E-Y. Later, at the carnival, the fortune teller sees the name Damon Bradley in the Crystal Ball and Faith is convinced. She is told that "You make your own destiny,...don't wait for it to come to you", but she is looking for Damon. 14 years later, she is engaged to a dull podiatrist and plans to marry until she gets a call from one of his classmates who is on his way to Venice, Italy. The classmate is Damon Bradley. Rushing to the airport to see her soul-mate, she misses him and the plane, but decides, then and there, to go after him. So Faith and her sister-in-law Kate both board the next plane for Italy hoping to find her Damon
A modern-day playwright (Christopher Reeve) falls in love with the old photograph of an actress (Jane Seymour), and time-travels back to 1912 to meet her.
Two souls (Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis) marry in heaven but are soon separated when one is born on earth. The other follows and has to reunite with the other before time runs out or endure eternal soul-searching.[8]
A small-town psychic with unusually strong telepathic capabilities believes that her true romantic lover will come from the sea. She believes him to be the first man that she sees ashore, a butcher, and sets off for New York with him. When she arrives in the city, she begins to use her psychic abilities on the neighborhood. This upsets the local psychiatrist, whose patients begin to use Marina's services more than his. Slowly, as she gets to know her neighbors, she begins to realize that she may have been wrong about her true love.
A successful man dies and enters the afterlife, where he has five days to defend the life he has lived in order to not be sent back to Earth to live with another woman. He meets the woman he has waited for all his life to find, but he will lose her if he has to go back to earth again.
A puppeteer mysteriously dreams about a woman from Los Angeles, even though they have never met and live hundreds of miles apart. He travels to Los Angeles to meet her, and he insists that they are meant to be together.
Chris Nielson (Robin Williams) meets his true soul-mate/romantic lover Annie (Annabella Sciorra). He dies in an accident and goes to heaven and she later commits suicide. Can he find his soulmate in hell and save her? Alternate ending in DVD also deals with soulmate searching.[9]
A couple, Julien (Guillaume Canet) and Sophie (Marion Cotillard), play a game of 'dares' from an early age, until in their early 20's it becomes apparent that they are soul mates; while the game becomes a means of expressing their love to each other, it also causes tension and leads to a falling-out, until several years later.
June (Sarah Laine), a mermaid, is deeply, romantically in love with a Harbor Patrol officer named Randy who happens to secretly be her soulmate. Her two other sisters comically complicate matters throughout the film.
In this film, a man and a woman were set for a date, but before the date the woman was involved in a car crash that caused her to go into a coma. Eventually, the man moves into her apartment not knowing whose apartment it is. The woman appears before him numerous times, to find that it is her departed soul or spirit, and he is the only one that can see her. Eventually, they realize that they were supposed to first meet on that blind date. Thus realising what was supposed to happen, he passionately kisses her real physical body in the hospital and she awakens to have no memory of him and his help. When they eventually touch hands, all of her memories come rushing back and they realize they were supposed to meet because of fate or destiny.
A love story between a man and woman. And between a mother and her son. A mystical and fantastical odyssey on love.

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Patrick Hanks, ed. (1985). Collins English Dictionary. William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. p. 1390. 
  2. ^ "The Internet Classics Archive& ''The Symposium'' by Plato". Classics.mit.edu. Retrieved 2012-09-22. 
  3. ^ Krajenke, Robert W. (1972). Suddenly We Were!: a Story of Creation Based on the Edgar Cayce Readings. A.R.E. Press.
  4. ^ "What is a Twin Flame?". Soulevolution.org. Retrieved 2007-12-21. 
  5. ^ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul%20mate
  6. ^ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=soulmate
  7. ^ Yiddish Dictionary Online entry; retrieved December 29, 2006
  8. ^ See the Overview from Internet Movie Database.
  9. ^ See the Overview from Internet Movie Database
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