By Rachel Puryear
One spiritual belief that seems to have gained popularity in recent years – particularly amongst Westerners in New Age and Spiritualist circles – is the belief in soul ages.
The concept of soul ages builds on belief in reincarnation. Both reincarnation and soul ages (in terms of soul learning and development) are important elements of several major Eastern religions – including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. These long-established religions are clearly key influences on the Western version of the soul ages concept.
The idea behind soul ages is that people reincarnate many times, living lots and lots of lifetimes as mortals, in a physical and temporary world like the one we live in now.
As souls live more lives in these mortal bodies, and in this temporary world; having more experiences, and seeing the world from many different viewpoints; they learn more and more lessons. They also choose lives that will help their soul learn lessons it needs.
There are five different soul age stages – infant, baby/child, young/adolescent, mature, and old. That doesn’t mean only five lifetimes, though – each stage has many lifetimes within it.
So, in this post, I will present an overview of the New Age/Spiritualist interpretation of what five soul age stages look like. You are free to believe, disbelieve, remain agnostic, or perhaps believe in a modified version. I never tell people what to believe spiritually; I only present ideas, and let people decide for themselves:
Infant Souls
The first stage is presented as infant souls.
Infant souls are new to living in the world. Their lives are focused on learning how to survive, and meeting their basic needs.
They tend to choose relatively simple lives, and prefer to live further away from society’s urban centers – the crowds, complex rules, and expectations there can easily be too much for them.
They tend to also live in the moment, not being preoccupied with high ambitions, and being content to take life as it comes.
They have a sense of right and wrong, but it’s less deeply developed and tested than at later stages. For instance, they might figure that they won’t bother anyone, so long as no one bothers them. But they could have trouble with applying a well-meaning set of basic principles to the many complex real-life scenarios that come up. Accordingly, they might get themselves into trouble without ever meaning to.
It is said that infant souls often choose “tribal” societies, in order to learn basic survival skills from the so-called “simple” lifestyles they might encounter there. This broad characterization reflects a Eurocentric view of indigenous people, though. Contrary to common belief, societies considered “tribes” (there’s no universal definition of that); are not necessarily simple societies, nor are they inherently limited in their intellectual and political development. See David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, for more about just how complex and varied ancient societies and contemporary indigenous can be, and how many myths are still perpetuated.
Furthermore, in general, some Western interpretations like to ascribe soul ages to certain countries and cultures. While I understand that some societies have evolved more socially than others, it’s important to be wary about racial and cultural stereotypes – and mindful that New Age and Spiritualist Westerners borrow from ancient religions of other cultures.
Baby/Child Souls
The next stage is presented as baby or child souls.
Child souls like rules, structure, hierarchies, and believe that authority should be obeyed. They tend to have a rigid view of the world, and take a black-and-white view of morality.
They are usually religious, and gravitate in particular towards strict religions with traditional moral codes. Fundamentalist and evangelical sects are popular with them.
Politically, they lean strongly towards conservative and authoritarian. In the USA, the Republican party is popular amongst them. Worldwide, they are largely the supporters of patriarchal, nationalistic, theocratic, turn-back-the-clock movements, sects, and parties.
They are convinced strongly that their worldview is the right one, and have a hard time conceiving that different views could be right, or valid – or that there could be more than one right one, or no right or wrong answer. They can be quite hostile to views other than their own. If they are polite, they might try not to let that show – but their judgmentalness can show through nonetheless.
Child souls are very uncomfortable around sexual matters. They might view sex organs as dirty, and believe that only sex within marriage for reproduction is acceptable (though that’s not necessarily how they actually live, and decidedly repressed people can be quite hypocritical – often hiding double lives where they do all kinds of things that they still condemn in anyone else).
Child souls view marriage as something God wants them to do, and might do it to fulfill expectations. They tend to follow gendered roles. This ultimately leads to a lot of relationship dissatisfaction as people realize that this isn’t the dream existence they thought it would be. However, they may still be inclined to stay together in spite of that if divorce (especially with children involved) is taboo.
Some of them do expand their minds with age and learning; especially with exposure to more worldviews, opportunities for education, interaction with diverse populations, and perhaps life experiences where they find themselves at odds with their community of origin’s rigid rules (i.e., realizing they are LGBTQ+ after growing up in an anti-LGBTQ+ religion). Those lessons which teach them why that unbending worldview doesn’t work are key to learning what they need to move to more advanced soul age stages.
Young/Adolescent Souls
The next stage is presented as young or adolescent souls.
Young souls are big into success, status, living large, and achievement. In contrast to baby souls, their intellectual center begins and continues opening throughout this stage – but their emotional center will develop more broadly in later stages.
Young souls are not so morally righteous as baby souls, and they are instead more conventional rather than fanatic. They aren’t afraid of hellfire and brimstone for breaking rules, but they expect conformity from others and can be snobby towards others who don’t fit in.
They tend to participate in mainstream or popular faiths, or ones they were brought up in. They’re usually not the fundamentalist types, and for them it’s more about the social connections and appearances.
Sometimes, young souls might also be nonbelievers – and if that’s the case, they might enjoy debating religious people, having fun challenging their arguments. The New Atheist movement is likely popular with young souls.
They are often industrious, ambitious, and hard workers. Their emphasis is on the material world rather than inner work, so they’re able to put everything into their careers and accumulating more wealth and prestige and accomplishments.
Sexually, they are much more open than child souls, and during this stage they tend to increasingly experiment – and refuse to be told what to do by fundamentalists.
They can be rebellious, in spite of also being largely conventional. But unlike with later soul age stages, it might be less about broad justice and ethics, and more about “you can’t make me!”
Young souls want to have the “hottest” body (according to conventional standards), and will spend hours at the gym – maybe even undergoing plastic surgery – to attain that. They like to wear fashionable clothes, perfectly coiffed hair, and the latest looks.
They look at marriage and relationships with an eye towards what the other person can bring them – such as wealth, looks, status. At the same time, they can genuinely love and care about their mates. However, as their emotional and empathy centers are not as open as they are in later stages, they may lack the skills in intimacy, expression, and communication that help people bond and overcome differences. This can create a lot of challenges in their relationships, and they may have more divorces and breakups than other stages because of this.
They like to live in the biggest and most impressive houses, drive the fanciest cars, and live the most enviable lifestyles they can afford – or, often, it’s much more than they can afford, but they’ll take on the debt to do it.
Politically, they can go in many directions. They don’t tend to be extreme. If they are very successful, they might tend towards fiscal conservatism. They may not be ahead of the curve on social justice for the principled sake of the underdog, but at the same time don’t like arbitrary authority telling people what to do – and they’ll tend to gradually align with community social standards as they evolve, rather than be thought of as backwards. Libertarians are also largely young souls.
Mature Souls
The next stage is presented as mature souls.
Mature souls are about empathy, thinking of others besides just themselves, and building connection with others. Their intellectual center is much more developed than in the young soul stage, and their emotional center is now more fully and broadly developing.
For mature souls; ethics, justice, fairness, and doing what’s right for the greater good is very important. However, in contrast to baby souls’ black-and-white morality and unquestioningly following morals dictated by their own community’s religious and governmental authorities; mature souls are much better able to see complexity, nuance, shades of gray, and multiple points of view at once in moral and ethical matters.
Furthermore; they believe that ethics standards should be the product of reasoned debate, combined with empathy for diverse viewpoints; plus a sense that the needs of those who don’t look and think like them matter as much as those who do, and valuing broad justice and equitability.
Mature souls can be quite spiritual. They generally abhor fundamentalism, and the corruption all too often found in power-seeking, patriarchal, and hierarchical religions. They might gravitate towards independent practices like spiritual-but-not-religious; or if they join an organized faith it might be more like Wicca and Paganism, new age, Eastern religions, or liberal Christian denominations like Universalist Unitarians or United Church of Christ (or liberal sects of other major religions).
Or, they are also commonly nonbelievers, agnostics, and atheists. Mature soul nonbelievers, however, in contrast to young soul ones; are less interested in persuading people against faith, and more interested in joining forces with reasonable, progressive people of faith in defeating political influence by powerful fundamentalists who want to force their beliefs on everyone, and fighting child abuse and other corruption within the harmful churches.
In any event, mature souls appreciate that faith and spirituality are private and personal matters, and why government must be secular – including that government secularity is necessary in order to effectively serve populations with diverse beliefs.
Mature souls might seek careers that try to better the world, and include helping people in some way – big or small. Or, they might choose work that’s enough to meet their needs, but that leaves them with enough time to do what’s important to them in life – seeing loved ones more, pursuing hobbies, taking care of themselves and others, and enjoying life.
They often don’t accumulate as much material wealth as young souls. At the same time, they are often wise with money, and tend to manage it thoughtfully. They aren’t interested in keeping up with the Joneses, but instead prefer to use wealth to do things they enjoy, and help out loved ones if they can. If they do make big mistakes with money, however, it’s often in the form of lending it to people they shouldn’t trust.
For mature souls, more of their energy is also directed towards developing their intellect, processing their feelings, deepening their relationships, and doing inner or spiritual work than in the earlier soul stages. This is why they often need – and insist upon – more down time, and more time to (seemingly) do “nothing” than younger souls. Younger souls might view them as lazy, unproductive, or unmotivated – but not understanding what mature souls genuinely need.
Mature souls are generally pretty live-and-let-live about sexual matters regarding consenting adults. Like many young souls, they tend to be open-minded and open to experimentation, and a variety of sexual acts (the main rule being between consenting adults). However, connection and intimacy is also highly important them.
Their relationships can be quite deep and dynamic, due to their emphasis on strong emotional connection, personal development, transparency, communication, intimacy, mutual empathy, understanding each other, and sharing of themselves. Their relationships – especially formed a little later in life – therefore tend to be strong, durable, and long-lasting. However, even where a relationship doesn’t last, they’re likely to appreciate what they did learn from the experience.
They might gravitate towards polyamory, preferring to enjoy multiple lovers out in the open, and with negotiated boundaries. In any event, though, in relationships; communication, mutual respect, mutual support and affection, and trustworthiness are critically important. They recognize the paramount importance of egalitarian relationships, and the notion of backwards patriarchal relationships, and power-based, double relationship standards, is anathema to them, generally.
Also anathema to mature souls is bigotry of any kind – racism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ+, classic, ableism, and other irrational hatred.
Politically, mature souls definitely swing liberal. They tend to carefully consider issues, giving them a lot of thought, and inform themselves about what’s going on in the world. They are generally sympathetic to social justice and fair opportunities for all, protecting the environment, bodily and reproductive autonomy and personal freedom, and economic policies that serve the common good rather than just making a few people wealthy while impoverishing most people. In the USA, they would typically support the Democratic party, especially demonstrated liberal candidates.
As highly empathic/HSP people are another theme of this blog, it’s interesting to note that traits of empathic people seem to largely line up with traits of mature and old souls. Perhaps that’s a spiritual explanation?
Old Souls
The final stage is presented as old souls. This is the most advanced stage.
Old souls are about living by example, and effortlessly being life’s teachers – but without even necessarily realizing it. They have lived many lives, had tons of life experiences, been people from all different walks of life, come from lots of different cultures, and lived in all kinds of bodies. Their empathy and big-picture thinking comes naturally and honestly, because they’ve been there before in all kinds of life situations.
But you wouldn’t necessarily know it. They tend to be humble and quiet. They know that truly wise people don’t go around telling everyone how wise they are.
Old souls also have lots of compassion, open-mindedness, sense of fairness, and understanding; much like mature souls. However, they are distinguished from mature souls in that they tend to be much more detached from the world than mature souls are. They know that the younger soul ages need to work out their obligations and learn their own life lessons. At the same time, they know that for those ready to learn more advanced lessons, the universe will work out a way of bringing old souls’ needed guidance to them.
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