Soul Age: Important Or Not?

Within new age circles, much value is attached to the phenomenon of soul age, in my opinion wrongly. Many spiritual seekers automatically assume that they are old souls themselves because they delve into spirituality.

In this view, people who do not engage in or even reject spirituality and call themselves atheists could not be old souls. However, nothing could be further from the truth and that makes this an interesting topic to look at from the perspective of the Michael Teachings (also called the Michael System).

The different soul ages

Michael is a collective consciousness that offers teachings and healings from the causal sphere.

He distinguishes 5 phases of soul ages: baby, child, young, adult and old. Each phase focuses on a different theme.

In brief:

• baby souls are mainly concerned with physical survival
• child souls want to belong to a community that provides order and structure
• young souls want to create something on earth and be successful
• the mature soul immerses itself in other cultures and religions and explores relationships and emotions intensely
• the old soul discovers the big picture and experiences the oneness of all life. They learn to be at peace with all the contradictions of human existence and to let go of attachment.

Previous cycles

A soul has also had so-called previous cycles. This means that every soul chooses not only for lifetimes as a human on earth but also within the animal kingdom and even on other planets with life forms that we do not know here. In evaluating the maturity of the soul it is therefore good to include both the previous cycles and the current soul age because all experiences that the soul has had add to the development of consciousness.

Linear development is not the entire story

In summary: the linear development of a soul is the sum of all the lifetimes in previous cycles and the current phase. However…. linear development does not give you the entire story because the picture is 3D. What matters is what choices the soul has made in each lifetime, what it has learned from them and how it applies those insights and knowledge. That is a unique trajectory for every soul.

In addition, what we perceive of a person is not only the soul. The light of the soul shines through the filters of the personality. These filters are chosen by the soul for each lifetime, in order to experience human life from different points of view. Each filter has a positive and a negative pole, which corresponds to the dual nature of life on earth.

Living from fear or from love

When the personality lives from fear, the negative poles are expressed. That gives a completely different picture than someone who lives from love and trust, so via the positive poles of the personality.

So what we observe is not only the soul’s development but also (and sometimes: especially) the filters of the personality.

It may sound crazy, but you can’t necessarily tell from a person’s behavior as a person how young or old their soul is. A young soul who lives from the positive poles can be a very wise and loving person, and an old soul who lives from the negative poles, for example, may have serious addictions or exhibit socially inappropriate behavior. The difference between living from fear (negative poles) or from love (positive poles) is therefore very large. This is one reason why so much emphasis is placed on compassion, non-judgment and love in order to grow spiritually.

Is every spiritual seeker, healer or teacher an old soul?

No definitely not. Many of my clients are mature souls, which makes a lot of sense given the focus of this soul phase. Spiritual teachers come in all stages: Tony Robbins is a young soul, Wayne Dyer was a mature soul, and Eckhart Tolle is an old soul. All three wise people, each in their own unique way.

It is interesting to see that each of these teachers expresses his own soul development: Tony Robbins as a young soul mainly focuses on being successful, Wayne Dyer as an adult soul was strongly focused on emotions, beliefs, spirituality and relationships. Eckhart Tolle expresses his old soul through his detached way of Being, completely in the now and independent of religion.

Does psychic ability say anything about spiritual development?

No, not at all. Within each stage, a person can be psychic. Interest in spiritual matters also occurs in every phase, as mentioned. What does differ is how someone deals with this, depending on the focus of the phase the soul is in and the choices the soul has made for this life.

What comes as a surprise to many is that even in the old phase the soul occasionally chooses a life without spiritual focus. I know several old souls who are convinced atheists. In such a life the soul takes a breather in terms of spiritual study. For the much-needed balance?

The value of knowledge about soul age

Knowledge about soul age is interesting because it provides insight into your own stage of development and that of others. However, the ego may see this classification as a system of ranking. Out of fear and insecurity (and therefore ego), you can start to see yourself as superior or inferior and that is never the intention of spirituality. We are all spiritual beings having a human experience here on earth. We’re in the same boat. The only difference is that some of us have been here more times before and therefore have a little more experience as human beings. More experience is not better, just different.

Michael always emphasizes that his material is intended to promote understanding, acceptance and love for yourself and others.

Love and joy from the heart are good indicators of spiritual development.