When studying at present, in English, the available Bahá’í
writings on the subject of body, soul and spirit, one is handicapped by a
certain lack of clarity because not all were translated by the same person, and
also there are, as you know, still many Bahá’í writings untranslated. But there
is no doubt that spirit and soul seem to have been interchanged in meaning
sometimes; soul and mind have, likewise, been interchanged in meaning, no doubt
due to difficulties arising from different translations. What the Bahá’ís do
believe though is that we have three aspects of our humanness, so to speak, a
body, a mind and an immortal identity—soul or spirit. We believe the mind forms
a link between the soul and the body, and the two interact on each other.
- Shoghi Effendi (From
a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, June 7th, 1946; ‘Arohanui:
Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand’)
