This article is about soul age, a topic I have returned to over and over again over the years. Even though this topic is covered thoroughly in the manual called “Seven States of Perception,” downloadable on my web site under the page called Personessence, I am writing this because of the many requests I get to explain the soul ages for greater understanding. It seems that as time goes on people are more and more interested in this topic and I am glad they are. I never get tired of this fascinating subject myself because it helps to explain the many mysteries of why people behave the way they do on our planet. In our historical times there is nothing more important than to understand people’s motivations and why they choose certain beliefs and courses of action.

The world is going through a chaotic and dangerous initiation, a time of puberty, transitioning from childhood to young adulthood. During these times many people are behaving very badly. Why? Because they are fearful and when afraid they fall back on their default position and that default position is determined by their soul age. Judging and getting upset and angry with them will not help in the least bit. Right now many of the people who should know better are engaging in fruitless resistance to this mayhem because they don’t remember the rules of engagement on this planet. What follows is a simple and elucidating revelation of the understandings, perspectives, and rules of engagement for each soul age. Although totally distinct they are all mixed together on this planet just as people of very different beliefs and capabilities are mixed together in each biological family. Understand this and you will understand the world and more importantly yourself. Patience, tolerance, acceptance, and peer pressure is what is needed to manage on this planet today. If a person cannot understand this, they are not yet mature enough in this lifetime to operate at a level above what they are. This is not their fault. Everyone goes through all the stages and levels until they graduate, everyone!

This article will cover only the stages, not the levels because that is too much information for this short article.

When it comes to understanding people of various stages of biological development it is rather easy to distinguish their stage by their appearance. Infants are obviously very tiny and wrapped in a blanket, toddlers are very short, leaking snot from their noses, and staggering about while protesting very loudly. Latency age kids are running around playing some variation of king of the mountain while making a fair amount of noise, and teenagers are obviously gawky, and awkward while displaying moments of extraordinary insight. Adults are fully-grown in a physical sense, acting in a more sophisticated fashion, working, being mothers and fathers etc. This is what makes it so easy to have the departments in a department store catering to all the different stages of growth. However when it comes to soul ages, the situation is much more difficult. What does a young soul look like when they are seventy years old or a baby soul look like at twenty years of age? How about an infant soul at age thirty or what does a mature soul look like when they are ten years old biologically? How does an old soul behave at age three? Interestingly enough some of the criterion mentioned for biological age still applies to soul age as you shall shortly see. The problem is that maturity of the body does not matter at all so this can easily lead us astray.

Before embarking on this short explanation about how to read soul age, I want to clear up one thing about soul age in general because even among old souls there is some confusion and some strongly held opinions about whether or not soul ages actually exist.

Like most things in life, whether soul ages exist has everything to do with your perspective. Obviously if you are an enlightened being then you are not limited by time and space, all is one, all the time, so anything that looks like separation can’t be true. Therefore soul ages don’t exist. However most people on earth are not manifesting enlightenment, so this perspective does not apply to the vast majority of people. So, for most people, soul ages do exist just like gravity exists for those who have not yet transcended it.

For most of us, we are busy playing the human game and the human game has certain rules we abide by. One of the basic conditions of the human game is that the bodies we use wear out much faster than we can learn and experience what we came here to do and learn. The remedy for this is to have numerous physical bodies over a long sequence of what appears to be time and this gives us the illusion of variety that we need to play this game. In this game of life we go from being inexperienced to being very experienced as we progress from infancy to elder hood over what appear to be many lifetimes.

Here are the seven stages.

Remember that all stages have seven levels each requiring a number of lifetimes.

Stage Orientation Motto

1. Infant soul—————survival oriented ———Me and not me
2. Toddler soul—————rule oriented———–Me and other Me’s
3. Young soul or child—–success oriented—Me and you and I win
4. Mature soul or adolescent-relationship oriented—-Me and you and I know how you feel
5. Old soul or adult——-philosophically oriented—–Me and you and we are both part of something bigger
6. Transcendental soul——– we oriented——–There is only we or us
7. Infinite soul ————–or “I am” oriented————I am who Am

Having multiple bodies allows us to experience multiple cultures, races, genders, family setups, time frames, and orientations. Just because we have multiple bodies does not mean we are not cohesive souls that are ultimately one with Spirit. Remember, this is only a game we are playing with the illusion of multiplicity of soul ages and variety of experiences.

Now that this question is set to rest, we can continue on our discussion of how to determine soul ages on planet earth. Even though there have been such prejudices over the ages, we cannot use physical size, intelligence, race, biological age, or gender to determine soul age or maturity. A black ten year old girl midget could be a very old soul and a big fifty year old white man may be an infant soul or vice versa. So what clues can we use to determine soul age? They are the following:

1. Values held
2. Perspective demonstrated
3. Behavior patterns manifested
4. Level of fear demonstrated
5. Level of violence demonstrated
6. Level of compassion revealed
7. Eye contact and some characteristics of appearance shown

These are the primary categories to determine soul age. Let us begin with the last category first, eye contact. This is the only category where there may be an exception for mature or adolescent souls. Generally eye contact improves with every stage.

Eye Contact

Infant souls do not make eye contact, too afraid.

Toddler souls make very brief eye contact because of suspicion and fearfulness.

Young souls make eye contact to dominate, not to allow someone in or communicate.

Mature souls enjoy eye contact unless they are disturbed or upset and then they will avoid it.

Old souls make strong, steady, open eye contact to connect and allow someone in.

Transcendental souls do not blink much if at all. There is love and compassion in their eyes, always.

Infinite souls are the same in this regard. They don’t blink. The cosmos is reflected in their eyes.

Compassion

The younger souls ages are incapable of compassion. They just don’t know how because they are so identified with their simian bodies and the fearfulness of occupying one. Starting with the mature soul, compassion is present and becomes stronger with each age.

Level of violence

Unless infant souls are strictly taught not to react with violence, they can be viciously violent because they do not understand that others are alive and independent. Others are merely objects to be dealt with and gotten out of the way. As children or even adults they often torture or hurt animals.

Toddler souls will gladly burn, behead, or execute those who have violated their religious beliefs and principles. They can be capable of horrific torture and yet they can appear innocent and childlike. They display a strange obedience and loyalty to dominant, corrupt, or fascist leaders like Hitler, Lenin, and other tyrants as can even be witnessed in our recent slate of presidential candidates in the USA today. Toddler souls do not think for themselves but spout the party line. When challenged they become belligerent.

Young souls will gladly dispatch enemies by the thousands in order to win big. For them, it is all about dominance and success in fighting whether on the battlefield or in business. Murder, threats, bribery, and corruption are all acceptable if they think they can get away with it. This is the key question, “Can I pull it off?” Often they do. Think Putin of Russia and his dealings around Ukraine and Crimea or Donald Trump and his slogans against all Muslims.

For them appearances are everything and they gladly, brashly, and ostentatiously display their wealth with the delight of a ten year old who has caught a big fish.

Mature souls identify with and feel what others feel. This makes them incapable of violence unless they are overcome in a fit of passion.

An old soul might be violent in self-defense or in defense of others only very occasionally.

Any transcendental or infinite souls wouldn’t think of it.

Level of fear demonstrated

Basically Infant souls are irrationally fearful of everything unless they feel safe or protected.

Toddler souls are terrified of a punitive God. They are sure they are headed for the fires of hell one way or another. They are sure you are too and they will try to send you there if they feel you deserve it. They usually arrange to be caught for their crimes.

Young souls are fearful of getting caught; otherwise they could care less. For them getting caught is for losers. They are afraid of losing. Many of Donald Trump’s comments reflect this attitude.

Mature souls are fearful of being misunderstood. They are also fearful of injustice and lack of fairness in the world.

Old souls are afraid of creating more karma. They learn through the terror of having their ego shattered over and over until there isn’t much left.

Transcendental and infinite souls experience no fear.

Behavior Patterns manifested and perspective shown

This category has to do with sophistication.

Infant souls are often very inappropriate in the social situation. They can be extremely awkward and simply don’t know how to behave. If they are rebuffed in love or marriage they may well attack the one who spurned them by throwing acid in their face or stoning them. They do cringe worthy things.

Toddler souls are very childlike and unsophisticated especially when viewed by older souls. They always seem to feel guilty but are always trying to tell others how to live and what to do and not do based on their fundamentalist beliefs. They often make no logical sense and their arguments often go in circles because they cannot see the big picture. They can be very self-righteous and want the whole world to conform to their beliefs, no matter how narrow. They don’t know much about how to have fun. Often they represent stalwart conservative political positions but then are caught having been the biggest transgressor of all. They are fond of prayering for those who have been cut down by the assault guns with unlimited magazines they have made available.

Toddler souls are often overweight because they find it hard to regulate their intake of snacks and sweets and they tend to overeat in general in order to feel more secure. They tend to have baby faces as can be witnessed in many of the recent presidential candidates.

Young souls are conniving strategists, always maneuvering to get the upper hand. They can be sly and underhanded to get their way. They become expert at circumventing the rules—in other words they can commit white-collar crimes. When they can get away with it they are blatant, “Just sue me!” Some corporations espouse this philosophy. For example Samsung deliberately and blatantly stole Apple’s secret smart phone technologies and reproduced them. They put a number of American companies out of business using this strategy. When they were sued they would simply deny it and tie everything up in court for years until the other side gave up. (This is why I will never ever buy a Samsung product, ever).

Mature souls are known for getting themselves in the center of huge relationship messes. They tend to be dramatic and like baby souls, they relish situations where they are misunderstood. The difference is that they can see shades of grey and look like they are in their bodies. They have more depth and compassion in their eyes. They can connect with you and display understanding, tolerance, and good will. Sometimes there is a disconnect between the spiritual values they believe in and their actual behavior. For example they may meditate and value neutrality but feel very sorry for themselves when feeling wronged.

They have a way of lacking neutrality even when they should know better. On the other hand mature souls can be brilliantly insightful and aware. They are quite sophisticated in their dress and social graces. They can be very romantic.

Old souls are relaxed and off-beat, somewhat eccentric in their beliefs and behavior, but never boorish. They are famously neutral, “Oh, is that so?” They do not suffer fools kindly but they are compassionately direct and steady as a rock. Old souls are not spaced out. Rather they are very present and occupy their bodies, being sensual and naturally hedonistic. They have no use for guilt and shame and yet they are kind and loving.

Transcendental and infinite souls are always spiritual teachers and cannot be missed because of their wisdom, stature, power, and love.

Values held

This category is very simple to understand. Infant souls have no values other than to survive at all costs.

Toddler souls value structure and rules. They believe in authority, law and order, and strict interpretation of laws. They are not flexible at all and believe in corporal punishment. They behave like sheep, not thinking for themselves.

Young souls are like bright eyed children discovering their new found abilities and powers that they cannot wait to test out. They can be ultra charming but to them everything is about what looks good. If it makes you look good, then who cares about substance. Drive the cool car, date the cool people, sidle up to money and power, be seen in the right places. Who cares what the issues are. Find the fads and profit. Wear the mink even though the animal might be terribly mistreated or going extinct. Who cares?

Mature souls value relationships, the relationship with self, others, spirit, food, work, the planet etc. They like communication, understanding, study, psychology, depth, meaning, love, and purpose. They want to grow, develop, help, serve, save, evolve, and open doors.

Old souls value nature, Spirit, freedom, the arts, pleasure, and they like to have fun. They can really raise some serious hell for the fun of it. Think Leonard Cohen and Whoopi Goldberg here. They will fight hard for the preservation of nature. Think Jane Goodall, Robert Redford, and John Muir.

Transcendental souls don’t care at all what happens to them. They only teach the way by example. Think Mohandas Gandhi.

Infinite souls are impossible to miss. When they are alive the whole world knows and their legacy is earth shattering. Think Krishna, Jesus, Buddha, and Lao Tsu. One is on the way, not yet here. It will be us.

JOSÉ STEVENS

José Stevens PhD is an international lecturer, corporate team builder and organizational coach, consultant and trainer. A psychologist, licensed clinical social worker and author of more than twenty books and numerous articles, he is also co-editor for A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism and a board member of the Society for Shamanic Practitioners. He is the founder, with his wife Lena, of the Power Path School of Shamanism and The Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating youth in indigenous cultures. He has completed a ten-year apprenticeship with a Huichol Maracame in Mexico and has studied with the Shipibos of the Amazon and the Paqos of the Andes for the last thirty years.

Go to: www.thepowerpath.com