Soul-making is a metaphorical term.

Therefore, the term will never be adequate for those logical

positivists or rationalistic materialists, like Richard Dawkins of The God Delusion, who exclude all
non-material or 'non-sensical' words. One has to wonder what they write in their Valentines Day
cards; perhaps, "Dear Valentine. I am experiencing unusual levels of oxytocin and seratonin in my
neuro-chemical synaptic connections when I'm around you."

The word 'making' in 'soul-making' comes out of the Greek word poieo which means 'to be the
author or maker of something'. Our English words poet, poem and poetry come from this word.
The reason for that term, for example rather than soul-builder or soul-grower, is that the emphasis
is on creative, intelligent authorship. The making is not done by impersonal processes, but by
Intelligent Forces. So then, soul-making is really psycho-poeisis or soul poetry.

The poetic aspect is critical to understanding soul-making. The Universe is not a lifeless debris
field resulting from the Big Bang, but a living organism. To our Hubble telescope and rocket
propelled space surveyors, the Cosmos may appear to be a stark and barren graveyard; but so do
blood cells and brain neurons when isolated under a microscope. Unless we knew that the flowing
lava-like stream of oddly shaped blood cells and the electro-chemically firing brain synapses were
tiny elements of a larger living organism, they wouldn't appear to be alive. The Universe contains
Intelligences beyond our current scopes and research methods. Some Quantum physicists are
hypothesizing in that direction, but we have yet to 'prove' it with instruments.

The Universe is animated, or a Living Soul (Psyche). Humans exist in this Psyche. Human beings
don't contain souls anymore than a fish contains sea water. Like fish in the sea, we swim in the
Sea of Psyche. Psyche is comprised of many brilliant aspects - ranging from numbers and
geometric shapes, to qualities like Life and Death, Chaos and Order. We don't question that
numbers were here before we arrived; why would it be so shocking to discover that Qualities were
here as well. These are archetypes or the original qualities which are universally recognized by all
human beings.

THE POETRY OF PSYCHE

One way to understand this is to imagine the Universe as an immense dictionary filled with an
infinite number of Living Words (archetypes). Your individual life is like a page upon which the
Universe composes a poem. Your soul is a poem in the process of being composed or authored.
These Universal Words are Intelligent Energies. More and more physicists are acknowledging the
lost realm of metaphysics as they study atoms and come up with mythical names like quarks,
neutrinos, muons and what are called exotic particles.

These Universal Words or archetypal energies are Creators, sort of like radio signals entering our
minds via the receiver we call a brain. As they are experienced, we turn them into spoken sounds
and written words. Nouns and verbs do not come into existence by our speaking or writing them.
We speak them and write them because they have always existed. Christianity got it right when it
said, "The Word became flesh..."
This is what John Keats was talking about when he called this world a school for soul-making, or
psycho-poetic composing. All emotions, human institutions, feelings, ideas, pains and pleasures
are the writing instruments that compose our souls. However, it is more than just being done to us.