Over-Soul

Over-Soul is a term used by Ralph Waldo Emerson in one of his best essays, first published in 1841. For him the term Over-Soul is a supreme underlying unity which transcends duality or plurality, much in the way non-dual philosophies describe reality. Mme. Blavatsky used this term as a synonym for anima mundi or ālaya, at a microcosmic level, and for the Higher Self in human beings.

Emerson and the Over-Soul

Emerson's essay deals with the existence and nature of the human soul; its relationship with the personal ego; the relationship between the seemingly different human souls; and the relationship of the soul to God.

In this essay he says:

The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart.

Emerson's view was influenced by Eastern religions. There is evidence that he read The Bhagavad Gita

the essay also develops ideas long present in the Western tradition, e.g., in the works of Plato, Plotinus, and Emmanuel Swedenborg.

Over-Soul in Theosophy

Theosophy is the exact science of psychology, so to say; it stands in relation to natural, uncultivated mediumship, as the knowledge of a Tyndall stands to that of a school-boy in physics. It develops in man a direct beholding; that which Schelling denominates “a realization of the identity of subject and object in the individual”; so that under the influence and knowledge of hyponoia man thinks divine thoughts, views all things as they really are, and, finally, “becomes recipient of the Soul of the World,” to use one of the finest expressions of Emerson. “I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect”—he says in his superb Essay on The Over-Soul.

Macrocosmos

Since everything comes from the One, the Universal Over-Soul is said to be an aspect of the Unknown Root.

Microcosmos

As a general law, the Highest God, the Over-soul of the human being (Atma-Buddhi), only over-shadows the individual during his life, for purposes of instruction and revelation; or as Roman Catholics–who erroneously call that Over-soul the “Guardian Angel”–would say, “It stands outside and watches.”

which leads to the union of the Soul with the Over-Soul or Higher Self (Buddhi-Manas).

Unity

For us there is no over-soul or under-soul; but only ONE—substance: the last word being used in the sense Spinoza attached to it; calling it the ONE Existence, we cannot limit its significance and dwarf it to the qualification “over”; but we apply it to the universal, ubiquitous Presence, rejecting the word ‘Being,’ and replacing it with “All-Being.”

Further reading

• The Over-Soul at American Transcendentalism Web