Over lockdown, I started an online course in Kabbalah (levels 1 - 3) with The Kabbalah Centre.
I'd highly recommend the course, not only for it's content, but for the wonderful people you meet.
One of which was Marcus Le Brocq who was actually my mentor for the course, and I'm ever so pleased to say we're still in touch.
I asked Marcus if he'd mind sharing his personal perspectives on the soul for this project I'm working on, and he kindly agreed.
Below is a transcript of our conversation...
INTERVIEW
Marcus 0:52
So my name is Marcus Le Brocq and I met Dawn from a course we did together but my background is, well - you want to know what my spiritual background is; I'm pretty sure my work background is irrelevant, really.
Marcus 1:09
But I mean, I was born a Christian liberal, and was really excited to learn about organised religion. And I was always searching through different theologies, philosophies and theosophies to eventually find something that was complete. Whereas I didn't like the very tunnel vision kind of religious view that I was taught to believe. So I eventually stumbled across Kabbalah really, about 17 years ago. And what I loved about that was that it was a complete system. It was everything. It was universal spiritual truths, that permeated everything, but also incorporated science, you know, right through to sort of Big Bang, it talked about astrology, it talked about past lives. And it was, it was such a complete system that you could really take what you need, you know, for your life to help you grow with and change.
Marcus 2:01
Now, I mean, yeah, I don't want to kind of squash down 4000 years of history into a minute, but like if we talk specifically about soul.
Marcus 2:11
So Kabbalah's interpretation is that - if we go back to the the Big Bang, I'll try and make it really, really quick. But the idea behind Big Bang was that the light is well how Kabbalah expresses the emanation of a creation force, you know, it can be universal energy, it can God, it can be whatever the person believes, to be, the emanation of that in Kabbalah was called the LIGHT.
Marcus 2:36
Now, before anything happened in the universe, the light is an endless force of caring and sharing and giving. And it wanted to create something to share into so it created a vessel and it shared into the vessel, and all was good. But at some point, the vessel didn't want to just receive, because the vessel was made of the same stuff as the light made it from. So it had that kind of duality of being I wanted to give and create, but I also want to receive, so it pushed back and said, I don't want this light anymore without earning it. And that created a huge explosion, which became the Big Bang. So at that point, the vessel shattered into infinitesimal pieces across the universe. That's what created physical matter, that is the universe but also the spiritual matter, which is effectively what the soul is. Kabbalah teaches that that initial act of restriction is basically the whole purpose of our existence, is we don't want to be given everything just given to us, we want to earn it back through a period of effort and challenges and all these things and the purpose of our existence over many, many lifetimes is to earn back that light that we received by by our own effort.
Marcus 3:54
So that original soul was - if you read in the Old Testament, it was imbued to Adam and Eve effectively, but they're kind of figureheads of energy that would have walked in the garden of Eden but essentially, all those souls were encapsulated in this plus and minus energy, male or female energy, that original Adam and Eve. And it said in the ancient Kabbalistic texts that we are all part of those original two souls. So within those were 600,000 parts. It's a very specific numerology coded into a document. So all those 600,000 parts of those two souls, we are all a tiny strand of those. So if you do your maths, what we now know nearly 8 billion people in the planet, you know, we're probably about 125 thousandths of a part of a Soul.
Marcus 4:54
So our job is to try and elevate, elevate our actions and art. We want to try in every incarnation, we want to try and do something a bit better - push ourselves a bit more, deal with some of the negative stuff we brought with us (called karma in some traditions). Effectively earn and grow so that we're improving every time we live here.
Marcus 5:16
So the soul effectively is, is that part of that essence is that kind of seven grammes, that leaves you when you die, you know, that kind of, that's what's in us, that we haven't got the physicality for. But that's our connection to the upper worlds.
Marcus 5:32
So we have those 60 parts of the soul according to Kabbalah. So when you sleep 59 of your parts elevate to the upper worlds to recharge and reset and receive messages and prophecies and things and one part stays in your body to basically keep your life - keep a tether attached to your soul effectively. So that's another bit of sort of numerology, that's, that's very sort of core to Kabbalistic beliefs.
Marcus 6:02
So that's kind of it. I hope I've done it justice to it. But as I've said this, this is, you know, there's so much literature written about this. But is that the kind of thing you want to know?
Dawn Eva 6:12
Definitely. And also, I remember in one of the things that came up in the course that we did together, was how throughout different stages in our life we receive parts of our Soul in strands - was that right?
Marcus 6:38
Yes, so at the very point of conception of when sperm and egg meet, that's the sort of very first strand of soul that we get, obviously, there's a soul that just takes within the baby in the womb, and sort of almost like downloading spiritual energy. And it's said that when you, when you're born, there's a specific angelic energy that touches the top of your lip. You know that little, that little ridge we've got there, it's like, it signifies a kind of a memory reset. So that we start born with no memory of the upper worlds and our previous lives and everything else, so that we can earn. So that's the whole point of that.
Marcus 7:17
So, Yeah, you have these phases of kind of like, if you download a bit of software you see the 10% the 25% or 50 You know, loading effectivley, we have our child soul until we're 12 for a girl and 13 for a boy. Now I'm bordering on not being PC there, as we should be talking about multiple genders here, but we're talking about born sex. Okay, so I'm very aware that this is very important territory to talk about today, but we're talking about the sort of the, really the time in terms of how girls mature quicker than boys so therefore, they have more ability to be spiritual at 12 than a boy has, so boy so an extra year of 13.
Marcus 8:08
So by that point, you get your kind of first level of adult soul which is really when you really start taking charge of your life you know, so 12/13 can be quite difficult time if you remember back to being a child about how things suddenly seem a bit different. So up until that point you're kind of your responsibility is to your parents or whoever is bringing you up really, and then that's the point when you really start taking on your own destiny, making your own choices and really understanding your souls choices as opposed to your parents or whatever.
Marcus 8:47
Yes, so the next level of soul comes in when you're 20 and then the next level it's 40. And I think the next level is -if I'm not mistaken, I think it probably is about 80 I think, that's probably right, but I think 40 is a very important level of soul -it's where you're really very, very settled in your body. You sort of know what your spiritual self and often these are when you can have your major epiphanies about what's going to happen later in your life, but there's lots of courses and books and things on this. Theres a book called "The wheels of a soul". There's also "The gates of reincarnation" by the Rabbi Isaac Luria. And there are lots and lots of ancient texts describing these exact stages
Marcus 10:05
But also within your soul that's in your physical body - Kabbalah teaches that there are four stages. There's Nefesh which is your animalistic, body, craving, desire - you know like Maslow's hierarchy of needs if you've come across this, it's like the basics you know, food, shelter, sex those kinds of things. The basic bodily needs. And then there's Ruach, Neshama, Chaya and yechida. They are like the four levels of soul and they're sort of more evolved parts of our soul that we're trying to correct that help us make the best decisions you know, so there's the next level up is really thinking about other people and about and the next level up is about sort of global change in growth and next level up is about ultimate sort of spiritual revelation. So we kind of we we flip through these stages depending on our actions and how we feel and things that we do and we correct parts in Kabbalah by the way we deal with stuff my past or from past lives and try and work through those and effectively change and grow Yeah, and that's how we correct mistakes.
Dawn Eva 11:13
Yeah, I find that really interesting "the different parts of the soul" - because it is quite confusing to figure out - you know, like how you know what parts are "the soul" - as in, what parts are soul and what parts are personality and what parts are survival instincts... So, that idea of there being "an animalistic part of the soul" for example helps. Also understanding "the ego" as well, I think that was one of the things from Kabbalah that really helped make some clicks for me with how to start identifying the process of the work and where the challenges come from. If I remember correctly, it was about that effort (that you mentioned at the start) and how we earn those bits back. That our ego is "the Challenger" putting blockages in place, -so in those challenges, that's how we earn soul back, is that right?
Marcus 12:22
Yeah, absolutely. And that's by choice - that's our choice as a collective, you know, collective soul, collective spiritual vessel almost. It's that we didn't want to receive endless blessings and light, even though we might think that's crazy, like now in our lives so difficult "why on earth did I choose this", you know. Effectively our ego is called "the adversary" in ancient texts or "the opponent" energy. So it's a it's a matching energy that was created at the time of creation to try and challenge us to become the best that we can be, you know, so without an opposing force, there's no effort, there's no challenge, you know, so it's like; I don't know, playing a netball game with someone four divisions below you, like you know, you're not gonna want to keep on playing that team over and over and over again because it might feel great the first victory, but then three or four matches down you're utterly bored by this "I want the next challenge" and so I think that's that's essentially what is part of our nature even though we might kick and scream and push against it, we want challenge you know, we want to get to the next level. And this opponent effectively which comes into us as our ego is diabolically clever, like it's always one step ahead of us to challenge us, but it's as much our best friend as it is our worst enemy you know. Without it we wouldn't have the something to strive against. I think it was was it from the usual suspects that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us it didn't exist you know? It's you think it's you but it's not you know, you are an expression of your soul your ego is there to challenge you. it's not you.
Dawn Eva 14:24
So I was gonna ask as well about, well I don't know how to even ask this question like, does the soul have an energetic field, and with the the four different parts of it, like the animalistic and you know, the other stages there? How does that join together? Is it in separate parts and also if there's if we're just soul fragments, does that relate to kind of like "soul mates" and "soul family" type things? Is there a desire for our souls to reconnect with the other parts of itself?
Dawn Eva 15:15
separateness, you know, or like,
Marcus 15:19
You're onto it Dawn, that's exactly it, you know. And I think that, the way I understand it is that you do have soul groups that you're born together with, you know, and they can be a physical family, they can be your love interests, but they can also be your best friends. And there's something in in Kabbalah called tikkun, and this is basically, it's what your correction is, and tikkun works in certain timeframes over a period of time, so it works with the nodes and astrology cycles. So I was born in March in 1975. And within that one and a half year period, I think my tikkun was in Sagittarius at the time, which I think is my South Node of my natal chart. And my north node is Gemini, which means that in a past my last life I was Gemini, when opposite that; six signs round is your south node. And that's where your correction is. So I have to be more like a Sagittarius in this life as the Pisces to correct my Gemini past life that I didn't fix. So I mean, I've just bastardised four thousand years of astrology just then. But that's the kind of very simple idea. But the idea is with all this correction, you correct. So all the kids in your school year, for example, are pretty much all born within about nine months of each other because you get kicked up or down a year, don't you? So you're probably all born with the same tikkun. Even though you've got different families, different genders, wether born in march or July, you will probably all have the same tikkun, so you are working on the same thing. You all have a collective consciousness and in your family again and quite often we're reincarnated, as Kabbalah says, you know, with with similar people, but in different roles, you know, so whatever you need this time to spend. And you know, because our parents are born before we are, we've chosen our parents.
Marcus 17:26
You know, you can't really complain about your parents when you chose to be incarnated with those two parents. Because if they gave you exactly what you needed, either physically, emotionally, spiritually - not always the best, best ways either, but exactly what we needed to help us to become who we are.
Marcus 17:43
Something else that I listened to recently - it was very ancient writings about how the original parts of Adam and Eve are related to different soul parts. So if someone's a fantastic runner, for example, the likelihood is their soul is part of one of the legs of Adam and Eve. And if someone's an amazing thinker, like, you know, like a philosopher, or something, their soul could well be from the head or the upper part. So you can imagine this spiritual form of Adam and Eve and what it represents, every part of that soul strand will have people that are more skilled in that area. But you can't obviously find this out because it's too ethereal or whatever.
Dawn Eva 18:33
Yeah.
Dawn Eva 18:34
So how does that work in terms of the number of original souls that were created then? Were they all encapsulated within just Adam and Eve? Or was there more?
Marcus 18:46
Yeah, that's what the Kabbalistic texts say. So that's, that's kind of the original vessel was kind of, you know, symbolised, and embued within these two original beings you know, which, I mean, I often asked the question of how that fits in with creationism and like, you know, the Garden of Eden and you're talking about two people, where did the monkeys come in? And how does Darwin feel about all this? You know, I was told to stop being too literal, but it's probably you know, but you can't deny the dinosaurs were here. You know, I find it very hard to have that conversation about evolution, because there's so much proof about these things, but at the time you know, there will have been, at some point of where monkeys became more conscious and became free thinking humans as opposed to animalistic primates and that standpoint of what we're you know, how this happened, I guess it is for the for the ancient texts, but so I'm not gonna have the explanation for that.
Dawn Eva 19:44
So is the soul different than consciousness then?
Dawn Eva 19:52
Just I remember talking about like, how different elements - like stones etc. How there's a consciousness in everything. But is that different than the soul then?
Marcus 20:10
So the soul is to do so.
Marcus 20:13
Yes, there's the four levels, obviously, you're right. So there's the inanimate world, which is stones and bits, you know, I think ground and things like this and sand. So then there's the animate world, which is the plant kingdom. And then there's the animal kingdom, animals, fishes, birds, and then there's us; the sort of human kingdom.
Dawn Eva 20:35
I remember with the "human kingdom" - was there not something about it being defined as the ones who can speak - like with "the power of the word"?
Marcus 20:45
Yeah, that's the differentiation, also freewill, you know, the animal kingdom doesn't have free will, it's instinctive, it kind of works like you might think you can train a dog to think what it wants to do, or a cat, but essentially, they're still bound by certain rules of their kingdom, which are essentially just data reactions, you know, so you know, to their basic needs. So because we have the ability to form words and speak words and have freewill over our choices, that's kind of why we seem to be a dominion of the kingdom - even though we cause absolute chaos everywhere we go, like a virus, you know, but that's a whole nother conversation. Haha.
Marcus 21:24
But yeah, so to do with what level - there is still strands of soul imbued in every every one of those forms, sort of tranches, almost. But there's very little desire, it's called desire. So desire for existence, there's very little desire in a stone, whereas there's a huge desire to be alive in a person, because we want to do everything we want everything and desire to receive is kind of part of who we are, that's part of the original vessel - it wanted to receive. But the point of us being here is, is to change our nature from desire to receive, to the desire to receive for the sake of sharing, so that element of sharing is what really defines us and helps us on our growth, you know, so don't just receive on an animistic, kind of nephesh part of our soul, you know, we want to sort of get to a point of enlightened self interest, where we receive for the sake of sharing with other people. That's the kind of our life's mission really.
Dawn Eva 22:23
Yeah.
Dawn Eva 22:23
So then when we receive more of our soul through the challenges that we overcome etc, how does that work? Like, do we actually grow our soul? Like does it have some kind of spiritual form? Does our soul get bigger? Or? How does that work in the larger understanding of all the different pieces of soul?
Dawn Eva 22:51
like, does it grow?
Marcus 22:55
I think essentially, our Spark is part of this universal sharing of this infinite blessing. Yeah, we're part of that spark. So what grows or shrinks is our vessel, our own spiritual vessel that every person has. You grow it, or you almost cover it up by all the negative actions that you do, which means it's harder to connect to your soul, it's also harder to receive universal spiritual light, so it's not done for but obviously, you've got to do lots of positive sharing actions and growth to make "klipot" which is like a shell of energy that cover up. Every time we do something negative or selfish, almost like we would cover up our soul. And we find the hardest to connect to that spark of divine that's in all of us. But I think the way I understand it from from the texts and courses is that you've got these four, you've got your strand of soul, and then it's to a soul group, which is elevating a certain part of that original 600,000, then, but every time you elevate your nephesh, you can be elevate your Neshama at the same time, and the other two are very hard to attain, but it's kind of like there's two ways to know your work is done in this incarnation.
Marcus 24:08
So either you've done everything you need to do, and you pass away and you move on to the spiritual plane again, or you're nowhere near what you needed to do here. But you've accumulated so much negativity over time that your body just can't live anymore. And then that's usually what happens with very, very old age or just, you know, but it is possible to live a really old age and still be still be achieving and growing and having your vessel, but so often that is a very difficult topic, especially to talk about when you know, someone loses a child, God forbid, like, you know, how is that fair that a child passed away, but it might be that they only had a tiny tiny bit of correction to do on their soul. And they did it by being born and being beautiful and being lovely and just you know, having an amazing childhood or something. It's quite a sad topic, but yeah, but we don't really know. You might have 13% neshama and 12% and you're asking "this" to do in a lifetime, when you might achieve 10 and one and three of, you know, so I don't know about how that's accounted in the big profit and loss account of the spiritual realms, you know, but that's kind of it. It kind of helps to normalise that that feeling about why people are here and how long they're here for.
Dawn Eva 25:27
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow. That's amazing. Thank you. That was really great chatting with you about all that. And hopefully, we'll catch up again and do some more kabbalah together soon.
Marcus 25:39
Yeah, absolutely Dawn. I appreciate, though I should put a big disclaimer that I am a Kabbalist student. I'm not a teacher, you know, but I have been a mentor for probably now on 16 years, and it is very much a part of my life and something that I love, and I am continually - I'll always see myself as a student, you know? But these are my interpretations of everything I've shared. You know, there's so much to learn. But I think, effectively, we can all want to be learning, you know, there's always more of course you can do.
Dawn Eva 26:16
Yeah, definitely.
Marcus 26:18
It's exciting to sort of see where you can go. And so how much further down you can go?
Dawn Eva 26:26
Yeah, it is hard in terms of being confident to share wisdom and knowledge that you have gained, and that you know, is real to you. But there is always that, you know, you don't want to sort of give other people "this is what this is. And this is how it works" It's the kind of thing that people have to figure out for themselves. Isn't it, like a Gnosis.
Marcus 26:57
No, really, it is. And I think what's so beautiful about the human race is that we're all unique. And we all have our own perspectives and views on life, you know, even, we see things differently, we serve different fields of vision, we have different taste buds, we have different upbringings, we have different experiences of our bodies. So you know, who's one person to say, what YOU should be thinking is real, you know, who can say "Well, this has to be true, because that's how I see it" you know, if you're right, and then someone else's right, you know, you're both right. Do you wanna have a fight about it? You know, do you need to have an argument about this. I think this is essentially what causes so much friction in the world is that people don't agree - but how can we agree when we've got such different opinions, but it's a wonderful journey to uncover that connection to your soul. And it starts by that really, that differentiation between what's your soul and what's your ego? Yeah, and often we're very quick to put ourselves down. Oh, I'm a bad person, I made bad choices. You just fell prey to the trick of the ego, which was thinking that you are that negative part of you, and that's purely there to challenge you so we should love it, even though it's quite hard to.
Dawn Eva 28:15
Yeah, definitely. Thanks very much for taking the time to chat to me about all this, that's really great. Thanks, Marcus.
Marcus 28:21
You’re welcome Dawn. Good to see you again.
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