There’s a common idea in the afterlife literature on animals, which I want to spend a bit of time taking apart. It is often said that when animals die, they return to Group Souls.  The idea first popped up in the channeled literature of the 19th century and has periodically resurfaced since then. It gets passed around without much examination.    

The basic idea is that when animals die, they get re-absorbed back into a humungous Group Soul, which you can think of as being a generalized archetype for the species.  When animals die, so the story goes, they do not continue on as individual spirits but instead are assimilated, Borg-like, back into a big amorphous blob that represents the species.  Individual pigs don’t live on as individual pigs; they are absorbed back into the big amorphous Pig soul.  Rabbits don’t live on as individual rabbits; they are sucked back into Rabbit.  Whatever individual features they might have had are wiped out. Only the common characteristics of the species remain.

Each species has its own group soul.  Well, except for human beings.  We’re special.  We have individual spirits and individualized afterlife experience.  Animals don’t. Or so the story goes.  

Hearing this, you may worry that your dog or cat is bound for amorphous blobbery, but don’t worry.  There is a corrolary to this idea of Group Souls, which serves as a loophole. It says that, if a human being cares for an animal, then that animal is granted an individualized spirit. The animal escapes being absorbed into the Big Blob at the end of his or her life. Instead, the animal lives on as an individual spirit. The human being’s care and love has conferred individuality upon it. 

Unfortunately, other animals are out of luck. If a human being does not confer love or care upon them, they’re sent back to the Big Blob at death.  Whatever individuality they might have is gone.

Those are the ideas I want to question:

1. That when animals die, they return to a Group Soul, a sort of amorphous blob in which any individuality they might have had is erased.

2. Animals don’t have individuality until human beings give it to them, via their love and care. If a human being cares for an animal, then that animal escapes being returned to the Big Blob. If the animal is not cared for by humans, then he or she is destined for amorphous blobbery.

I’ll make six points.  

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1. If you’re re-absorbed into a Group Soul, you might as well be dead.

Reabsorption into an amorphous blob is not really an afterlife existence, in any meaningful sense.  To recognize this, just apply the idea to yourself.  What if, when you died, everything that made you you – your personality, your memories, your temperament, your accumulated understanding – what if all of that was wiped away as you were reabsorbed into an anonymous, amorphous blob called Human Being?  What sort of afterlife existence would you have?  Whatever it would be, you would not be there to experience it. 

Or apply the idea to your loved ones — parents, spouse, kids, whoever.  What if, when they die, everything that makes them a unique individual — their personalities, knowledge, temperaments, behavior tendencies — is all wiped out, and they are assimilated into the big blob called Human Being?  Do your loved ones even exist anymore, in a meaningful sense?  They have been reduced to a category label.  They don’t exist anymore, not as people, not in any meaningful sense of that word. 

If who you are disappears when you die, then you might as well be dead.  You are not there anymore to experience it.      

Same thing for animals.  If an individual squirrel or a goat gets reabsorbed back into an amorphous Group Soul — wiped like a save file when reformatting a hard-drive — then that particular squirrel or goat has ceased to exist.  That is not an afterlife existence in any meaningful sense. 

This implication (of non-existence) is easy to see when we think about ourselves returning to an amorphous collective soul. It can be harder to see with regard to animals – or rather, harder to see as a problem.  That’s because some people don’t think of animals as having individuality in the first place. One bear is the same as the next bear; one wolf is the same as the next; one bird is the same as the other. Since they see animals as interchangeable units, they don’t see their reabsorption into an anonymous blob as an issue; nothing has been lost.

The problem with that view is that it’s wrong. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first I need to make sure we understand what the idea of group souls imples. It implies that there is no afterlife for animals — not in any meaningful sense of the term. At death, animals are swallowed up into an amorphous blob, reduced to a generalized category label.  That animal’s life is effectively over; they are done and dusted.   

We recoil when that idea is applied to us, because we understand the implications. It means we cease to exist. Maybe we should think twice before applying the idea to animals.

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2. The evidence all points in the other direction

The idea of group souls is just that — an idea or a concept.  The idea is based on statements made by some channels and mediums.  It’s not unanimous by any means; other mediums contradict the idea. It’s a mixed bag.

It’s interesting to note that, over time, afterlife reports about animal group souls are becoming less common, and reports of animal individuality are becoming more common. I think that the reason for that is material from mediums/channels is shaped, in part, by the belief system of the time, or by the belief system of the medium/channel. As our culture has become more respectful of animals’ sentience and individuality, the information coming from mediums has changed as well.

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When we examine the evidence for animal afterlife, we discover something interesting: all the evidence contradicts the notion of group souls. All the evidence seems to suggest that animals survive into the next world as individuals.

People who have After-Death Communications never see an archetypal Horse.  They always see a particular, individual horse.  When a cat appears in an NDE, it’s always a specific cat, never a generalized spirit of Cat.  When someone sees a dog in a Deathbed Vision, it’s always a particular dog, never a global, undifferentiated Dog.  When evidential mediums bring through information from a deceased animal, it’s always from a specific, individual animal, never from an archetypal representation of the species. And when people see ghosts, they always describe particular, identifiable animals, not an amorphous category.  

This is important. The best evidence we have about animal afterlife all points in the same direction: toward a belief in animals having an individualized existence.  All of the evidence contradicts the notion of group souls.

You may be thinking, “Yes, but these animals all had relationships with human beings. That’s why they were individualized.” I’d point out two things about that.

First, not all of these animals were cared for by human beings.  A significant number of the ghost sightings involve animals who were neglected or tortured by human beings.  There are also NDE and ADC reports of animals who have no discernable connection to any human being.  So, we have many cases where animals appear as individuals, yet there is no evidence of human caring — sometimes the opposite, in fact.

Second, the idea underpinning this loophole — that human beings bestow individuality upon animals — is a silly conceit. It is also contradicted by the facts. I’ll cover that shortly.              

For now, just notice that all the evidence runs counter to the idea of group souls.  In all the best evidence we have, animals always appear as individual spirits, never as generalized archetypes.  There are no appearances of group souls, only of individual, particular animals. That is true across a wide range of different types of evidence. 

The only exception I’m aware of is in a book by an animal communicator who claimed to be bringing messages through from animals. Most of the messages were from individual animals, but some were from the species as a whole — Whales, for instance.

I think the author is a kind, well-meaning person, but I didn’t find her book credible.  Two quick reasons.  First, many of the animals in the book exhibited a sense of humor, which isn’t a problem of course — except it was always the same sense of humor. Humor is an individual thing and should at least vary between individuals, if not entire species. I believe the sense of humor was coming from the author, not the animals.

Second, a lot of the animals had a socio-political axe to grind, which was kind of odd. Moreover, they all seemed to share the same socio-political worldview, one that was reminiscent of young, west-coast liberals, as was the author’s bio and jacket photo. So again, I believe the worldview was coming from the author’s mind, not the animals’.

I didn’t find that account credible. If there are any credible reports of animals communicating in the form of amorphous Group Souls, I haven’t seen them.

All the evidence points in one direction — it refutes the group soul concept and indicates instead that animals live in the afterlife as individual spirits. They do not get reduced to an amorphous blob. They retain their individuality after death, just like we do.   

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3. Gee, us human beings sure do have some magical powers!   

Now let me address the corollary loophole.  This says that if an animal is cared for by a human being, that animal is spared the fate of anonymous blobbery and instead is granted individuality.  The love of a human being is so powerful that it bestows individuality of soul upon animals.

I chuckle a little as I write that.  We sure do think highly of ourselves.  Where did this ridiculous idea come from?  From our usual hubris, I’m guessing. 

Do we really believe that merely being connected to a human being is enough to bestow individuality upon an animal?  Are we really that self-centered?  Do we really think that merely being cared for by a human being confers individuality of soul?  And that otherwise, that animal is doomed to be assimilated into the Big Blob? 

Do we think we are some kind of spiritual King Midas — that everything we touch is granted an individual soul?   Please.  

David Fontana says it well:

It is sometimes suggested that if animals survive, they only retain their individuality in the afterlife if they have lived close to humans and been “given” individuality through human love.  Otherwise, they return to the collective consciousness of their species.  This claim typifies our rather self-centered way of thinking.  As humans, we regard ourselves as lords of creation, with every other life form subservient to us, and open to our exploitation.  But there is no special warrant for this view, and it would be arrogant to suppose that our assumed superiority will persist in the next world.  It may be that one of the lessons we would have to learn in an afterlife is the unity of all existence, with all of creation arising from the same source.

David Fontana, Is There an Afterlife?

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4. A long string of nopes

If you’re reading this, you’re a bright person with good taste (heh).  I’m sure you’ll be able to discern the pattern below.  It concerns all the different ways that human beings have tried to distinguish themselves from other animals.

“Human beings are the only species that use tools” – Nope!  

“Human beings are the only species that have feelings” – Nope!

“Human beings are the only species that can think and reason” – Nope!

“Human beings are the only species that uses complex language” – Nope!

“Human beings are the only species that exhibit moral behavior, empathy, or codes of justice” – Nope!

“Human beings are the only species that show self-awareness” – Nope! 

Nope, nope, nope! Time after time, human beings have abrogated to themselves some special quality that allegedly sets us apart from animals, and time after time, we’ve been wrong.   

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that animals match our abilities in all these areas; they don’t. What I’m saying is that it’s a continuum; it’s not an all-or-nothing distinction, with us on one side and animals on the other.

We keep making the mistake of trying to set up all-or-nothing distinctions between us and other animals. This is just another instance of that, extended into the afterlife:

“Human beings are the only ones with individual spirits” – Nope! 

“Only human love can confer individuality upon an animal soul” — Nope!

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5. Animals already are individuals

Animals already possess individuality.  They don’t need us to confer it on them. It’s silly and egotistical to think that. 

It’s also contrary to the facts.  Ask a naturalist who studies a particular species of animal, and they will tell you of course animals are individuals.  All wolves are not all the same.  All elephants are not all the same.  All parrots are not the same.  Yes, they have traits in common with other members of their species, as we all do, but they also have things that distinguish them from each other. Not just physical differences (size, gender, coloration, etc.), but mental, emotional, and behavioral differences. They show differences in personalities, their temperaments, their learning histories (i.e., emotional programming, understanding of the world), and their behavioral tendencies.  

In other words, they are individuals. 

Thomas Merton has a beautiful passage where he talks about the individuality of everything God created.  For those of you who don’t like God language, ignore that part and just try to listen behind it to what he’s saying about the individuality of everything in nature.

This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do.

The special clumsy beauty of this particular colt on this April day in this field under these clouds is a holiness consecrated to God by His own creative wisdom.

The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints.  The little yellow flowers nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.

This leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape.…

The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints.  There is no other like him.  He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Naturalists and monks know that animals are individuals. So does anyone who’s spent any time around them. Animals don’t need us to grant them individuality. They already have it. They have different personalities, histories, behaviors, and temperaments.  It’s true for domestic and wild animals. It’s true for animals who have been loved by humans and for animals who have been hated and abused by humans. 

So we need to reject the idea that human beings, through their caring, somehow magically bestow individuality upon animals.  It is a silly conceit, and the facts contradict it.       

And if animals possess individuality in life, there is no reason they would lose that individuality in the afterlife by being absorbed into some great, uniform collective. As Rumi said, “When did you ever become less by dying?”  And as mentioned earlier, all the evidence points exactly in the opposite direction.

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6. We’re working with limited tools

The idea of group souls is similar to the way scientists thought about the cell, a hundred years ago. Back then, scientists had only a basic microscope. When they looked through it at the cell, they saw an amorphous blob.  They thought the cell was a simple thing, filled with a goo they called protoplasm.

Fast forward a hundred years. Scientists developed the electron microscope. Now they can see more deeply and clearly into the cell.

So what do they see now? Not an amorphous blob of undifferentiated protoplasm. Not at all. They see the exact opposite of that — an incredibly complicated, interacting organization of thousands of individual, differentiated parts, working together in a finely tuned symphony that makes our most complex feats of high-tech engineering look like child’s play. 

A hundred years ago, scientists believed cells were simple, amorphous blobs.  Today, because of better observational equipment, we know that the cell is a mind-bogglingly complex system of individualized and exquisitely coordinated, interacting parts. 

I think something analogous is happening with the idea of group souls. Some people have looked through their basic microscopes and seen an amorphous blob, which they called a group soul.  

When our observational tools get better, we will be able to see more clearly. The picture will change, just as it did for the scientists looking at the cell. What once looked like a featureless blob will resolve itself into something of enormous variety and complexity.

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Summing up

We need to rethink the idea of group souls for animals. I’ll reiterate the main reasons:

1. Understand the implication of the idea of a group soul: it means there is no afterlife for animals, not in any meaningful sense.
2. All the credible evidence we have refutes the idea of group souls and supports the belief that animals survive into the afterlife in individualized form.
3. The corrolary loophole (that human beings’ love confers individuality upon animals) is nothing more than a silly conceit which runs contrary to the facts.
4. Animals already possess individuality and do not need us to bestow it upon them. If they are individuals in life, there is no reason to suppose that they become anonymized at death.
5. The notion of group souls and the corrolary loophole are two more entries in a long-running pattern of human beings abrogating to themselves sole ownership of some special quality, only to have those distinctions proven wrong time and time again.
6. A hundred years ago, scientists thought the cell was an amorphous blob. Now that we have better instruments, we know that the cell is an emormously complex symphony of thousands of differentiated, interacting parts. The idea of group souls is likely similar. When we are able to see more clearly and deeply, the amorphous blob of a group soul will resolve into something of marvelous complexity and intricate order.

Animals are individuals, both here and on the other side. At death, they are not reduced to amorphous blobbery. They continue on as individual souls, just as we do.

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