What is your soul made of?
Most spiritual traditions have some notion of what the soul is—or some go so far as to declare there is no soul at all. But defining what the soul is made of becomes a challenge. We might hear it has various layers, but then, what are those layers made of? Or that it’s composed of frequencies—but what, in turn, are those frequencies?
In trying to understand the soul—or anything immaterial—our senses fall short. We often run out of answers and turn to miracles or magical thinking for explanations. As a result, we’re frequently told that these mysteries can’t be understood rationally or, perhaps, can’t be understood at all. Isn’t it the height of arrogance to assume that something must be inherently unknowable simply because we have yet to figure it out?
Infinity provides a compelling example of how we often mistake our own limitations for universal truths. Philosophers like Hegel distinguished between “bad infinity”—an endless, unresolved accumulation that leads nowhere—and “good infinity,” a self-contained, complete whole that resolves contradictions. By embracing mathematical reasoning, we can transcend the constraints of sensory perception and begin to uncover the structured, infinite nature of the soul.
The parable of the blind men and the elephant is classically used to illustrate that no single person can fully grasp reality. Each blind man touches a different part of the elephant and comes to their own conclusion: one believes it’s a tree trunk (the leg), another thinks it’s a rope (the tail), and so on. The story serves as a call for humility and collaboration, showing that different perspectives contribute to a fuller picture.
Fortunately, in a mathematical universe, the soul can be made of nothing other than mathematics itself. Mathematics transcends our senses, residing in a domain only our intellect can access. Rather than fumbling around with other blind men trying to “feel” it out—where each perception is filtered through conditioned thinking—we must set our senses aside and fully commit to rational, conceptual thinking.
During the adventures of my 20s, I met a mentor who challenged me to think differently—though he didn’t push me quite far enough to think mathematically. Still, he played a pivotal role in my personal growth and spiritual path. He was a good teacher: he left breadcrumbs and waited for me to find answers independently rather than spelling things out. This was my introduction to the Western esoteric tradition, and we discussed everything from ancient history to politics, magic, and even gay life. He met me where I was at, and guided me from there—like I think all good mentors do.
While those years were the most thrilling time of my life, they were also the most traumatic. My assumption that reality was purely material shattered, and a series of unforgettable insights changed my worldview forever—or rather, forever with an intermission. Those adventures forced me to face hard truths about human nature and even about myself. When I finally walked away from that lifestyle, I repressed everything—not just the trauma, but also the important insights. It wasn’t until my late 30s, when I began studying neurofeedback, that I was drawn back to those insights. I had initially rejected the call to adventure, but life, in its own way, eventually drew me back.
One of my first neurofeedback sessions with professional-grade equipment is what brought it back. Expecting a simple, relaxing experience, I instead experienced an abreaction—a sudden release of repressed emotions tied to traumatic events from my 20s. Suddenly, everything came flooding back—my studies in spirituality, the esoteric, the mind… with a vengeance. Around this time, I first encountered the “God Series” books by Mike Hockney, and my thinking sharpened, shifting toward mathematics and logic. This shift allowed me to better understand the mystical experiences of my 20s.
One of the first concepts Hockney introduces is how something emerges from nothing, the essential first principle upon which our journey begins. Next, we explore the nature of this structured or “net” nothingness and what it might consist of. Logically, if we start with nothing, its building blocks must also be nothing. Mathematically, a dimensionless point serves as an ideal representation: a point without dimensions that occupies no space—a mathematical nothing.
A point at coordinates (1, 1) has no dimensions and takes up no space. It is a mathematical and logical “nothing.”
According to the principle of sufficient reason, if there is no reason for something not to exist and no conditions preventing it, then it must logically follow that it does exist. So, if a single point can exist, then infinite points must exist. Thus, we can imagine an infinite number of these dimensionless points, all “stacked” together—not truly stacked, of course, since stacking implies dimensions, and these points occupy no space. And this “place” of stacking isn’t a place in the conventional sense.
This reasoning leads us to a structured “nothingness,” composed of infinite individual “nothings.” In this model, the cosmic mind is a singularity comprising an infinity of individual singularities—our souls or minds. The interactions among these minds within the cosmic mind must balance to zero, as must the dynamics within each individual mind.
Imagine this as a vast cosmic dance floor, existing beyond space and time—a floor so boundless that infinite souls can dance upon it without ever colliding. Each soul moves like an angel, dancing alongside infinite others, all fitting together seamlessly. This recalls the medieval question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” The metaphor suggests that, since each soul is dimensionless and occupies no space, an infinite number can exist simultaneously within the cosmic mind or singularity.
Now, the question arises: how do these angels dance? What do these souls, or minds, do? And how does everything remain balanced at zero? In a dynamic universe, they cannot remain static—a motionless universe would lack change and any real sense of reality. Thus, these minds must express themselves through motion.
This motion, we deduce, must be eternal. With no reason for a soul’s movement to slow or stop, it must logically continue indefinitely. And, having ruled out “bad infinity” (an endless, chaotic expansion), this eternal motion must possess structure—implying a circular form. Yet this isn’t a physical circle as we might typically imagine but rather a mental one—a self-sustaining loop where the end seamlessly becomes the beginning. By logical necessity, the soul expresses itself in an eternal, mental, circular motion.
This insight leads us directly to Euler’s Formula. Discovered by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in the 18th century and famously described by physicist Richard Feynman as the “jewel of physics,” Euler’s Formula encapsulates the essence of this circular motion, represented as:
Euler’s Formula reveals a precise relationship between exponential functions and trigonometric ones. Simply put, it shows that as a point moves along a circular path in the complex plane, it generates sine and cosine waves. These waves emerge as projections of the circular motion onto two perpendicular axes—the real and imaginary components of the complex plane. Thus, circular motion breaks down into oscillations along these axes, producing the sine and cosine waves.
Why the complex plane? It’s another logical deduction. In a mathematical universe, all numbers must be considered valid—even negative ones. This implies that if a negative number exists, then so must its square root, even if it can’t be seen or measured directly. Existence in mathematics isn’t limited by physical visibility; for a complete mathematical framework, our grid must include both real and “imaginary” numbers.
For those unfamiliar with “imaginary” numbers, they aren’t a figment of our imagination—just unfortunately named. In mathematics, an imaginary number is the product of a real number and the imaginary unit i, allowing us to formally take the square root of a negative number. For example, the square root of 4 is 2, and the square root of -4 is 2i.
Euler’s formula animation, used with permission from Goncalo Fernandes Pereira Martins.
Don’t worry—this is as mathematically technical as it gets—but this concept is crucial. In this framework, we see how the eternal, circular motion produced by a thinking soul—a dimensionless point—generates sine and cosine waves along two different axes. The “real” axis can be understood as corresponding to observable space, while the “imaginary” axis represents mental or metaphysical dimensions, including time and beyond.
When the phase angle $\theta$ is 0, 90, 180, 270 degrees, the waves produced are orthogonal to the real and imaginary axes, and represent pure light itself. At the point of the Big Bang (which we will come back to!) each and every soul also introduces a phase angle that is non-orthogonal to the axes.
When the phase angle is not 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees, notice the presence of a right triangle, where "space" and "time" form the legs, and the hypotenuse represents—nothing less than mind itself. This suggests that space and time are not independent entities but components of mind, revealing that everything unfolds within a framework of consciousness. When the angle is 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees, there is no triangle—and the waves exist in mind alone. While Pythagoras didn’t invent the theorem named after him, it’s possible he applied it in a profoundly unique way!
Just as we found no reason to limit the existence of infinite souls or minds, we see no reason to restrict a soul’s circular motion to a single radius. Each radius represents a different frequency, leading us to conclude that a soul in motion will naturally generate sine and cosine waves across an infinite range of frequencies.
We might visualize the soul as generating infinite frequencies through an endless series of nested, concentric motions—circlings within circlings.
The individual soul remains a perfectly balanced zero because each oscillation in one direction is met by an equal and opposite oscillation. This symmetry creates a wave pattern that cancels itself out, resulting in a balanced, zero-sum whole.
For a soul expressing itself through eternal mental motion, this is profound. It suggests that the soul is composed of infinite frequencies—these sine and cosine waves together form the fundamental “alphabet” of thought. As we proceed, we’ll explore how these eternal “basis” thoughts combine to produce the transient, everyday thoughts that arise, fade, and dissolve—mirroring the Buddhist concept of mental states as transient, flowing, and dynamic.
The soul is both a thinker and an experiencer of thoughts—a mind. We’re beginning to see how thought itself is rooted in eternal sine and cosine waves, as well as temporal and contingent sinusoidal waves in the world of matter. You might already sense where this is headed: a mind is filled with mathematical “mind waves,” just as a brain is filled with “brain waves.” Could they be connected? The next step is to explore the language of thought itself.