Epicurean Outreach Opportunity - Respond to Article on Spirituality

We know the soul is composed of subtle atoms in our body -- and we have the ability to control the movement of those atoms. Most of the things that disturb us are self-generated. Even if somebody smacks you in the face—after the initial pain is gone, all subsequent pain is self-generated by your memory of the smack, which you can control. You can choose to move past it and delight in the fact that your face no longer feels the pain of the smack.

Remember, the gods are eternal because they have a constantly flowing form (like a waterfall). If you smack a waterfall—or even throw a rock at it—it will just move past it.

Quote from Bryan

We know the soul is composed of subtle atoms in our body -- and we have the ability to control the movement of those atoms.

I thought that Epicurus used “soul” to refer to that which conveyed our thoughts to our body, muscles; which we know today as our nervous system. So, are our spiritual feelings innate Prolepsis of the gods, or just higher aspects our nervous system that we can attempt to control through breath work.

If my understanding of Epicurus view of the soul is incorrect, please explain.

Let's get input from several people on this including Bryan but one preliminary comment I would make is that I read Lucretius (and therefore presumably Epicurus) as using words that are translated as "soul" and "mind" and "spirit" somewhat interchangeably, so I would be cautious about dividing them up more specifically without very clear text references.

Quote from Patrikios

So, are our spiritual feelings innate Prolepsis of the gods, or just higher aspects our nervous system that we can attempt to control through breath work.

So as to this question I tend to think that anything regarding consciousness (which would include words like nervous system and mind and soul and spirit, and the processing work of the mind, including prolepses (which is related to images and how they over time shape our thoughts) is going to be generally considered to be a function of the soul/mind/spirit part of the body, but getting much more specific beyond that (especially "control through breath work") is going to be hard to do from the existing texts.

Bryan?