We recently had a question from someone who wanted to know more about people who say they can read/see a person’s soul light and determine their "soul type." What is this, and is it compatible with our faith?

In case you never heard of this before, soul readers - people who can allegedly read souls by studying it's light (aka energy) - are actually a "thing," at least in New Age circles.

According to this site, a soul reader, or soul light reader, is a psychic medium who possesses spiritual wisdom that can speak to the nature of a soul's past, present, and future.

"Soul readers transcend our tangible realms by developing their talent in three core areas: intuition, divination, and meditation. Individuals who soul read are able to tap into and understand the ways of the spirit that are not immediately apparent through ordinary perception. They unearth deeper aspects within themselves as well as others, traveling between internal states of consciousness to find even greater meaning in the divine."

It goes on to compare this "gift" of soul reading to tuning into a radio frequency that only the reader can hear. The reader relies on intuition, divination, spirit guides, and meditation to help the soul "gain insights that resonate with our truest selves."

These readers have divided the types of soul into seven distinct "vibrations or tones." As this article explains, "There are only seven types of soul, seven ways in which the One becomes the many. The names reflect the natural purpose of each soul type."

These types are as follows:

• Servers are naturally accommodating, caring, nurturing, hospitable, chabitable. • Artisans are naturally creative, inventive, imaginative, plawful, dexterous. • Warriors are naturally forceful, loyal, protective, determined, steadfast. • Scholars are naturally curious, studious, academic, analytical, neutral. • Sages are naturally engaging, articulate, charming, entertaining, expressive. • Priests are naturally inspirational, uplifting, motivating, energizing, visionary. • Kings are naturally commanding, assured, powerful, authoritative, decisive.

These seven soul types were supposedly revealed by an entity known as Michael to a channeler named Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. In her biography, she's described as being "a skeptical occultist" who has studied everything from "alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco."

So what is a typical soul reading like? This practitioner, who provides distance readings, explains it this way: "I begin each soul reading by taking a look, with the use of my third eye or inner vision, at your overall energy state and your chakras along with your soul's Divine essence - this is the part of you that never dies. Reading soul energy over a distance actually gives much better results, based upon the techniques that I employ. It allows me to focus my full attention upon your soul's energy, and not be distracted by your feelings or reactions. I can still sense if you are nervous, unfocused, or even skeptical, but because you are not directly in front of me, it will not distract me from reading your energy."

I have also found a connection between a soul’s “light” and another classic New Age construct - the aura. New Agers believe the aura radiates from a person and reveals all kinds of information about them. As this blog explains, clairvoyants claim to be able to read or scan auras in order to diagnose illness, effect healing, predict the future, determine a person’s temperament, etc. They either do this with their natural eyes (a feat no one has ever successfully demonstrated) or with their “inner vision” (whatever that means).

However, auras have nothing to do with the supernatural and are actually a very natural effect of black body electromagnet radiation which produces an invisible infrared light that is the result of the random movements of all the charged particles in the body that are caused by heat. The type of light emitted is all about the temperature of the body at the time and has nothing to do with a mysterious life force energy.

Having said all this, it's important to note that many of our saints had the gift of reading souls, such as St. John Vianney and St. Pio of Pietrelcino, but this had nothing to do with seeing a light or relying on spirit guides. Rather, it was an infusion of knowledge about the soul given to the saint by the Holy Spirit.

The soul is regarded as so sacred by God that no one except our Creator is permitted to see its inner workings. And because the Lord has so clearly condemned clairvoyants and mediums (see Deuteronomy 18:10) it’s highly unlikely that any of the examples given above were drawing their knowledge from God.

I would avoid anything that has to do with seeing or reading a person’s soul light.

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