Division Theory
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Division Theory, as a doctrine or mystical belief, holds that one's mind or nonphysical self is composed of two equal but opposite elements which both survive death, but tend to divide from one another in the process. These two components, variously identified as the spirit and soul, the conscious and unconscious, or the left-brain mind and the right- brain mind, thereafter experience dramatically different afterlife fates, one half going on to reincarnate while the other becomes trapped in a dream-like stasis which can seem like either heaven or hell, depending on the individual.
Introduced by Author Peter Novak[1] in the late 1990's, Division Theory maintains that the natural psychological characteristics of the conscious and unconscious would automatically cause them to undergo these different afterlife experiences if they divided from one another at death. Many ancient cultures, such as Egypt, Greece, and China, once subscribed to a similar binary soul doctrine describing two soul-like elements that divided at death. The notion that the two halves of the mind survive death in a divided state seems to account for many elements of modern reports of afterlife phenomena, including near-death experiences, ghosts, poltergeists, and past life regression.
Since the spirit, or conscious mind, is thought to reincarnate after each life while the soul, or unconscious, enters a dreamlike stasis, Division Theory holds that each living person possesses one spirit, but many repressed souls from various past lives. Since this postmortem division rips the person's mind apart, the individual's known self is thought to be effectively disintegrated at death, although the fragments that survive do hold out the possibility that the known self can be reconstructed again at a future date.
It is maintained that the human psyche first began undergoing this postmortem division in prehistoric times, and this turning point was preserved in humanity's cultural memory as the mythical story of Eve being removed from Adam's body in the Garden of Eden. Division Theory anticipates that all the souls and spirits that have been divided by death since that time will at least temporarily be reunited to wholeness again during the resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day.
The cause of this postmortem psychological division is held to be a lack of personal integrity during life, and if an individual conducts his life with complete self-honesty, it is maintained that he will not only avoid suffering this second death upon his demise, but will also begin to recover and integrate psychological content from his past lives.
