Historian and writer Paul Ham has traced how our definition and understanding of the human soul has changed over thousands of years.
Human beings have been probing their own inner voice, what it means and how it makes us feel, since the Stone Age.
The human soul has long thought to be an invisible, inner essence that makes each of us distinctively different from the rocks and trees, and which also separates the living from the dead.
But where did it come from? Who invented the concept of the soul? And do we still believe in the soul as inextricably linked to the human spirit?
Paul Ham is an Australian writer and historian, and author of the book The Soul: A History of the Human Mind. Photo: Supplied/Paul Ham
