| I read these stories much more literally. One of the things the human brain does is project an honest picture of your self. This is your soul, it's whatever you perceive is your true nature. It's not nice stories you tell about yourself, it's your honest bottom line appraisal. "Selling your soul" is doing something that you know will inflicting trauma on others in return for rewards to you. This is going against "God" where "God" is defined as the sum of all forces in the universe which heal trauma. If you do this repeatedly, it makes irreparable changes to your self image. It gets harder and harder to see yourself as part of the movement to heal trauma, and you start to see yourself as part of the non-healing world, which includes "The Devil"—defined as the sum of all sentient forces in the universe which inflict trauma, either delighting in it or by suppressing normal emotional responses. Alongside this, Christianity points at "seeking forgiveness", or asking for (external) trauma-healing forces ("God") to change you... with an earnest desire to be changed. That forgiveness, when granted, can then repair this self image in your brain. So that's the opposing side of this process. Where you "soul" gets "sold" is just that the more you engage in trauma-for-pay, the more distance you put between yourself and the flock of trauma healers in this world. And the harder it is for you to believe any interest you might have in forgiveness is earnest. Eventually you get far enough out there you need a Jesus-level counsellor to bring you back into the flock, of which there are VERY few in the world. That kind of person goes and finds the people with the most damaged self image, and is skilled at uncovering an old self image and healing their trauma. In Christianity, these are "saints". But that's the long shot. The "don't sell your soul" directive is saying, don't head down that path because it's hard enough to maintain a positive, honest self image as it is. |
That's quite counterintuitive: It seems extremely likely that for most people (including but not limited to your humble servant), their self-image is delusional to a greater or lesser extent.