The actual self is the soul, while the body is only a mechanism to experience the karma of that life. Other religions (most notably Hinduism and Jainism) believe that all living things from the smallest bacterium to the largest of mammals are the souls themselves ( Atman, jiva) and have their physical representative (the body) in the world.

For example, Thomas Aquinas, borrowing directly from Aristotle's On the Soul, attributed 'soul' ( anima) to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. In Judaism and in some Christian denominations, only human beings have immortal souls (although immortality is disputed within Judaism and the concept of immortality may have been influenced by Plato). Present-day cognates include Dutch ziel and German Seele. The Old English word is cognate with other historical Germanic terms for the same idea, including Old Frisian sД“le, sД“l (which could also mean 'salvation', or 'solemn oath'), Gothic saiwala, Old High German sД“ula, sД“la, Old Saxon sД“ola, and Old Norse sДЃla. In King Alfred's translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae, it is used to refer to the immaterial, spiritual, or thinking aspect of a person, as contrasted with the person's physical body in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50, it means 'life' or 'animate existence'. The earliest attestations reported in the Oxford English Dictionary are from the 8th century. The Modern English noun soul is derived from Old English sДЃwol, sДЃwel. 2.16 Spirituality, New Age, and new religions.

Those who remain zombies