Glossary entry
An enduring centre of record connected with the Permanent Personality and the experience of human life.
This entry is grounded in ordinary/public Greek lessons and is presented as source-checked provisional wording for review. It is not yet final approved teaching text.
In these teachings, a Permanent Atom is an enduring centre of record connected with the Permanent Personality. The public lessons distinguish Material, Psychical and Noetical Permanent Atoms. The Material Permanent Atom is described as etheric in nature and associated with a centre in the region of the heart, linking the material and psychical aspects of the human being and preserving the record of experience.
The lesson of 12 July 1973 compares a Permanent Atom both to a seed containing possibilities and to a book whose pages correspond to incarnations and experience. The following public lesson clarifies that the three Permanent Atoms are not the Permanent Personality itself.
Permanent Personality — continuing self-aware identity.
Present-day Personality — the current incarnational expression.
Etheric Double — related to the material body and Material Permanent Atom.
Ordinary/public Greek lessons dated 12 and 19 July 1973. The original Greek controls where later English comparison texts differ.
Source-checked provisional