Download or read book When Souls Had Wings written by Terryl Givens and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion that we spring into existence ex nihilo at birth strikes many people as counter-intuitive. By contrast, the idea that we have an eternal identity appeals to some deep intuition about the self. And indeed, belief in the soul's pre-mortal existence has a long history in Western thought. Terryl Givens offers the first systematic exploration of this fascinating if generally unfamiliar feature of Western cultural history.