Threesology Research Journal
Novum Organum Threesiarum
(New Instrument of Threes)
- page twenty two -

(The Study of Threes)

The "well worn path" mentioned previously, can be viewed metaphorically in terms of a thought, or in a more conventional sense as described by the 'forked road' notion being explored in Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. While the inferred "message" is itself a metaphor dealing with choices, it is a perspective I came to realize many years ago... was that of a youthful age and presented a two-patterned view but that I needed some measure of equivalency to describe yet a third road:


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Two roads view)

Robert Frost


-But now with age in its autumn years, 
my eyes serve to keep with foot apace
and my heart the same clear rhythm hears
this soul of mine weeps longing tears
that soon will I a new road face;

For this very one upon which traveled long,
seems twere only yesterday when all alone
from within so deep came a made-up song
that is now whistled by others without wrong
and I've no right to claim it as my own;

Since they too are as I once also was
standing affront where two roads diverged
choosing this the same only just because, 
a search for truth is a heart that greater loves
all the more so am I now urged:

Towards there that road where before me lays
its fallen leaves still with virgin dew
whispering those footprints where sunlight plays,
just beyond the bend of these youthful days-
knowing well it will make all the difference too.

(Third road view)

Herb 0. Buckland

I was working with youth many years ago (1987+) and although my title was "Youth Counselor", all the employees were actually considered to be just glorified baby sitters... like surrogate semi-parental, big brother/big sister stand-ins. The same was the case when I worked years later with Adult prisoners where my title was "Educator", but my role was merely supervisory. But while as a Youth Counselor, there was another employee with whom I worked and had accompanied him when the teenaged kids were taken to a park. As we walked, he recited Robert Frost's poem and remarked that he may have forgotten a word or two. I wasn't sure myself, but I intended to research it afterwards.

We spoke for a short while about the poem and I remarked that it no longer fit my present circumstances but provided a general description of feelings I had held many years prior with respect to decisions I had made. He nodded in agreement and the conversation then dissipated as we reached one end of the park and decided it was time to return to the housing unit. It was from this experience that I wrote the sequel a short while later. While I don't recall the man's name, I do recall he had about twelve kids and lived in a small house near the State Fair grounds. I ran into him sometime later when he was working as a security guard for (I think) an L.D.S. (Mormon) hospital. I told him I had written a sequel due to his recitation and he asked for a copy. I brought him several printed, business card sized copies.

The content of Robert Frost's poem no longer applied to the path upon which I strode nor that which I sought, thereby requiring a new version... a different perspective. Although it was written long before I reached middle age, its content with the phrase "Now with age in its autumn years" is the description that some might interpret to mean I had an "Old Soul"... while an English Teacher with whom I worked several years hence, thought the line inappropriate since I was much too young to be in my "autumn years."

She clearly did not understand the perspective from which I was peering. I thought her remark to be quite naive for someone whom I assumed had read a lot of literature; but indicated she had no real comprehension of human perception derived from experiences which were those quite obviously far in excess of her own. But like Frost's poem, his phrase also came to be replaced (or I should say "renewed") with a different perspective such that I discovered the existence of three forms of what is sometimes referred to as the "Old Soul. There were actually three variants "Soul - Old Soul - Ancient Old Soul". By using such descriptions, I came to distinguish the existence of "aura-like emanations" being exhibited by different individuals of different ages... but that not everyone exhibited the expressed subtleties thereof. These variants were a sort of adjustable tool that permitted me to detect subtleties over-looked before.

But it should be understood I am not using the phrase "aura-like emanations" to describe an actual glow as might be interpreted by a conventional usage of the word "aura", what I am describing is like cleaning one's glasses, turning on the light to a desktop microscope, adjusting a "set" of monoculars (binoculars) or holding a magnifying glass at varying distances in order to alter perception. In other words, the three categories was the discovery of a tool by which I could calibrate perceptions in and out of context.

In some instances I could visually see someone in a more ancient context as if we had both been transported back in time to another, more primitive place from which the person's "soul" had originally arisen. Even some young kids I encountered were seen in such ancient contexts. Even to someone such as myself with an active imagination, these "excursions" into different time periods and places were at first somewhat disorienting; particularly if my newly found "calibration tool" encountered several different types of old soul in the same setting. It was like a kid messing with a radio in an automobile that would change stations back and forth. Who knows what would have happened if I had brushed up against them! (And to think I can't imagine why someone would want to think of me as being as mad as an old English Hatter. HA!)

The three "Old Soul" variants provided me with a nob, a dial, a push-button sort of control in order to adjust clarification. This clarification also required a reinterpretation and evaluation of all that I had presumed about the "Old Soul" concept, much of which was steeped in superstitious nonsense. In fact, the reader doesn't have to take such a concept in a literal sense for which an entire personal religion is developed and lived by; but as a contoured digression as an internalized "conversation piece". They are metaphors which describe sometimes overt, sometimes subtle behaviors I see in people that, if isolated and encouraged to "mature" into a full expression, would indeed be a form of genius unto itself. Humanity has the capacity to go light years and centuries beyond itself, it just doesn't incorporate the necessary forms of isolation and instruction enabling such behaviors to be fully realized. Present governing and education systems short-change the public because it works on principles born from outdated philosophies.

While some think that the notion of an "Old Soul" is a wives tale or based on some inclined superstition to apply an alternative definition of attributive "specialness" to someone who might otherwise be interpreted in a negative way; there are general references which seem to suggest that there may be more to the "Old Soul" concept even if it another word or phrase would be more exacting and appropriate... since the words "Old" and "Soul" regularly evoke notions of mystique and the supernatural similar to such ideas as alchemy, music of the spheres, seance, Ouija board, goddess, etc... While some readers may prefer to see the notion of "Old Soul" used to reflect a spirit-like endowment that is either acquired, given, or earned by certain "special" (chosen) individuals, or is an as yet unrecognized genetic trait in terms of some sort of alien gene (and not necessarily extra-terrestrial in origin); we might nonetheless describe it in terms of behavior since without such an expression, the concept may not have developed in the first place.

Here's a short list of such references that may or may not be related to your personal definition of "Old Soul":

  • He's young but he acts like an old man.
  • She likes old things.
  • Your thoughts and feelings are either something futuristic, or quite old.
  • They act and dress just like a grandparent they've never seen.
  • You were born for an earlier age.
  • They march to a different drummer... how old is the drummer?
  • Why are you so interested in ancient history?
  • He's always liked older women.
  • She's always hanging around older guys.
  • They went to live in a commune... it reminds me of an earlier era.
  • They're obsessed with time.
  • Why do you have so many clocks?
  • How come you like to read old books?
  • Where did you hear that word at?
  • That's a very old expression.
  • He was born like that because his grandmother experienced famine in World War II.
  • You act like you were born in a wilderness.
  • Like days of old when Greeks heard gods, he too hears voices.
  • Are you sure that their cussing isn't an old language put into a present day context... and they aren't cussing but attempting to recite an old language? (Look past what is being said, in that they are, from this perspective: irrelevant, and view it as "recital" of an old or ancient behavior.)
  • She's like a walking, talking encyclopedia.
  • Do we call that particular individual's activity of painting on walls an act of vandalism, or some ancient primivity that society hasn't recognized or learned how to focus more appropriately?
  • Why do you keep wearing old clothes?
  • How come you act like you're one hundred years old?
  • She likes working with the geriatric's crowd.
  • It's as if they're somebody more suited to the Middle Ages.
  • It seems natural and right to spell some words like they did in the past.
  • Do they wear sandals because they're comfortable, or because they did in the past?
  • How come you listen to old music?
  • Is listening to symphony music of old a mark of sophistication or of an ancient mentality?
  • In youth, he once told a doctor he was 900 years old. He honestly believed it because it accounted for his quickly understanding ancient ideas. When asked to repeat what he said to him in private in the presence of another, he told them the age they expected to hear or else they would have thought him crazy.
  • She thinks she has lived other life times.
  • She dabbles in pagan ideas not because she necessarily believes in them, but it is a means by which she may be able to find a previous path she had been on. The old ideas are merely sign posts, not the destination.
  • All the modern advances today look like antiques.
  • They used to do that in the olden days.
  • I feel like I married a grandmother and you're not even thirty yet.
  • That's an old Wives tale.
  • She acts like a grownup and she's only five years old.
  • All you think of is the military, as if there is no other sport in existence.
  • You're, like those in ancient history, war is the only game in town.
  • In the movie Patton, he claimed to have been on an ancient battle field.
  • He's a throwback to an earlier age.
  • She acts old, but she thinks old people act like little kids.
  • He's not an Old Soul, he's just a Neanderthal.
  • Does a person's identification with a character in a story of old (like girls and fairytales), give evidence of a former life... even a former made-up life?
  • ETC...

There are many other references. Yet, in terms of analysis, one must also consider that the "Old Soul" may mutate over time, both individually and perhaps even collectively. And we must also distinguish between those with an old soul and those who claim to be reincarnated... such that: Though that one may feel they have experienced a rebirth from an earlier age, does not necessarily mean a person has an "Old Soul". Clearly, someone that is old does not automatically constitute them as having an 'old soul', unless one is to simply attach the words "old" and "soul" as being related solely to age for the former and some indistinctly defined character, such as "spirituality", to the latter. For example, long before someone has begun to functionally deteriorate on an appreciable level as might constitute senility, they might well exhibit the mentality of an earlier age. The notion that one can be 50 years of age going on 15 is a remark highlighting not only an immaturity (based on what has been described as "age appropriate criteria")' but a rationality that is out of context to what most fifty year-olds exhibit in a given context.

We must also wonder how many of those entering into a psychiatric setting, or as an out-patient, are a jumbled-up mess because of an over-riding "Old Soul" 'personality' emerging in a context where such behavior and accompanying ideas are misunderstood? For example, mental impressions of oneself that causes one to "drift" to another "plane" of consciousness may be memories of a former age that were experienced in one way or another by the individual. This is not to say they were experienced by the person as they are... in thinking they are several hundred or thousand years old, but that the experience(s) is being channeled through them. I won't begin to speculate why. However, it must be said that such an excursion into this way of thinking is not conventional.

Most references to the concept "Old Soul" are particularly vague and subjective. The concept does not have a consensus of opinion placed into any literary context such as a dictionary, even if it is viewed as a source of "fringe" ideas accumulated into an encyclopedia dedicated to the occult. For some, this may be the first they have encountered a discussion about it. Others may have heard it spoken of, but it largely remained in the sphere of an implied definition by one or more who recited personal feelings about it. Hence, it carries over from one generation to the next, as a vaguely referenced topic denoting personalized interpretations of behavior and an overall behavioral dimension related to a person's exhibition of characteristics which are out of context for their age, and may be further defined as suggesting an underlying wisdom; with the word "wisdom" likewise being defined just as subjectively as "Old Soul".

Try this idea out for yourself. Simply ask different people under different contexts if they have ever heard of the Old Soul. Some will say no. For those saying yes, ask them what it means. If they try to get you to define it for them, simply say you don't know and was trying to find out what it meant because you overheard it said someplace...

And yet, the concept persists. It may have also existed in the past with other labels being used according to the language in use in a given culture. It may also be more widely used than many people consider, having been re-labeled or called something with a person's made-up original description. Then again, it may have surfaced in a law, theory, or some everyday taken-for-granted expression but is obscured as is so many old ideas with modernized linguistic and social garments. It may have existed prior to the evolution of primates. Perhaps, it may exist is some biological substrate, albeit in a dormant form for most people. Perhaps other life forms have their own "old soul" variations as well. While such conjectures are highly speculative, suggesting a fanciful imaginativeness, a clearer distinction of what is meant by the "Old Soul" concept that would be better understood with a different label or symbolism, might well be grasped if we approached this subjectivity from an objective perspective. But just because we indulge ourselves into devising what we might think is a scientific approach, does not mean we are right or that the existence of an idea is made more real, honest, and true. Our so-called scientific approach may well be our own brand of Alchemy.

I mention the foregoing because some may wish to claim my interest in researching the "threes phenomena" is my own flavor of Alchemy, like many who indulge in their version of Astrology, Tarot card reading, etc... I am not putting the "threes phenomena" on a pedestal, I simply use it as a lookout pole as one does when they shinny up a tall tree. The numerous "threes" examples are like tree rings laid end to end upon which I can stand in order to take a look around to see where I am at in the jungle of so many ideas. The very many ideas in existence act as a dense forest through which conventional hacking away at with a machete' can often times resort in standing still since the foliage grows very fast. As such, the growing list of threes examples can be viewed as tree rings. Reading what the individual tree rings mean in terms of their relationship to one another and non- similar ring types, is an art and science being developed. Yet, this is only one analogy. There are others which might be used.

Additionally, is the "Old Soul" concept more 'inclined' to show up in the female psyche as opposed to the male psyche... since some seem to think the female mind is predisposed to a closer reflection of ages-old ideas frequently denoted as superstitions, the supernatural, and the elusive "ephemeralities" of consciousness? Is the female psyche older? Is it particularly adept at perceiving "subtle energies" or deciphering discordant patterns that remain veiled or unapproachable by the male psyche? But there is something else along this same line of conjecturing about the adeptness or inclinations of the female psyche. For example, did young girls of the distant past have a different type of "Cinderella story" before the story of Cinderella was made up? Is it the written expression of an "Old Soul"? How many of the old stories reflect an expressed form of the "Old Soul" or its concept?

And I'm not talking about rendering fairy tales into some conventionalized psycho-babble related to Freudian-focused sexuality or some readjusted Jungian family-individualized or species-collective Archetype. While we can note these mundane references as part of a comprehensive examination, we don't have to subdue our own suppositions towards a humbled acceptance without further considerations along roads not taken or even realized as existing. It could be that the symbolic nature of stories might well indicate something other than some anthropo-genderized or anthropocentric-refracted inferences through the mediums of culture, language, and physiology cast into reflections contoured appropriately for a given era.

For example, conventionally speaking, the story of Rumplestiltskin expresses three different generations of ages, with the baby, the young woman, and the old man. Without knowing the originator of the story, we can only guess at their intent, and what experiences in their life may have contributed to originating or re-telling an older story with or without embellishments. However, the story does give an indication of its age by the idea represented in the woman being given three tries to guess his name. That is, in the "Olden days", a person was though to have power over another by knowing their name, just as we have "power" over that which we can name or articulate. On the other hand, the three stages of life may refer to an underlying biological evolution. And this sequencing of evolution could be related to a step-wise function having occurred with all developmental life forms. In short, while some are interpreting events according to a human-specific realm, it may in fact be representative of a more basic structure.

The idea of having power over someone by knowing their name is uniquely represented in the Islamic idea that God (Allah) is unnameable, or else man would have power over God... and this mentality is further "exhuberated" by holding the notion that neither God or Mohammed's image can be portrayed, since a portrayal would lead to having further power over them; which is similar to the idea of primitives who thought a picture represented the capture of a person's soul. Evidently, primitives didn't see their reflection very often, or that a "lifeless" reflection in a picture meant the person's soul was immobilized... unlike a "moving" reflection in a body of water or image that "disappeared" with the person as a shiny piece of metal was removed from their eyesight and did not remain with the object.

Let's try another example: If the seven dwarfs, collectively, don't reflect a very ancient age in the story of Snow White, we must assume they are all bachelors but that there are female dwarfs to bear children... unless they're actually aliens who were born in test-tubes. Besides, there are three different generations of people in the story, unless the seven dwarfs are the same age as the Queen, either as a middle aged woman, or a very ancient woman when she changes into a crone. And let us not forget the young prince who may or may not be the same age as Snow White, and the woodsman who might be middle-aged as well... though middle age in past eras actually meant old age due to poor health care, bad hygiene and lousy nutrition. Yet, we are once again faced with a situation of whether to interpret the story in a purely human dimension, or permit ourselves to see symbolic representations of other fundamental characteristics that may not be centered on human activity.

I want to briefly make mention of the "poison apple" segment of the Snow White drama, without going into too much depth. The usage of the 'poison apple' reference, if not a carry-over from the "forbidden fruit" of biblical usage, may be a tell-tale sign that eating an apple is an unwelcomed experience. I have multiple first hand accounts because I've found over the years that if I should eat even a slice of an apple or some apple sauce prior to going to bed, I have very vivid dreams that some might want to describe as hallucinations... depending on their sensibilities. The vividness of the dreams may be an illusion to a presumed poison and can also be referenced as a frightening journey into the realm of death or the "knowledge" gained by taking a bite. While we of today have amassed some insight into the occasion by which the mind can be stirred while under the influence of some narcotic, uneducated and superstitious minds in the ancient past may have been particularly unsettled by experiencing disconcerted mental images... which were largely misinterpreted and labeled according to the "wisdom" of the elders who may or may not have ulterior motives for "diagnosing" the circumstances in a favorable or unfavorable way.

For a third example; In the story of Goldilocks there also is three different generations, consisting of the young bear, goldilocks, and the parents. (I was always given the impression that the young bear was younger than Goldilocks.) In various other stories we find different generations of people which may be a symbolic representation of the three variations of the old soul concept. This of course is but a supposition, with no factual evidence to support it. Nonetheless, it is a story (and forked trail) unto itself which may also express the occasional emergence of three divisions of social stratification, much in the manner that Georges Dumezil's "Tripartite Ideology of Indo-European peoples" does.

The "threes path" which I had stumbled on (because, frankly, I got lost), was like letting someone with a sweet tooth, loose in a candy store. Whereas I could lock the door and keep all of you out, I have decided to let in those who know the secret password... I'll give you three guesses. Here's a poem that sort of summarizes a bit of the foregoing:

Threes As Breadcrumbs?

I've often wondered during many a musing
about this collection of threes still growing
is it a plant, a tree, something of my choosing,
or breadcrumbs along a path unknowing?

And like some starving waif searching about
stuffing my pockets with a child's intimations
...numerically rationalized superficial correlations,
used as imagined delicacies to fill my mouth?

Is to repeat the three but a type of rhyme
like notes in succession are much the better
and pursuit thereof is its own design,
because words of a feather flock together?

Who or what has laid such a trail to follow
unless I, in collecting, drop a few behind,
that another perchance's to taste and swallow,
and they, like me, ask these questions of kind?

Yet why, like myself, do they too begin to see
gathering this and that as a curious thing
getting ever-more attached to the phenomena of three,
wondering if it has some greater meaning?

...With its purpose perhaps an end in itself
becoming an accepted narcotic like every religion
or as the stock-market business is irrationally dealt,
unless it is bound for a different direction?

While it could be treated as the other two
there is a third trail leading elsewhere away
if only we remain steadfast and true,
perhaps it will choose us as we've chosen it today.

The idea of the bread-crumbs poem was thought of during a morning walk about 6:30 A.M. Monday, June 9th, 2003

For example, truth established by way of a syllogistic enterprise does not yield an ability to grasp, much less detect or devise "THE" greatest truth. Likewise, just because someone devises a diagram of logic which appears to be unassailable, this activity is more in line with the child's game of playing "king of the hill"; a game in which someone stands atop an actual dirt or grassy mound or some sort of edifice (intellectual, emotional or physical), and others try to knock them off and then become the king for which others try to "dethrone". Many intellectual, emotional, and physical enterprises come to be fashioned in this way, either intentionally or unknowingly. Previous believed in religions and other types of philosophies amount to little more than this type of game that were subsequently supplanted by present day perspectives... which, quite possibly, will become deposed.

Similarly, other ideas are likely based on different game models played in childhood such as chase, tag, hide-n-seek, etc... Even those which accumulate large followings and establish hierarchies of professionals and variegated testing methodologies which cost billions of dollars... such as the firefly chasing game played by many physicists seeking some elusive particle based on some theory supported by various mathematical and even experimental arguments. For example, in my youth a "serious" game of hide-n-seek (or its variation called Go-sheepy-Go in which the "caught players" became assistant chasers); would have dozens of players from several neighborhoods closely linked neighborhoods and would last several hours.

Some kids were never found or never caught because the boundaries may have been a mile or so in all directions from the starting point. Some kids didn't try to hide very well either because they got easily tired or were mad because their views weren't listened to. And of course the younger kids were easily tagged or found. Some just wanted to participate with the "authoritative" big kids, while others because they held some affection for some member of the opposite sex (though the topic of sex never entered into any conversation). And still others just wanted an excuse to get out of their house in the evening (none of us owned a T.V.). We always had those who wanted to be in charge, providing suitable "reasons" for this and that or something else in order that the game to be played "in the right way"; and those who simply went along with whatever the majority agreed with. In short, many of these same events (albeit quite elaborated), take place in the adult word of "serious games" as well, even though other analogies could be used.

Initial Posting Date: Monday, June 10, 2019... 7:00 AM

Your Questions, Comments or Additional Information are welcomed:
Herb O. Buckland