Your soul is your innermost being, your higher self, who you really are. And according to the Michael teachings, your soul will have one of seven distinct ‘vibrations’ or ‘tones’.
Contents
The Spectrum of Essence
When we cast light through a prism, it comes out in the form of a spectrum which we perceive as the seven colours of the rainbow. Similarly, when the Source of all being (God, the Tao, the Absolute, whatever you like to call it) casts its consciousness into the relative world, it comes out in the form of individual souls of seven types: 
What are the roles?
The word “role” refers to the fact that we each serve a particular type of function in the great scheme of things. We are all parts of a greater whole—the evolving consciousness of all-that-is.
Think of how every cell in your body is designed to play a specific role or function. And, although there are trillions of cells in the human body, there are only a few different types of cell.
Or think about all the stars in the cosmos. Although their number is so high as to be virtually infinite, scientists classify them all into just seven types, from hottest (type O) to coolest (type M).
Similarly, there are only seven types of soul. Which is to say, there are seven primary ‘roles in essence’ — seven ways in which the One becomes the many.
The names given to the seven soul types in the Michael Teachings are deliberately archetypal — hence somewhat old-fashioned sounding and not necessarily politically correct. The names are:
SERVER | ARTISAN | WARRIOR | SCHOLAR | SAGE | PRIEST | KING
The names reflect the natural purpose and proclivities of each soul type:
- Servers are naturally accommodating, caring, nurturing, hospitable, charitable.
- Artisans are naturally creative, inventive, imaginative, playful, decorative.
- Warriors are naturally forceful, loyal, protective, determined, steadfast.
- Scholars are naturally curious, studious, academic, analytical, neutral.
- Sages are naturally engaging, articulate, charming, entertaining, expressive.
- Priests are naturally inspirational, uplifting, motivating, energising, visionary.
- Kings are naturally commanding, assured, powerful, authoritative, decisive.
You are one of these. I am one of these [a Scholar, to be exact]. Everybody is one or another of these. All the 7 billion souls who are currently on the planet, plus all those who are currently are off-planet between lives, can be identified as one of these seven types.
Incidentally, you can often (but not always) tell someone’s soul type from their facial features. I have a separate article on this: The seven soul types: what do they look like?
(Feel free to look at that now, but do come back here to learn a lot more about the nature of the seven types!)
The Proportions of Soul Types
The seven roles make up different proportions of the overall population. In percentage terms:
Servers = 25%- Artisans = 21%
- Warriors = 18%
- Scholars = 14%
- Sages = 11%
- Priests = 7%
- Kings = 4%
So, one quarter of the entire population is made up of Servers, while there are fewer Kings than any other type.
To illustrate this, think of a school class with 28 students. According to these figures, those students would probably be made up of the following: — one King, two Priests, three Sages, four Scholars, five Warriors, six Artisans and seven Servers.
Now here are some further explanations about the roles in essence.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The Nature of the Roles
- Roles are not assigned to us or imposed on us. They are who we are.
- There is no hierarchy. All roles are equal in value, and all souls are equally free. A King is in no way “higher up” or “better off” than a Server. The roles are simply seven different ways of being, seven ways of playing the game of life.
- A person’s soul type has no bearing whatsoever on that person’s station in life. A King soul will live just as many ordinary, hard-working lives as a Server. A Server has just as much opportunity to become a world leader as any King. In fact, the present monarch in the UK is a Server, as is the Dalai Lama and former US President Jimmy Carter.
- The roles are certainly not be confused with the Hindu caste system. There are similarities in the names used, but this is simply because the caste system is a tragic misrepresentation of the nature of the roles. Ancestral lineage and class heritage are human affairs that have nothing to do with actual soul types.
- Despite the labels used, no gender is implied. Souls have no gender. They simply choose between one or the other for each life to come. There are preferences, however. Priests, Sages, Artisans and especially Servers generally enjoy being female and often prefer it. Kings, along with Scholars and Warriors, tend to favour being male. (That said, the challenge of being female and the fight for equal rights can be very attractive to a Warrior.)
- Our soul type is often evident in the first years of life but then becomes masked to some extent by false self or false personality. This consists of cultural programming, ego, persona and so on — the superficial identity we all develop which has nothing to do with who we really are.
- Usually, it is not until mid-life that much of this false identity is broken through and our true essence comes to express itself more clearly. For example, a female Warrior in her late 30s who has so far been a stay-at-home housewife might suddenly find her true calling as a political activist. A male Artisan who has followed in his father’s footsteps in the armed forces might have a mid-life crisis and decide to become a poet.
- Whereas our soul type is permanent, everything else can change from one life to the next: race, nationality, religion, gender, social standing, profession. But the essence and consciousness will be consistent. For example, a certain Artisan soul might incarnate as a woodworker in one life, a choirboy in the next, then a housewife, then a wealthy wine merchant, then a child prostitute, then a female shopkeeper … and so on. Throughout all these human lives, however, the Artisan will still be innately creative and inventive, seeking to bring their fresh and original perceptions into being.
- I am often asked if it is possible to identify with more than one role. In fact, it is almost impossible not to. Here’s why: Casting — your soul’s place in the cosmos (and how it affects your soul type).
Our role in essence is our true nature, the part we each play in the cosmos. And, as the Michael teachings remind us:
NO MATTER WHAT THE ROLE OF ESSENCE, THE ESSENCE ITSELF IS COMPOSED WHOLLY OF LOVE.
Complementary opposites
Another interesting thing about the seven soul types…
Six of the seven soul types actually belong in pairs. Those in a pair share a similar function or specialism in life:
- Priests and Servers are both inspiration specialists, concerned with the well-being of others, serving the greater good, seeking to improve the quality of life for all.
- Sages and Artisans are both expression specialists, concerned with bringing ideas to life, giving form or voice to their inner thoughts and feelings, thereby changing others’ perceptions.
- Kings and Warriors are both action specialists, concerned with turning practical objectives into reality, making things happen, setting goals and moving towards them.
Scholars stand alone as the neutral role, and they are the assimilation specialists, absorbing knowledge from life. 
In each of the pairs (action, expression and inspiration), one is “cardinal” and the other is “ordinal“. Another way to put this is in terms of yin and yang.
The cardinal of the pair is yang: proactive, expansive, foreground, driven, and with a big-picture focus. The ordinal of the pair is yin, the equal-but-opposite complementary energy to yang: reactive, responsive, background, introspective, and with a detail-level focus.
- In the action-type roles, the King role is cardinal and the Warrior role is ordinal. To use a simplistic analogy, Kings embark on wars while Warriors fight battles.
- In the expression-type roles, the Sage role is cardinal and the Artisan role is ordinal. If all the world’s a stage, Sages are the witty and eloquent presenters of the show, while the show itself is crafted by clever and imaginative Artisans.
- In the inspiration-type roles, the Priest is the cardinal role and the Server is the ordinal role. If inspiration is likened to shepherding, Priests watch over their flock and lead them on to better pastures, while Servers look out for and tend to those in need.
The Scholar role is neither cardinal nor ordinal, but at the intersection of all the pairs. The Scholar is the only neutral type, the role being assimilation — absorbing information from life to create knowledge. At the risk of mixing too many metaphors at once, Scholars would be the ones who chronicle wars, record stage shows, and study sheep!
Positive and Negative
It is important to understand that we can manifest our potential in different ways. In the extremes, each role has a positive pole (+) and a negative pole (–).
- The positive pole represents the highest, most authentic and positive expession of the soul, the true self, which is a source of love, truth and freedom.
- The negative pole represents the lowest, most distorted and negative expession of the ego, the false self, which is a source of fear, illusion and malice.
For example, my being a Scholar means that I am the sort of soul whose role in life is to take information from the raw data of reality. Scholar has as its positive pole “knowledge” and as its negative pole “theory”. When acting in my positive pole, I do indeed serve a positive purpose by collecting and offering valid, useful knowledge. But when acting in my negative pole, I tend to get side-tracked by invalid or useless theories of no interest to anyone but me, and then only because my ego gets off on knowing more and more things rather than interacting with real life. You could say that the positive manifestation of a Scholar is being a knowledgeable expert and the negative manifestation is being a tedious know-all (…sigh).
So, the positive pole of any role leads towards true fulfilment of self and is of value to others. The negative pole leads to emptiness, frustration, conflict and alienation. Here they are in full:
| ROLE | POSITIVE POLE | NEGATIVE POLE |
| Server | service (serving the common good) | servitude (loss of own power) |
| Artisan | creation (bringing good ideas to life) | artifice (ideas used to deceive) |
| Warrior | persuasion (influencing others’ will) | coercion (imposing own will) |
| Scholar | knowledge (learning from life) | theory (lost in abstractions) |
| Sage | communication (delivering messages) | verbosity (stuck on transmission) |
| Priest | motivation (inspiring others to change up) | zealotry (overly fanatical) |
| King | mastery (absolute responsibility) | tyranny (absolute power) |
Relationships and Roles
Interestingly, the different roles do relationhips in subtly different ways.
- For Warriors and Kings (action type), relationships are a matter of fealty or loyalty.
- For Sages and Artisans (expression type), relationships are a matter of commitment.
- For Priests and Servers (inspiration type), relationships are a matter of dedication.
- For Scholars (assimilation type), relationships are a matter of involvement.
Channels of Input
We process our experiences through one or more channels of perceptual input. The number of channels we possess varies, depending upon our role in essence.
- Scholars, Kings and Warriors receive information through just one channel. This allows them to focus on what’s what, concentrate on the matter at hand, and think clearly amid chaos.
- Priests and Servers receive information through two channels. One is tuned to the immediate situation, and the other is tuned to, in the case of Priests, their sense of the “higher good”, and in the case of Servers, a sense of the “common good”. Hence, there is often a moral or ethical overtone to their conversations.
- Sages process information through three channels, while Artisans have five channels. With Sages, one channel is tuned to the immediate situation, one is managing their “act” or “performance”, and one is monitoring their audience. With Artisans, it is more a case of having multiple “back burners” making creative connections around the immediate situation.
While they are shifting their attention between their multiple channels, Sages and especially Artisans can appear to “tune out” the person they are communicating with. This makes Artisans in particular seem somewhat scattered, at least to non-Artisans. By the same token, those with multiple channels can find it difficult to accept the single-mindedness of Scholars, Kings and Warriors.
Read On
OK, you have the background. Now perhaps you want to know more specifically about each of the seven roles in essence. If you want a quick sense of what they all look like, based on photos of some famous examples in each case, see:
If you want to read a fuller, more-in-depth description of each one (with more photos), click below. Enjoy!
SERVER | ARTISAN | WARRIOR | SCHOLAR | SAGE | PRIEST | KING
Book: 7 Personality Types
For a great book about the seven soul types, I recommend 7 Personality Types by Elizabeth Puttick PhD (Hay House, 2009).The book discusses the seven roles as seven archetypes. It begins with a questionnaire to help the reader identify their own type. There then follows a chapter on each of the types which includes lots of useful information on how they characteristically operate at home, at work and in relationships. Examples are also given of how the archetype has been portrayed in myth, fiction and film, and each chapter ends with a list of famous real-life examples. See 7 Personality Types at Amazon.com