Souls don’t enter the Warp after death; they are always within the Warp – a deep dive into the lore, and its implications

TLDR: A look at relevant lore which conceptualizes souls as residing within the Warp while mortals are alive, how souls are anchored to their physical bodies, and how this underpins different metaphysical elements of the setting.

I thought it would be useful to pull together lots of relevant lore about a specific aspect on the metaphysics of the setting: where souls reside, and their relationship to both the mortal entities which possess souls who reside within the Materium, and to the Warp. This has turned into a rather lengthy discussion, so I have had to divide it into two parts.

For understandable reasons, there is a lot of misunderstanding about this this concept and how it works within 40k (and Warhammer more generally). The lore about such metaphysical issues is comparatively sparse and spread across lots of different sources. It is also often presented in a very ambiguous manner. Sometimes we get an in-universe perspective, which doesn’t explicitly explain the mechanisms behind what is happening. It either just shows us the effects, or we get a subjective understanding from a character. In other cases, elements of the metaphysics are touched upon, but not comprehensively so – in others, details are omitted and we only get part of the explanation, which is detailed elsewhere.

The issue is made even more complicated, because many of the underlying concepts are extremely old. While some details have changed, and some concepts have evolved, the original conceptualisations continued to inform the relevant lore later on, right up to the present. As with so much else in 40k lore, a lot of ideas are surprisingly enduring, even if the details are updated. Moreover, the very early explanations of these metaphysical issues were generally more explicit with their explanations, whereas later lore which touches upon them tends to be more implicit and mysterious. Nevertheless, the continuities in how concepts are being used are visible, if you know what to look for.

By looking over the long history of the lore, it helps to more clearly showcase the point that souls don’t enter the Warp after a mortal being dies – the soul was always within the Warp. It will also help to explain how and why this is the case. And it will showcase how this central conceptualization has persisted within the lore, but also hpw it has become less explicitly explained, and that there have been some changes and additions to the metaphysical ideas as well.

To quickly summarise: souls always reside within the Warp (unless placed into alternative "homes", more of which later), but are anchored to a mortal body in the Materium, which keeps the bundle of Warp energy which is the soul cohesive and somehow protects it from the wider Warp. Upon death, the anchor is broken, and in most cases the soul loses its coherence and fades into the wider energy streams of the Warp – or is consumed by Warp predators. The larger and stronger the soul (with psykers being the most common example of such souls), the more of a chance there is that a soul will endure within the Warp. But, in most cases, this just means the soul will attract Warp predators and be ripped apart/consumed.

So, let’s survey some relevant evidence, beginning with material back from when the concepts behind the Warp and how it functions were being developed. And, just to be clear: I am not saying that everything mentioned here is directly applicable to and still completely relevant in the current lore. Of course things have evolved. What I am pointing out, as I have done in various other posts, is that some of the foundational concepts were surprisingly enduring – far more so than a lot of fans realise. Tracing the ways in which ideas have endured and in which they have changed is interesting and instructive. It helps make the logic behind some ideas clearer, but it also reflects the way in which the creators of 40k lore themselves look back to previous lore to inform their new work.

We will start with a document which isn’t actually officially published lore, though it was produced by Games Workshop. This is a unpublished internal document written by Rick Priestley, the original developer of 40k and one of the most important architects of Warhammer, which provided an overview of the design team's basic conceptualization of the Warp and Chaos at the time. It was intended to be a resource for GW staff and freelance contributors to help them understand the key concepts. I really recommend giving it a read, and I will post a link in the replies.

And please note that, despite how many fans view Chaos as wholly distinct from the Warp (as a subset of totaly distinct destructive energies/entities/realms within it), which is again very understandable, the original developers used the terms Chaos and the Warp interchangeably. The Chaos powers (i.e. Chaos gods) and the daemons were a particular form of Warp energy within the wider Warp, but fundamentally the Warp is Chaos:

Chaos and warp space, or the warp, are the same thing. The term was used in WH40K only to dissociate the game from black, spiky warriors at a time when Chaos was often taken to mean little else.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 3.

This was reflected in the published early lore as well:

Warpspace is a random, unstructured dimension of energy and unfocused consciousness. It is Chaos, unfettered by the limits of matter and undirected by intelligent purpose. Warpspace is Chaos; Chaos is the stuff of warpspace. The two are indivisible.

Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (1988), p. 212.

And continues to be suggested in newer lore:

The warp, or the immaterium, is an abstraction made manifest by the roiling emotions of mortals. Unbound by the laws of time and space, it is a random, unstructured panorama of pure energy and unfocused consciousness, eternally shifting though endless in its potential. It is a place where ancient beings of boundless power and cruelty hold domain, and wage a constant war over the raw stuff of creation that birthed them. In this unknowable realm, titanic hosts clash, locked together in a conflict that is as old as the universe and can never be won. It is Chaos in its truest sense, unfettered by the limits of physics and undirected by intelligent purpose.

Codex: Chaos Daemons (2018), p. 6.

“Chaos” is just a useful shorthand to refer to the Chaos gods and daemons. But fundamentally everything in the Warp is all psychic energy, which is, in a sense, Chaos.

Anyway, to proceed to Rick Priestley’s treatise (with some digressions along the way):

The Relationship of Chaos and the Soul

All living creatures exist in the Chaos Universe as well as in the material universe. Most are not conscious of the fact. Whilst a man’s body inhabits the material universe his soul inhabits that of Chaos. Just as the body is part of the material universe and is made of matter, the soul is part of Chaos and is made from it.

The soul is not aware. It is simply a coherent lump of raw Chaos energy maintained whole by its anchor to the material body. It represents power, and can be drawn upon and used by wizards and psykers and unconsciously by individuals with these latent powers. All of us may draw unknowingly upon this power in moments of extremity.

The Lost Soul

When a creature dies the anchor holding its body and soul is broken. The raw material of the soul is cast adrift amongst the other raw material of Chaos. Most souls are weak and insubstantial, and soon dissolve back into Chaos and are lost forever. Because of this relationship, the universe of Chaos is sometimes called The Sea of Lost Souls or (because souls are recreated with every new birth) the Well of Souls.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 1.

We also get little diagram showcasing the anchor connecting the soul within the Warp to the mortal body, across the veil between the Materium and Immaterium. The idea of souls being cast adrift when the mortal body dies, and in more cases dissolving into the wider Warp, still remains the case.

The Drifting Soul

Other souls once deprived of their anchoring body remain substantial although still without consciousness. They retain an essence of the most deeply held emotions or thoughts that characterized them in life. Upon death the soul drifts freely until it meets and coalesces with other similarly inclined souls. Thus by an accumulation of drifting souls, greater wholes are created: coalescences of energy held together by common emotions and belief. In this way the emotions and beliefs of men affect Chaos itself. These accumulations of energy gain personality and individual character as they gain strength, eventually becoming fully aware entities. Such are the Powers of Chaos. The Star Child is a Power that has yet to be born, having not yet achieved full consciousness.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 1.

I would suggest this is one area where the lore has developed and evolved. This passage seems to suggest that the Chaos gods grow from absorbing souls with resonant emotional energies after the mortal dies, whereas later lore showcases that the gods are fed by resonant emotions being produced by souls while the mortal body still lives. Though, that idea was also evident in the earlier lore too – so the explanations were a bit discordant. I would suggest that in modern lore, it isn’t only souls full of resonant energy which end up adding to the mass of the gods within the Warp after death, but rather that resonant energy is produced by souls throughout a mortal’s life, and then any resonant energy within the soul can be hoovered up by the relevant god after the soul diffuses into the Warp after death.

The idea of specific souls which exemplify emotions and beliefs relevant to a specific Chaos god going wholesale to that god now seems to be used specifically for Chaos worshippers. For example:

When devotees of Chaos die, their souls do not fade in the warp and disappear like the spirits of others. Instead, their immortal energy is swallowed into the greatness of their gods, their souls forever bound to the eternal power of Chaos.

Codex: Chaos Daemons 8th ed. (2018), p. 7.

But what about souls which don’t just diffuse in such a manner?

The Powerful Soul

In a minority of cases a man will build a powerful soul during his lifetime. Such people are primarily wizards and psykers, or those who have these latent abilities without ever learning how to use them. Such people unconsciously manipulate the energies, drawing power from one universe to the other. They are usually accomplished and powerful in their lifetime. When they die their consciousness is transferred complete to their soul. A soul which is animated by consciousness is referred to as a spirit.

A spirit in Chaos is a fully formed human personality lacking only a material body. It can move and act in Chaos, and may lead a spiritual life amongst the other entities in that universe. Most importantly, a spirit can continue to learn, and may attempt to communicate its knowledge via the developing souls of the living.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 1.

I think we can see this idea still evident in modern lore too: but, that in the vast majority of cases, such souls will ultimately attract and be ripped apart by Warp predators.

But not, perhaps, always. Take this interesting scene, for example, where Mephiston, while crossing the Rubicon Primaris and on the verge of death, has his consciousness wander the Warp, and seemingly end up in a strange sub-realm which is linked to Baal. Indeed, Mephiston sees the apparent Warp entities of the Golden and Black Angels (entities which were evident on Baal even before humans settled there, back when ancient Xenos lived on the planet – but which are linked to the Sanguinor and the Black rage) fighting each other, but also encounters what appears to the soul of a psyker who was alive on Baal during Mephiston’s own youth, but has long since died:

'Then you must be long dead.'

‘Am I?' the man said resentfully. 'Nothing ever dies, not really. I mean yes, obviously, I am dead, but time means nothing. Physicality isn't the be all and end all.' He turned round again and shook his stall angrily. 'I tell you, it’s shit being dead. If you avoid fading away or being ripped apart by warp predators or swallowed by a god, there's just places like this, and that's if you're lucky. Nowhere. Nothing. Rubbish.'

Haley, Darkness in the Blood (2019), p. 250.

He likely managed to survive by being lucky enough to find shelter in the sub-realm within the Warp. Other sub-realms also exist. Interestingly, a sub-realm linked to Fenris also seems to exist, inhabited by the Erlking and his court. Not that this also appeared in another Guy Haley book, Wolfsbane (2018). The Realms of each of the Chaos gods (and not just the Big 4, but also places like the Forge of Souls) are also sub-realms of the Warp too, and particularly strong daemons can create their own.

Souls have also been sheltered in domains outside of the Warp itself. This is what Soulstones, Infinity Circuits and Exodite World Spirits do, and we have examples of human souls somehow managing to find sanctuary within Machine-Spirits, such as the Princeps in Titan Death (again by Haley).

Aside from sheltering in sub-realms which aren’t the domain of a Chaos god/daemon which wants to consume you or in other “homes”, powerful souls may be able to endure in other manners too. I would suggest Imperial Saints who reincarnate are an example, likely given some form of aid in the Warp by the Emperor.

And Perpetuals may be a form of soul which, for whatever reason, are (largely) immune to Warp predators while within the Warp after death, and so can therefore reincarnate either in a rematerialized version of their original body, or within a new body.

But why aren’t souls, if they are in the Warp the whole time, preyed upon by Warp predators or blasted apart by the currents of energy? The reason wasn’t explained, but it was stated that souls of mortals were protected in some manner:

The Vulnerability of the Soul

Whilst it remains anchored to a material body the integrity of the soul is in little danger from other denizens of Chaos. Souls anchored in this way remain somehow hidden from, or inaccessible to, hostile entities in Chaos.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 2.

The document also explains a bit more about the nature of the anchor between the Warp and the Materium:

People themselves act like tiny warp gates – because their own minds draw upon the power of their souls to one extent or other.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 3.

It is this which leaves psykers vulnerable, and at risk of becoming a means of Warp entities entering the Materium:

The warp and material universe are connected at specific points like the Warhammer World, but also at many more points of interface of body and soul. Souls and bodies are anchored together, the anchor links the two. So long as the soul remains anchored to the body, and hence to the material world, it retains its coherency and is in no danger of merging with other collective souls of Chaos (the Sea of Souls). A Daemon or other entity could, theoretically, find and harm a soul as described below. However, specific souls are normally impossible to find, the search is rather like trying to find a single blade of grass amongst a whole prairie of grassland.

…

“Moreover, so long as the person does not draw upon their psychic energy embodied by the soul, its tendency to attract attention will be very low. However, if a person draws upon their soul, the soul flares with a release of energy, and the energy run down the anchor into the material universe. A daemonic force, attracted by the initial flare, can follow the path of the energy as it passes along the anchor and thereby gain entrance into the material universe via the body of the individual. Normally a person capable of drawing upon their soul to this extent would be a psyker/wizard, but even ordinary individuals may do so under traumatic circumstances.

The mechanism of possession works as follows. The person draws upon their soul, sending a power surge from the soul to the body. Attracted by the flare of kindred-energy, the Daemon is drawn to the soul and along the anchor. As the energy passes into the material universe, a portion of the Daemon’s soul energy is drawn along too, and enters the person.

Priestley, ‘CHAOS: Guide to the fictional background of Chaos in GW games’ (1989), p. 3.

And this idea, though the terminology may have evolved, is largely the same in the current lore: psykers are visible within the Warp when using their powers, and this leaves them vulnerable to predation by Warp entities, which can then use them to break into the Materium. Hence why untrained psykers are such a danger.

Now, the ideas from the unpublished document surveyed above did, of course, make it into the actual published lore too, though explained in slightly different way with some other terms used (which makes sense, given one was just an internal guidance document), and, interestingly, with some elements not explained as fully and/or explicitly – which, I’d guess, was to help retain a bit of mystique.

The relationship between the Realm of Chaos and the material world is very important, for neither can exist without the other. Every flesh-and-blood creature has a simultaneous existence in both dimensions. The physical aspect lives in the material universe, but its existence creates a shadow-self in Chaos. It is from this shadow-self formed from pure energy that humans draw their mental powers such as resolve, vigour and determination. Wizards and Psykers draw their magical energy directly from this shadow-self. Some people call this shadowself the soul.

Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), p. 6.

And:

The Realm of Chaos is like an endless sea, and like a sea it is neither empty nor still. It is populated by the shadow-selves of both the living and the dead for the death of the material body does not destroy the shadow-self. Severed from its psychic link to the material body, the shadow-self drifts in the Realm of Chaos. As it does so, some of its energies are dispersed into the general flow, but the strongest and most distinctive mental traits remain. The countless shadow-selves of the dead flow together because they are mutually attracted by their common traits. Thus the shadow-selves of deceased warriors retain their most warlike traits, and flow together into a huge co-joined entity. This movement causes eddies and tides within the warp, and leads to the creations of vortices or whirlpools formed almost entirely of common traits. In the Realm of Chaos these whirlpools are called the Chaos Powers.

Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), p. 7.

The term “shadow-selves” has largely dropped out of usage, though it did still appear later:

The raw magical energy that empowers the psykers of the mortal realm is the actual fabric of the Realm of Chaos, the same fabric that makes up the Chaos Powers, their Daemon servants, and the shadow-selves of men that flicker in the Warp.

Codex: Chaos Daemons 6th ed. (2013), p. 12.

And, as I discussed above, the exact mechanism of how the gods grow in power has evolved. But there are aspects which remain evident in later lore, and, indeed, the same book also suggests it is not just souls after death which cause the gods to grow and form, but psychic energies produced from the soul while mortals remain alive, too:

The warp is an alternate universe composed entirely of psychic energy generated by the thoughts, emotions and intellectual activity of living beings. To a degree it is also generated by the life-force of even the simplest of living creatures, such as plants and small animals. The warp is the spiritual reflection of the life of the entire universe, and for this reason it is sometimes called the Sea of Souls. The warp, the Sea of Souls, and the Realm of Chaos are one and the same thing. This alternate reality is also known by many other names in countless cosmologies.

Originally the warp was filled with the natural psychic forces of animals and plants, so that its energies flowed harmoniously and fluidly, creating a unifying force that moved psychically through all living creatures. When the first intelligent races developed, their individual and extremely potent minds filled the warp with new and very powerful energies.

However, while the natural energy of the warp was harmonious, the souls of men were often troubled, obsessive, guilt ridden, or otherwise imperfect. These negative energies congregated together in the warp, drawn to each other by mutual attraction, until they formed troublesome spots of disharmony, rather like a canker on a living tree or a tumour in an animal. These disharmonious forces eventually became the Chaos Powers, psychic entities created from the fears, repressions and inadequacies of humans and other intelligent species.

Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), p. 174.

Note the part in bold, which suggests the Warp is composed of not just souls of the dead, but of reflections of life too, i.e. the souls of the living. The term Sea of Souls still gets regularly used as another name for the Warp in modern lore, as well as similar terms:

Q: Grombrindal – I have a question for you. There are four Chaos Gods in the Mortal Realms – Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. But wasn’t Slaanesh created by the aeldari in Warhammer 40,000? How does that work? Any words of wisdom?

A: Eugh, a Chaos question! I really must sort out my contract so I don’t have to answer them. Anywho… the Realm of Chaos is a mystical place that spans all of existence, stretching across dimensions and time – sometimes it’s called the Realm of Chaos, sometimes the warp, Empyrean, Immaterium, Formless Wastes, Land of Lost Souls or simply the Abyss – it’s all pretty much the same thing. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe it’s said that Slaanesh was created by the Aeldari. After his (or her) creation, Slaanesh was then free to journey across the Realm of Chaos, where he (or she) crafted a realm of pleasure and excess in which to dwell. From this point on, Slaanesh could send his (or her) minions – be they mortal or daemonic – across the Realm of Chaos, either into realspace, to the world-that was or now the Mortal Realms (and countless other places). Seeing as how similar the aelves are to the aeldari, it’s no wonder that Slaanesh took such an interest in them!

White Dwarf June 2018, p. 33.

And some interesting parts related to the old Shaman lore and the Emperor, further developing the metaphysics of the Warp and souls:

For as long as anyone could remember, when a shaman died his soul had flown into the warp and bathed in its energies, awaiting renewal in another body. Now, the souls were being lost, chased and consumed by the malignant Chaos Powers.

Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), p. 175.

And:

Released from his body, the Emperor's psychic power, his soul, was cast adrift upon the tides of the warp, to be carried on the random undercurrents and eddies of the Sea of Souls until such time as it was ready to be reborn. Although the Powers of Chaos hunted tirelesly through the warp for the Emperor's soul they could not find it. The warp is huge, and its energies dispersed and flowing. Like the shamans of ancient times, the Emperor was at one with the whole warp, so his soul melted easily into it and so remained hidden from the Chaos Powers.

Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), pp. 184-85.

So, we see the idea of powerful souls cohering but being vulnerable to Warp predators, but also that some special souls can avoid this fate.

Now, this old lore which explicitly explains some aspects of the nature of souls and their place within and relationship to the Warp has come to be stated far less explicitly in the decades since (a process we have seen with issues concerning the lore more generally, as well as with the Slann/Old One lore) – but it still provides some foundational concepts which later lore has built upon, and helps shed insight into why aspects of the lore take the form they do. And the later lore still (on the whole) conceives the souls of mortals as being situated within the Warp, but linked to mortal bodies. And this is important in explaining why certain concepts function as they do, such as daemonic possession, Enslavers, the Tyranid Shadow in the Warp etc.

But that will have to be covered in part 2!