How to spot someone with no soul: 17 obvious signs

Your soul is your humanity — it’s what makes you more than just a bundle of organs connected together by a spine and a beating heart.

It’s what gives you hope, kindness, love, and the passion to connect with the universe.

But what happens when a person loses their soul, whether parts of it or the entire thing?

What kind of person is left behind when their soul leaves their body?

We’ve all seen or met people like these, and it feels almost impossible to help them.

Here are 17 ways to tell that someone has no soul:

1) They Don’t Have Empathy

Empathy comes in varying degrees; some people feel more strongly for others to the point of being affected by other people’s misfortune.

On the other end of the scale are people who have seemingly no concept of empathy at all.

These people have difficulty navigating relationships and very often find themselves shying away from any form of emotional expression.

2) They Are Unforgiving

Hate and resentment consume the soul, and forgiveness is often the antidote for this.

Soulless people, through sheer inflexibility or stubbornness, find forgiveness to be an alien concept.

To them, holding on to a grudge and even fostering resentment seems a more reasonable choice than forgiving someone.

People start losing their souls when they let fights, spats, and misunderstandings rot otherwise healthy relationships and direct their sense of reality.

3) They’re Cynical

And not in a “Santa Claus isn’t real’ kind of way.

Cynical people will try to eek out every single ounce of positivity from any given situation.

What makes them particularly soulless is that their negativity extends beyond themselves; they let it bleed into their interactions and color the way they interact with people.

It’s not surprising that their cynicism has the unintended side effect of being a social repellent; no one wants to be around people who are negative all the time.

4) They’re Not Ambitious

Soulful people are filled with passion and ambition — it’s one of the things that connects us to the world.

Rooted in purpose, we set goals to create value and find contentment, both things that soulless people don’t find particularly interesting.

Without much regard for their inner lives, they forgo activities that help them achieve more rounded selves.

This means no interest in hobbies, passions, and certainly no life-long ambitions that drive their growth.

5) They’re Egoistical

Finding beauty in the world around you is one of the characteristics of a soulful person.

Too much focus on the inner self, to the expense of the outer world, is often a symptom of an unfulfilling, soulless life.

Without true value in their lives, people turn to the ego to fill this void.

Having difficulty in maintaining and creating relationships lends to an arrogant personality.

This feeling of disconnectedness from their environment compels soulless individuals to retreat back into the ego to protect themselves from the rest.

6) They Have Dead Eyes

There’s a popular saying that the eyes are the window to the soul, and for good reason.

Think back to the time you were talking to someone and they were excited — weren’t their eyes lit up in joy and delight?

Compare that to moments when you interacted with someone who wasn’t particularly connected with themselves or others.

This glassy, absent-minded gaze is characteristic of people who don’t have any passions, find it difficult to empathize with others, and are generally disconnected from the beauty of life.

7) They’re Overbusy

Busy doesn’t always mean fulfilling.

Too many people fall prey to becoming overbusy, that is, filling your life with activities that don’t really contribute to well-being and growth.

Even activities meant for individual cultivation like meditation could be susceptible to being overbusy.

At the end of the day, it’s not really the quantity of activities that matter.

Someone sitting in a room, being mindful of his or her feelings, can be just as much of a revealing experience as going on a silent retreat in the mountains.

8) They Avoid Deep, Consistent Conversations

Anyone can talk about their favorite movies and video games.

What can be difficult for some is getting in touch with their feelings and acknowledging the good and bad in their lives.

Constant avoidance of more substantial conversations often points to some void that people aren’t willing to address.

Daunted by trauma or fear or pain, they might consistently avoid having deeper conversations, often because they find it difficult to sustain this level of conversation and engagement.

9) They’re Manipulative

People without souls don’t see the world the same way the rest of us do. They’re very conniving.

Other people are just tools to use for their advantage, or just pawns to mess with.

Which is why they’re happy to distort reality, to lie, and do whatever they can to make other people believe in their untruths.

To them, it doesn’t matter if they get caught or not.

They just want to see what they can make people do; what kind of power they can have over others.

10) They’re Narcissistic

When you have no soul, it’s hard to really care about those around you, because you don’t see them as having souls either.

So the only person who matters to you is yourself; your goals and your intentions are all that matter.

Everyone else is just a stepping stone to help you or an obstacle to push out of the way.

This makes them major narcissists — no one matters but themselves.

You can’t ever expect any kind of kindness or care from them, because if they can’t see the humanity in themselves, how could they ever see the humanity in you?

11) They Don’t Have an Interest In Anything

Sure, they might feign some excitement and eagerness from time to time.

But at the end of the day, there’s nothing that really sparks that joy in them that the rest of us take for granted.

You can feel a kind of pity for them, knowing that nothing really makes them feel alive.

They just live day-by-day, finding little things to wake up for, because there’s nothing that really keeps them moving in society other than the fact that they have to.

12) People Don’t Really Trust Them

If you suspect that someone doesn’t have a soul, then look at the people around them — the social network, their work colleagues, even their family.

Do they have people they’re close with, or do people keep them at arm’s distance?

More often than not, it’s the latter.

But what is it about them that people don’t trust?

Aside from the tendency to lie and manipulate, people without souls just tend to give off a general strange vibe that other people can feel from a mile away.

After interacting with a person like this for too long, you just want to get away from them, because something about them just feels “off”.

13) They’re Often Alone With No Relationships

And since they can’t get anyone to trust them, this often means they usually don’t have meaningful, deep relationships either, meaning it’s more likely than not that they don’t have a significant other.

They’re difficult to get along with and even when they’re at their best, their emotional withdrawal can still leave their partner feeling unsatisfied.

But the strange thing?

Because of everything else, it doesn’t really bother them being alone.

They could be single for years without a care in the world; some of them might actually prefer it.

14) They Can’t Stand Children (and Animals)

Young children and animals aren’t like adults — they don’t have rational, logical minds, and instead interpret the world based on their gut and base feelings.

This means that young children and animals have a clearer ability to sense when people are “off” — such as when they have no souls — and they hate these people.

If you find a person who has a strong distaste for both animals and young children, then it might be because of how animals and young children react when they’re around.

That negativity has been sensed both ways, and there’s nothing they can do except avoid them.

15) They Don’t Care Much For the Arts

Music, theater, movies, paintings, and all the arts — nothing moves them. It doesn’t matter what it is, you just won’t get a reaction out of them.

They’re so emotionally numb that they can’t understand the catharsis that other people feel when they engage with amazing pieces of art.

They can understand art, the logic behind it, and what makes it good, but they can’t feel it the way the rest of us do.

They simply don’t have that capacity, as they don’t have souls to help their heart and mind connect with art.

16) They Have Nothing That Makes Them an Individual

We all have things about us that make us who we are. We have certain quirks, likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, passions — all of these help to identify our individuality, and the impression we leave on those around us.

But think about the impression you have of a soulless individual. What do you actually remember about them?

What do they talk about? What do they love? What do they do that makes you feel, “This person is alive.”

There’s nothing memorable about them, because they have nothing inside of them — there’s nothing keeping them tethered to our physical world.