Call it a hunch, but both free will and choice go a long way in RJ's book. Yes, there are ways to loose your Soul forcefully, but my educated guess is that those aren't lost forever. (Unless Shai'tan does break free ofcourse, but I guess it won't matter one bit then, since I'm betting my left kidney almost all Souls will be kaputtttt).

Of all the (fairly regular) mentioned ways to loose your Soul, I think choosing to become a Soulless is the closest thing to actually losing a Soul. (hats off to Gher for mentioning it)
Those Souls are given to Shai'tan and are lost untill Shai'tan is bound by the Pattern as was intended by the Creator, leaving Him powerless once more and without anything, so not even a single Soul.

All the others look like a temporary thing to me.

1; Draghkar just drain the Soul from the living. There's no telling where it goes, but I'd say 'Soulpool'.

2; The special powers that Myrddraal-blades have due to adding a human Soul run out after a while and it stands to reason those Souls are freed then, not destroyed permanently.

3; A mind-trap does just that; it traps a mind by imprisoning Body & Soul. I doubt Souls are harmed, because -again- innocent people can be mind-trapped by Shai'tan (per Moghediens thoughts) and I seriously doubt RJ would have conjured it up this way. When I envision a Mind-trap, I envission what Lews Therin did to himself. He killed himself and trapped his own living mind.
Now that his Soul is respun into the Pattern and the Body has matured and can channel, Lews Therin his mind got the Mind-trap ride of his life (untill Rand finally allowed him in on Dragonmount).
I'm rambling off topic here, but to get back on track, I don't think that Mind-trapping has serious (let alone permanent) damage to a Soul.

4; Again, I think it's one of RJ's themes that "Shai'tan can only truly hurt you, if you let Him. I know it's a bit hard to fathom, but all Shai'tans power comes from people somehow 'giving' it to Him. By believing in Him, by believing what he represents. By weakness, like greed, hate.
The DO merely wanting to destroy your Soul, I think isn't enough. It's giving up yourself and letting Him take it is more like it. Again... just a hunch.

5; Mashadar is like a temporary very very bad Soul-pool. *shudders*


6; Like I said in the title; the most obvious one and most important one is Elan Morin's Soul!

If there is one sure way to destroy everything you were, it is by willingly giving yourself utterly to Shai'tan, the dark counterpart of Creation. A sure way to Betray all Hope of salvation and rebirth (of your Soul).

It's the one man we know who 'was all logic' (and thus no emotion) even before the Bore! It's the one thread in the Pattern we know off that dedicated himself to Shai'tans cause so so so very deep, that even during the War of Shadows he was refered to as the Soul of the Shadow, the Soul of Shadow. (*kisses Verin for reading & Rosel of Essam for writing it*.)

I think it was always there; Elan Morins Soul of Shadow; the ingredients that grew into a man that wrote his influential books about the Meaningless of Everything and thereby giving Shai'tan influence and a Power to be felt beyond the weak spot in the Pattern. The same weak-spot where Elan Morins shadowed Soul was bound to the Soul of the Dragon and where they were spun into the Pattern.

I think the Creator -at the moment of Creation- knew He had to bind 'Evil/ Nothingness' somewhere to Creation. A flyspeck of Nothingness, -the mere Shadow of a Soul- to define what Creation was (there is no Light without Shadow to define it).
And the Creator did the best thing he could do to give Creation it's best chance of facing it; he bound Nothingness -the Shadow- to the strongest Soul he could Create. The Soul at the Heart of Creation. The Soul of the World. The Soul of the Dragon, that is tied to all life.

"Tel Amon" (Worlds Soul/Heart) binds the Ba'alzamon (Shadows Soul/ Dark Heart) to itself each Last Battle, or Creation ends.

Each turning the Soul of Shadow is given flesh when the Dragon is spun out into the world (probably when the number off Souls spun out into the Pattern reach a certain number). Each turning that person willingly gives himself away by free choice and betrays all hope.
And each Tarmon Gai'don the Dragon has to make his own choice -hoping for salvation and rebirth- to make that leap of Faith into the Pit of Doom, dragging the creature that has become Nae'Bliss with him. Falling into Nothingness dragging all Evil -in him and with him- along.

*notices all the blank stares*
Oh.. sorry. I got carried aaway.. again.

Hee hee,
Cheerioooow,
Mik -Soulless and mostly harmless-