From: "Steve Wingate" 
Subject: [illusions] Soul Substance
Date: 24 Feb 1999 22:56:32 -0500
To: IUFO , Illusions 


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Soul Substance   

American Medicine  

April, 1907  

Hypothesis Concerning Soul Substance Together with Experimental 
Evidence of The Existence of Such Substance  

by Duncan MacDougall, M.D.  
of Haverhill, Mass.  

If personal continuity after the event of bodily death is a fact, if the psychic 
functions continue to exist as a separate individually or personality after the 
death of brain and body, then such personality can only exit as a space 
occupying body, unless the relations between space objective and space 
notions in our consciousness, established in our consciousness by heredity 
and experience, are entirely wiped out at death and a new set of relations 
between space and consciousness suddenly established in the continuing 
personality. This would be an unimaginable breach in the continuity of 
nature.  

It is unthinkable that personality and consciousness continuing personal 
identity should exist, and have being, and yet not occupy space. It is 
impossible to represent in thought that which is not space-occupying, as 
having personality; for that would be equivalent to thinking that nothing had 
become or was something, that emptiness had personality, that space 
itself was more than space, all of which are contradictions and absurd.  

Since therefore it is necessary to the continuance of conscious life and 
personal identity after death, that they must have for a basis that which is 
space-occupying, or substance, the question arises has this substance 
weight, is it ponderable?  

The essential thing is that there must be a substance as the basis of 
continuing personal identity and consciousness, for without space-
occupying substance, personality or a continuing conscious ego after 
bodily death is unthinkable.  

According to the latest conception of science, substance, or space-
occupying material, is divisible into that which is gravitative, solids, liquids, 
gases, all having weight, and the ether which is nongravitative. It seemed 
impossible to me that the soul substance could consist of the ether. If the 
conception is true that ether is continuous and not to be conceived of as 
existing or capable of existing in separate masses, we have here the most 
solid ground for believing that the soul substance we are seeking is not 
ether, because one of the very first attributes of personal identity is the 
quality of separateness. Nothing is more borne in upon consciousness, 
than that the ego is detached and separate from all things else - the 
nonego.  

We are therefore driven back upon the assumption that the soul substance 
so necessary to the conception of continuing personal identity, after the 
death of this material body, must still be a form of gravitative matter, or 
perhaps a middle form of substance neither gravitative matter or ether, not 
capable of being weighed, and yet not identical with ether. Since however 
the substance considered in our hypothesis is linked organically with the 
body until death takes place, it appears to me more reasonable to think 
that it must be some form of gravitative matter, and therefore capable of 
being detected at death by weighing a human being in the act of death.  

My first subject was a man dying of tuberculosis. It seemed to me best to 
select a patient dying with a disease that produces great exhaustion, the 
death occurring with little or no muscular movement, because in such a 
case the beam could be kept more perfectly at balance and any loss 
occurring readily noted.  

The patient was under observation for three hours and forty minutes before 
death, lying on a bed arranged on a light framework built upon very 
delicately balanced platform beam scales.  

The patient's comfort was looked after in every way, although he was 
practically moribund when placed upon the bed. He lost weight slowly at the 
rate of one ounce per hour due to evaporation of moisture in respiration 
and evaporation of sweat.  

During all three hours and forty minutes I kept the beam end slightly above 
balance near the upper limiting bar in order to make the test more decisive 
if it should come.  

At the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired and suddenly 
coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting 
against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The 
loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce.  

This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of respiratory moisture 
and sweat, because that had already been determined to go on, in his 
case, at the rate of one sixtieth of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss 
was sudden and large, three-fourths of an ounce in a few seconds.  

The bowels did not move; if they had moved the weight would still have 
remained upon the bed except for a slow loss by the evaporation of 
moisture depending, of course, upon the fluidity of the feces. The bladder 
evacuated one or two drams of urine. This remained upon the bed and 
could only have influenced the weight by slow gradual evaporation and 
therefore in no way could account for the sudden loss.  

There remained but one more channel of loss to explore, the expiration of 
all but the residual air in the lungs. Getting upon the bed myself, my 
colleague put the beam at actual balance. Inspiration and expiration of air 
as forcibly as possible by me had no effect upon the beam. My colleague 
got upon the bed and I placed the beam at balance. Forcible inspiration 
and expiration of air on his part had no effect. In this case we certainly have 
an inexplicable loss of weight of three-fourths of an ounce. Is it the soul 
substance? How other shall we explain it?  

My second patient was a man moribund from tuberculosis. He was on the 
bed about four hours and fifteen minutes under observation before death. 
The first four hours he lost weight at the rate of three-fourths of an ounce per 
hour. He had much slower respiration than the first case, which accounted 
for the difference in loss of weight from evaporation of perspiration and 
respiratory moisture.  

The last fifteen minutes he had ceased to breathe but his facial muscles still 
moved convulsively, and then, coinciding with the last movement of the 
facial muscles, the beam dropped. The weight lost was found to be half an 
ounce. Then my colleague auscultated the heart and and found it stopped. I 
tried again and the loss was one ounce and a half and fifty grains. In the 
eighteen minutes that lapsed between the time he ceased breathing until 
we were certain of death, there was a weight loss of one and a half ounces 
and fifty grains compared with a loss of three ounces during a period of 
four hours, during which time the ordinary channels of loss were at work. No 
bowel movement took place. The bladder moved but the urine remained 
upon the bed and could not have evaporated enough through the thick bed 
clothing to have influenced the result.  

The beam at the end of eighteen minutes of doubt was placed again with 
the end in slight contact with the upper bar and watched for forty minutes 
but no further loss took place.  

My scales were sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce. If placed at balance 
one-tenth of an ounce would lift the beam up close to the upper limiting bar, 
another one-tenth ounce would bring it up and keep it in direct contact, then 
if the two-tenths were removed the beam would drop to the lower bar and 
then slowly oscillate till balance was reached again.  

This patient was of a totally different temperament from the first, his death 
was very gradual, so that we had great doubts from the ordinary evidence 
to say just what moment he died.  

My third case, a man dying of tuberculosis, showed a weight of half and 
ounce lost, coincident with death, and an additional loss of one ounce a few 
minutes later.  

In the fourth case, a woman dying of diabetic coma, unfortunately our 
scales were not finely adjusted and there was a good deal of interference 
by people opposed to our work, and although at death the beam sunk so 
that it required from three-eighths to one-half ounce to bring it back to the 
point preceding death, yet I regard this test as of no value.  

My fifth case, a man dying of tuberculosis, showed a distinct drop in the 
beam requiring about three-eighths of an ounce which could not be 
accounted for. This occurred exactly simultaneously with death but 
peculiarly on bringing the beam up again with weights and later removing 
them, the beam did not sink back to stay for fully fifteen minutes. It was 
impossible to account for the three-eighths of an ounce drop, it was so 
sudden and distinct, the beam hitting the lower bar with as great a noise as 
in the first case. Our scales in the case were very sensitively balanced.  

My sixth and last case was not a fair test. The patient died almost within 
five minutes after being placed upon the bed and died while I was adjusting 
the beam.  

In my communication to Dr. Hodgson I note that I have said there was no 
loss of weight. It should have been added that there was no loss of weight 
that we were justified in recording.  

My notes taken at the time of experiment show a loss of one and one-half 
ounces but in addition it should have been said the experiment was so 
hurried, jarring of the scales had not wholly ceased and the apparent weight 
loss, one and one-half ounces, might have been due to accidental shifting 
of the sliding weight on that beam. This could not have been true of the 
other tests; no one of them was done hurriedly.  

My sixth case I regard as one of no value from this cause. The same 
experiments were carried out on fifteen dogs, surrounded by every 
precaution to obtain accuracy and the results were uniformly negative, no 
loss of weight at death.  

A loss of weight takes places about 20 to 30 minutes after death which is 
due to the evaporation of the urine normally passed, and which is 
duplicated by evaporation of the same amount of water on the scales, 
every other condition being the same, e.g., temperature of the room, except 
the presence of the dog's body.  

The dogs experimented on weighed between 15 and 70 pounds and the 
scales with the total weight upon them were sensitive to one-sixteenth of an 
ounce. The tests on dogs were vitiated by the use of two drugs 
administered to secure the necessary quiet and freedom from struggle so 
necessary to keep the beam at balance.  

The ideal tests on dogs would be obtained in those dying from some 
disease that rendered them much exhausted and incapable of struggle. It 
was not my fortune to get dogs dying from such sickness.  

The net result of the experiments conducted on human beings, is that a loss 
of substance occurs at death not accounted for by known channels of loss. 
Is it the soul substance? It would seem to me to be so. According to our 
hypothesis such a substance is necessary to the assumption of continuing 
or persisting personality after bodily death, and here we have experimental 
demonstration that a substance capable of being weighed does leave the 
human body at death.  

If this substance is a counterpart to the physical body, has the same bulk, 
occupies the same dimensions in space, then it is a very much lighter 
substance than the atmosphere surrounding our earth which weighs about 
one and one-fourth ounces per cubic foot. This would be a fact of great 
significance, as such a body would readily ascend in our atmosphere. The 
absence of a weighable mass leaving the body at death would of course 
be no argument against continuing personality, for a space-occupying body 
or substance might exist not capable of being weighed, such as the ether.  

It has been suggested that the ether might be that substance, but with the 
modern conception of science that the ether is the primary form of all 
substance, that all other forms of matter are merely differentiations of the 
ether having varying densities, then it seems to me that soul substance 
which is in this life linked organically with the body, cannot be identical with 
the ether. Moreover, the ether is supposed to be nondiscontinuous, a 
continuous whole and not capable of existing in separate masses as ether, 
whereas the one prime requisite for a continuing personality or individuality 
is the quality of separateness, the ego as separate and distinct from all 
things else, the nonego.  

To my mind therefore the soul substance cannot be the ether as ether; but if 
the theory that ether is the primary form of all substance is true, then the 
soul substance must necessarily be a differentiated form of it.  

If it is definitely proved that there is in the human being a loss of substance 
at death not accounted for by known channels of loss, and that such loss of 
substance does not occur in the dog as my experiments would seem to 
show, then we have here a physiological difference between the human 
and the canine at least and probably between the human and all other 
forms of animal life.  

I am aware that a large number of experiments would require to be made 
before the matter can be proved beyond any possibility of error, but if 
further and sufficient experimentation proves that there is a loss of 
substance occurring at death and not accounted for by known channels of 
loss, the establishment of such a truth cannot fail to be of the utmost 
importance.  

One ounce of fact more or less will have more weight in demonstrating the 
truth of the reality of continued existences with the necessary basis of 
substance to rest upon, than all the hair-splitting theories of theologians and 
metaphysicians combined.  

If other experiments prove that there is a loss of weight occurring at death, 
not accounted for by known channels of loss, we must either admit the 
theory that it is the hypothetical soul substance, or some other explanation 
of the phenomenon should be forthcoming. If proved true, the materialistic 
conception will have been fully met, and proof of the substantial basis for 
mind or spirit or soul continuing after the death of the body, insisted upon 
as necessary by the materialists, will have been furnished.  

It will prove also that the spiritualistic conception of the immateriality of the 
soul was wrong. The postulates of religious creeds have not been a 
positive and final settlement of the question.  

The theories of all the philosophers and all the philosophies offer no final 
solution of the problem of continued personality after bodily death. This fact 
alone of a space occupying body of measurable weight disappearing at 
death, if verified, furnishes the substantial basis for persisting personality or 
a conscious ego surviving the act of bodily death, and in the element of 
certainty is worth more than the postulates of all the creeds and all the 
metaphysical arguments combined.  

In the year 1854 Rudolph Wagner, the physiologist, at the Gottingen 
Congress of Physiologists, proposed a discussion of a "Special Soul 
Substance." The challenge was accepted, but no discussion followed and 
among the 500 voices present not one was raised in defense of a 
spiritualistic philosophy. Have we found Wagner's soul substance?  

Submitted by W.E. Fair, Transcribed by Marie Juba and Karen Day.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Wingate

California Director
SKYWATCH INTERNATIONAL

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