What do we know about the soul? Until recently, in the days of atheism, it was believed that such a concept simply did not exist. Years passed, and some researchers came to the conclusion that the soul is a kind of immaterial substance, which contains the ability of a living being to think and feel.
But since the end of the 20th century, experiments have been carried out in different countries of the world, thanks to which we can conclude: the soul does not just exist, it has a number of physical features that resemble the properties of thermal radiation or an electromagnetic field. And that means, according to the law of conservation of energy, after the death of a physical body, it does not disappear without a trace, but only passes into a different state.
How much does the astral body weigh?
Talking about the soul (it is also called the astral body), I would like to get an answer to one main and two secondary questions. The main one - does it exist at all? And if so, where is it located and where does it move after the physical death of the organism?
At the beginning of the 20th century, the American physician Duncan McDougall performed a series of experiments, determining the weight of patients before and after death. The dying man's bed was a large scale. McDougall noticed that at the time of death, their arrow immediately deviated in the direction of decreasing readings.
In total, with the consent of the patients' relatives, six measurements were made. The average weight loss for people dying was three quarters of an ounce (21.26 grams).
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Using this device, the doctor Duncan McDougall determined the weight of patients before and after death.
In 1988, the McDougall experiment was repeated by scientists from Germany, and a little later - from the United States. More than 200 patients have been studied. All had weight loss immediately after death, however, more accurate equipment determined it at the level of 2.5 to 6.5 grams.
Swiss scientists have suggested that the soul can leave the body not only after death, but also during sleep. The subjects slept on an ultrasensitive bed scale for several days.
The results were the same: at some point, corresponding to the deep sleep phase, the weight of each volunteer decreased by 4-6 grams, and after waking up it became the same.
Similar experiments were carried out in Russia - on laboratory animals. A group of researchers led by Mstislav Miroshnikov set up experiments with mice. The animal was placed in a sealed glass container on an electronic balance. In a few minutes, the rodents died of suffocation. And their weight immediately decreased!
All these experiments clearly showed: firstly, the soul exists, secondly, it is not only in humans, but also in other living organisms, and thirdly, it has some kind of physical characteristics. After all, if it can be weighed, why can't it be seen or at least photographed?
Why does the clock stop?
In other words, is it possible to use not only scales, but also other instruments to prove the existence of a soul?
French physician Hippolyte Baradyuk photographed the bodies of the dying - and in the photographs at the time of death, a small translucent cloud was visible above the body.
For the same purpose, doctors of St. Petersburg used infrared vision devices, which recorded how a foggy object was separated from the body and spreads out in the surrounding space.
The American psychologist Charles Tart put in the wards of the dying working, but not connected to anything, recorders and oscilloscopes. A few moments after death, the instruments recorded bursts of changes in the electromagnetic field. Could this be a consequence of the fact that the soul, leaving the physical body, somehow affects the surrounding space?
Dr. Melvin Morse from Delaware studied patients with drug hallucinations and found out a curious fact: a quarter of them were faced with the fact that their clock suddenly stopped at the moment when a person was in a state that can be called the borderline between life and death.
This correlates with the well-known omen that the clock often stops at the moment when its owner passes away. That is, when the soul is temporarily or permanently parted from the body, does it radiate some energy similar to electromagnetic?
Through a tunnel thousands of kilometers away
This conclusion is confirmed by many studies of patients who survived clinical death. Back in the 1970s, the American psychologist Raymond Moody analyzed the feelings of patients who had gone beyond the death line after the cessation of breathing and blood circulation - and who were able to return to life. And at the beginning of the 21st century, similar studies were carried out at the London Institute of Psychiatry.
The research results look sensational: it turned out that human consciousness is not directly dependent on the functions of the brain and exists even when the physical processes in it have stopped!
The connected devices almost always showed the same thing. First, a powerful surge of electrical activity in the brain was recorded. Scientists explain it by the fact that all neurons are connected in a single chain - and after death, it is discharged. Then the activity of the brain stops, no devices can register it.
But at the same time, all those who returned from a state of clinical death talk about the visions and sensations they experienced. The most common of these is passing or flying through a dark tunnel towards the light.
Also, many patients told about other visions - in particular, about what was happening at that time thousands of kilometers from the place of clinical death. And these stories turned out to be true!
It is still impossible to explain such phenomena. But one conclusion is obvious: our consciousness can exist outside the body and brain! Let it be short and not in full, but it can!
Moving consciousness
The ability of the soul to leave the physical body for some time is usually attributed to yogis or shamans, who, falling into a trance, seem to be transported to another time and place.
In Russia, scientists from the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have set up a number of experiments when a person was introduced into a hypnotic trance and asked him to visit another point in space. At the same time, in the apartment of another city, where the soul's "flight" was supposed, special equipment was installed to fix it.
The results of the experiments confirmed that the soul can really travel: information about the apartment, where the person had never been before, was distinguished by detailed reliability, and the devices installed in it noted bursts of some kind of electromagnetic activity.
Professor Leonid Spivak and a group of employees of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences have found that about 8% of women in labor experience such a "flight" of the soul. This is due to the fact that childbirth, especially difficult, is accompanied by great physical stress and pain, which are able to switch consciousness, sending it somewhere else. Women in labor, talking about such travels, also give reliable facts or details that they did not know about before.
Where does the soul live?
All of the above facts indicate that the soul really exists. But where is she? With which of the human vital organs is it most closely connected?
Here scientists have not yet come to a consensus. Some of them, for example, the famous psychiatrist Paul Pearsell from Detroit, believe that the soul is located in the heart, in the cells of which all information about our thoughts and feelings is encoded - and as proof, he cites numerous cases of a sharp change in the character of people who have received this organ.
Other experts say that the soul is in the head - based on the fact that it is around it with the help of special equipment that a certain energy aura can be observed.
But most researchers are inclined to think that the body as a whole is the seat of the soul, that is, its entire cellular structure. And at the same time, the soul of each person is a part of a huge common biofield that exists in the Universe.
Hindus invented a good religion …
Where does the soul go after the death of the physical body? Almost all experts believe that death is not the disappearance of a personality, but only its transition to a different qualitative state. True, many see the further existence of the soul in their own way.
Someone says that it remains to live as a small part of the general information biofield of the Universe. And in this case, the bright white light at the end of the tunnel, which was observed by those who experienced clinical death, is precisely the designation of the moment of such a transition. In other words: after death, the soul enters some other world, the laws of which we do not yet know and which, most likely, is not material.
Other researchers believe that the astral bodies of the deceased are transferred to the newborn. According to Indian beliefs, a soul can transmigrate from five to 50 times. This is confirmed by a number of interesting facts, when people suddenly acquire the ability to speak a foreign language or remember the details of events in the distant past.
For example, Rosemary Brown, a housewife from London, suddenly began to see visions of the parishes of the long-dead great composers Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven. Under their dictation, she recorded about 400 completed pieces of music.
Later, the sheet music was examined by authoritative contemporary musicians, who came to the conclusion that many of them completely coincide with the handwritten copyright copies, and some are original - but reflect the musical style of each of the composers in great detail!
Studies of the soul do not yet give unequivocal answers to the questions of where exactly it is and what happens to it after the death of the physical body. But in the main, many specialists are already united: it exists, which means that it can and should be studied.