DAY 118

PHOTOGRAPHIC CURIOSITIES

The Human Soul

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? HOW MUCH DOES IT WEIGH?

In 1911, Dr. Duncan MacDougall conducted a series of experiments with patients who were at the brink of death. One of his goals was to photograph the human soul.

The Massachusetts physician theorized that the “soul substance” produced light as it exited the human body, creating an image “resembling that of interstellar ether.” While most of his experiments involved analog photography, the doctor suggested that X-ray images might also show evidence of the soul, should it become “agitated” at the moment of death.¹

Dr. MacDougall conducted similar experiments with tuberculosis patients to see if the human soul had a physical weight. By weighing patients on their deathbed, he determined that the body lost 21 grams of weight at the exact moment of death.

The physician’s research raises an immediate philosophical question: Can the human soul really be limited to a quantifiable physical substance?

The crux of Dr. MacDougall’s research may have hinged on a false premise, after all. The idea of photographing or weighing the human soul presupposes that the essence of a human being—whether called “soul,” “spirit,” or “life force”—is a material separate from the sum of that person’s parts.

According to theologian B. O. Banwell, in contrast, the ancient Jewish concept of the soul was much more holistic. Drawing from Biblical references to the soul, Banwell states, “It was essentially the whole man, with all his attributes, physical, intellectual, and psychological, of which the Hebrew thought and spoke.”²

Sounds considerably more relevant than a 21-gram blob of mist. —DJS