If this substance is a counterpart of 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. [Note: the density of this substance is about half that of air]

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 in this life is linked organically with the body, cannot be identical with the ether. Moreover, the ether is supposed to be 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 counted 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 existence 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 I854 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?

Although the conclusions reached by Dr. MacDougall are open to interpretation, to my knowledge, no one has demonstrated that his data is erroneous (which does not equate to being accurate).

At least two other alternative can be entertained to explain Dr. MacDougall’s results. One explanation ascribes the weight loss, not to the soul, but to departure of the astral body. The term, astral body, is commonly utilized by many occult school to represent a ‘nonmaterial’ configuration of energy associating with the physical body of a living human. It is taught that after the death of the physical body the astral body or shell separates and can exist, for a finite time period, independent of the physical body. Although a number of persons equate ghosts with remnants of astral bodies, it is important to remember that the astral body is not seen as the soul, but is itself a vessel for even ‘finer’ bodies (see yogi literature and the seven bodies of man).

Using our terminology, the astral body would represent a residual and temporarily stable configuration of the vital, atonic energies animating the physical body.

A second explanation ascribes weight loss to a failure to ingest and maintain vital energies by the physical body at death. This model postulates that living persons continuously breath in atonic energy in order to maintain life. While the atonic energy is not composed of one of the chemical elements, similar to normal subatomic particles (other than photons which are taught to have zero rest mass)4 it would appear to gravitate as rest mass associated with its energy. The atonic energy is somehow metabolized by the living person and discharged as inactive waste as soon as it is utilized. Whether this occurs with exhaling or some other manner is unclear.

Intrinsic to this model is the requirement that atonic energy cannot be stored by the physical body. Weight loss is explained by the failure to continue to ingest atonic energy as death occurs (this weight being normally registered in the body prior to death). Consequently, this explanation avoids the notion of the astral body and the soul, but postulates that the vital and cosmic energies are also ‘material’, differing only from the physical energies in respect to the vibrational frequencies of their construction (and why, like neutrinos, they have not as yet, and may not be, directly observed by themselves).

In passing, several other observations of atonic energy need to be mentioned: (1) it can be absorbed directly by cellular organisms from air or liquid, (2) it can be absorbed directly by mammalian blood using artificial heart-lung machines whenever open heart surgery is conducted and (3) it can be stored for extended periods in inert tanks.

Reviewing this experiment, my current professional opinion is that the MacDougall experiment, though most ingenious, failed:

[1] to account for some form of mass being lost at death. For instance, if the lungs were cleared of air after dying, one would expect a weight loss close to one-tenth of an ounce, less than reported in the experiment, less than the error bounds of the scale.

[2] The more accurately conducted experiments with dogs failed to show any significant weight loss at death (induced by sedating drugs). The most parsimonious explanation is analytical error in the bed scales.
In either case, the astral body cannot be weighed or measured by any physical apparatus, as they do not gravitate. The atonic particles cannot be gravitating quanta, i.e., possess a rest mass, regardless of vibrational frequencies, as estimates of the earth’s gravitational constant should be increasing with the population explosion and so measurements upon the surface of the earth would differ from those measured on the moon or in stellar space.

It would be of interest to repeat the experiments of MacDougall using modern computerized bed scales and physiologic monitoring equipment with people and dogs, both within closed compartments. The divergent results seen by MacDougall could have been artifactual due to the much smaller weight of the dog.