DESIGNATION X-2: THE WEIGHT OF THE SOUL

The contents of this file are not in any way intended to persuade, influence, or perpetuate belief or disbelief of the subject matter. Any and all speculation is purely theoretical and not meant to be taken as fact.

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The soul is a powerful concept; to suggest that all you are will live on forever outside the body after physical death. Many are dissatisfied with leaving matters of the soul to faith alone, turning instead to science in attempts to prove the existence of the soul.

In 1901, a physician named Duncan MacDougall posited that if the soul existed, surely it would take up space, and therefore have weight. He hypothesized that he could determine the exact weight of the soul by weighing patients before and after death. For these experiments he chose six patients from nursing homes, whose deaths were imminent due to a variety of diseases. When the patients appeared to be close to death, they were placed on an industrial sized scale.

The results: One of the patients lost weight but then gained it back, and two of the other patients registered a loss of weight at death, but also lost more weight a few minutes later. One of the patients lots 21.3 grams in weight, coinciding with the time of death. MacDougall disregarded the remaining two patients results, as one died while the equipment was being calibrated, and the other on the grounds that the scales "were not finely adjusted."

MacDougall believed the results from his experiments showed the human soul might have weight -- in his report, which was published in 1907, stated that the experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be made. 

Following the publication of the experiment, physician Augustus P. Clarke criticized its validity -- he noted that at the time of death, there is a sudden rise in body temperature, as the lungs are no longer cooling blood. This causes a rise in sweating, which could easily account for MacDougall's missing 21 grams. MacDougall has since been rejected by the scientific community; being accused of fraud, selective reporting, and flawed methods.

The experiment is now consigned to a large pile of scientific curiousities labelled "almost certainly not true". In 1911, it was reported that MacDougall also hoped to conduct experiments to take photos of the souls, but it appears he never continued any further research into the subject. He died in 1920, and his experiment has not been repeated.

In December 2001, physicist Lewis E. Hollander Jr. conducted a similar experiment. He tested the weight of one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and a goat at the moment of death, seeking to explore MacDougall's purported findings. He came to no definitive conclusions. Similarly inspired by MacDougall's research, in 2005 physician Gerard Nahum proposed a follow-up experiment, based on utilizing an array of electromagnetic detectors to try to pick up any type of escaping energy at the moment of death. His proposal was rejected by Yale, Stanford, and Duke University, as well as the Catholic Church.

Despite the failure of these experiments to gain traction within the scientific communities, MacDougall's "21 grams" have gained numerous references in film, song lyrics and documentaries. 

MacDougall's original report can be found here: https://www.newdualism.org/papers/D.MacDougall/soul-substance.htm