Neuroimaging Fails To Demonstrate ESP Is Real

Science Daily, for January 4, 2008, reported that

Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.

Parallel: Humans Have a Soul

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the human soul is quite different than the souls that are envisioned by other Christians. As I explained in Mormon Belief: The Soul is the Combination of a Spirit & a Body, LDS believe the soul is a combination of a spirit offspring of God and a physical body that acts as a tabernacle for the spirit.

I explained in Soul Search that a few scientists are conducting experiments to see if energy of some kind does leave our bodies at the time of death. So far, the experiments have been inconclusive. My interpretation of the scripture in Mormon Belief: The Soul is the Combination of a Spirit & a Body about spirit matter leads me to believe that that spirit matter is different than mortal matter and is governed by different laws than the mortal laws of nature. Because of this, I don't believe the instruments used by scientists in these experiments will detect the presence of spirit matter or spirit energy. However, I could be wrong about this.

Soul Search

Sub-title: Will natural science pin down our supernatural essence?

Discover for June 12, 2007 published an interesting article that discusses out-of-body and near-death experiences and experiments that try to determine if such experiences are real.

At the University of Virginia Health System’s Division of Perceptual Studies, or DOPS, scientists are studying an array of anomalous phenomena, including near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and memories of past lives.

Mormon Belief: The Soul is the Combination of a Spirit & a Body

Most Christians, I think, believe the human soul is the spirit, but Latter-day Saints have a different view of the soul. We believe the soul is a combination of a spirit and a mortal body. The spirit by itself, or the body by itself, is not complete.

And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.

And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul. (D&C 88:15-16)

Mormon Belief: Spirit Offspring of God

Paul, while speaking to the people in Athens, told them they were the offspring of God and thus shouldn't worship statues made of gold, silver, or stone.

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. (Acts, 17:29)

Latter-day Saints believe that when the Savior taught us to pray to our Father-in-Heaven, he was referring to a literal relationship.

Mormon Belief: Spirit is Matter

D&C 131:7 tells us

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes.

All spirit is matter and thus has mass.

Next, let us get a better understanding of spirit matter. In the Book of Mormon, there is a clear and explicit account of a man, known as "the Brother of Jared", talking with Jesus Christ, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who at that time was a spirit. From this experience, we learn that bodies of spirit matter look like bodies of flesh and bone. The brother of Jared saw the spirit body of Jesus prior to Jesus being born of Mary, and he thought the body was flesh and blood; Jesus corrected him and explained it was the body of his spirit. Then Jesus said

Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh. (Ether 3:16)

Now, we have a little better idea of what Joseph Smith meant when he said spirit is matter but is more refined and pure than mortal matter.