Dog Days of the Soul

When I was ten or twelve years old I read a story about a doctor who hypothesized that the soul had measurable mass. He placed a dying volunteer on a scale and recorded a three-quarters of an ounce weight loss at the time of death. (21 grams- hence the movie title) Additionally, in a separate experiment, the doctor weighed a dog at the time of death. It turns out the Doctor’s name was MacDougall, and he actually euthanized some 15 or more dogs in his quest to prove the existence of the soul. In every case, the doctor recorded no weight loss of the dogs at the time of death. The results of the tests on the dogs galvanized the doctor’s zeal that he had in fact discovered the weight of the human soul, as animals have no souls. A quick Internet search reveals that this story is well documented. The theosophical doctor practiced his experiments in the early 1900’s, and, over the next few years, the aspiring doctor was able to procure only 5 more human volunteers, but was never able to repeat the results of his original experiment. (American Medicine 1907)

There are several reasons why this story has stuck with me over the years. In many ways it marks the beginnings of my spiritual journey. After reading this story I couldn’t look at a dog and wonder whether or not it had a soul. By simple association, many animals, birds, cats, mice, crickets, and so forth, came under careful scrutiny. As if, by simply looking in their eyes, or the shape of their exterior, I might be able to discern whether or not a soul lay within. Later, when it one day dawned on me that the good doctor MacDougall has probably poisoned 15 perfectly healthy dogs, I stopped worrying so much about the canine soul and became conscious of the terrible harm, even great evil, can be done in the name of an investigation of the human condition. I think I had this particular epiphany around 14 or 15, when I was learning of all the barbarism and suffering committed in the Lord’s name. The death of these 15 dogs was simply added to the already extensive list.

When I was an undergraduate I picked up a copy of the Nag Hammâdi Library, a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the town of Nag Hammâdi in 1945. I began learning about Gnosticism and the evolution of early Christian “heresies.” (From the Greek haireomai, literally "choose") I discovered that far from the image of pagan devil worshipers, the word heretic is used to describe and discredit virtually any opponents in the early Christian Church, where any nonconformist view within the church may be perceived as "heretical" by others within the church who are convinced that their view is "orthodox" (from ortho- "right" + doxa "belief").

Suddenly heresy didn’t seem so bad. Heresy, dare I say, is merely a difference of opinion. I suppose modern heresies include debates over gay rights and the ordination of women. One of the most interesting heresies I learned about during this period of my life was Catharism, a name given to a Christian religious sect that appeared in the Languedoc region of France in the 12th century. The theology of the Cathars is interesting, and really too complex to describe in a few simple sentences. However, while reading about them, I discovered an interesting factoid. Believing the world to be divided between matter and spirit, the Cathars would not eat anything that had a soul. To this end, the Cathars were vegetarians. However, they were allowed to eat fish because they believed that fish were the product of spontaneous generation. The irony that they believed that the fish, one of the earliest symbols of Christianity, (The use of the Ichthys symbol by early Christians appears to date from the end of the 1st century AD) is soulless was not lost on me. I found this hysterical.

“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:21).

Do fish have souls? Do Dogs? Therein lies the question. How does one define soul? If a dog has a soul, can it be enlightened, or saved? What does and enlightened dog look like? (Other than looking like a dog I mean.) Does it sit under a bodhi tree? I suppose an enlightened dog can sit wherever it wants. In my late twenties I began to embrace Buddhist philosophies that changed my way of viewing the creation stories, from one in which Man is given sole dominion to the idea that God created all things as living creatures endowed with spirit. In this way, the language of creation takes on a modern view of the world, where creation is a vast and evolving process, an ever-moving stream of becomings and extinctions. This, in turn, changed the way in which I thought about my own soul, and ultimately the existence of things.

It seems to me almost over simplified to view the individual soul as emerging from this process. I think we tend to confuse the soul with the ego, as a force that witnesses the unfolding of life around us. But, to put it in Christian terms, if the kingdom of heaven is all around us, if God is omni-present in all things, isn’t it possible that the Universe is beholding us? I like this visualization because it helps me understand how our soul is made up of all of these forces, a composite of aggregates, and rather than our ego defining the world, the soul is without a fixed center, and ego, or an unchangeable identity.

“If the flesh
 came into being for the sake 
of the spirit, that is a mystery. But if 
the spirit came into being 
for the sake of the body, that is a wondrous miracle. Yet I wonder, how did such great wealth 
make its home in such poverty?” (Gospel of Thomas, 29)

The word for soul in Greek is psuche, or breath. As God breathed life into Adam, this breath is not ours, but Gods, and it unites all living things together. Rather than thinking about the existence of souls as individual entities: Does a Dog have a soul? Or a Fish? Shouldn’t we instead seek god? After all, what is a soul, but the breath of God.

"Vainly I sought the builder of my house through countless lives. I could not find him... How hard it is to tread life after life! But now I see you, O builder! And never again shall you build my house. I have snapped the rafters, split the ridgepole and beaten out desire. And now my mind is free." (The Dhammapada)