521: Proof of Life After Death: Hope and a Warning From The Other Side
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You wake up. Sleepiness fades as your eyes slowly open to a bright white light. And it feels warm and familiar. It feels like home. And your whole family is there to meet you. Your entire life flashes before your eyes like scenes from a movie. The good, the bad, even the awful things you've done. But everything comes together. It finally makes sense. With this enormous weight off your shoulders, the memory of your life starts to fade just like a dream.

A familiar voice says, "We're happy you're here. We missed you, but you can't stay." "What? You just got here. You're getting kicked out already?" The voice says, "They need you, but we'll see you again when the time is right." And you know somehow the voice is telling the truth.

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In 1901, Duncan McDougall volunteered at the Cullis Home in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Though he ran a small medical practice on Main Street, he spent a lot of time treating terminally ill tuberculosis patients at the home. It's estimated that tuberculosis, or consumption, has killed one in seven of all people who've ever lived. The symptoms include a bloody hacking cough, debilitating pain, and total fatigue.

Doctors like McDougal used to give spare hours to the mostly church-run facilities for tuberculosis patients for free. They don't make people like that anymore. Well, they do, but they're not as common as they used to be. I blame cell phones, social media, and K-pop. Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream.

Since medical school, McDougal and his colleagues often discussed what happens to our consciousness after we die. You can't work in medicine and not come into contact with death. And it's only natural to wonder, do our personalities stick around after our hearts stop beating and our brains cease to function? It is unthinkable that personality and consciousness, continuing personal identity, should exist and have a being and yet not occupy space.

You heard that correctly. If the human soul exists within the body, it must take up physical space like an organ or tissue. And if our soul, personality, or whatever you want to call it, takes up physical space, then it must weigh something. Since the home depended on donations, the owners took some convincing. But McDougal managed to get a handful of patients and their families to participate in his study.

As their final hours drew near, patients' beds were put on a highly accurate industrial scale. Then you wait. The first patient in the study, a man, lay on the scales for three hours and 40 minutes. He lost weight at a rate of one ounce per hour. And this is normal. The weight loss is due to evaporation. In other words, sweat and the moisture in breath.

At the end of the three hours and 40 minutes, the man took his final breath and the beam on the scale dropped with an audible stroke as it hit the lower limiting bar. The man's weight had suddenly dropped three fourths of an ounce, 21 grams.

This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of respiratory moisture and sweat, because that had already been determined to go on, in his case, at the rate of 1/60th of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss was sudden and large, 3/4ths of an ounce in a few seconds.

McDougall and his assistant were stunned. Neither of them expected anything to happen. They assumed the sudden drop in weight must be a fluke, a problem with the experiment. So they repeated the process with another patient. And it happened again. She passed on and lost 21 grams.

With every patient at the moment of death, the scale dropped 21 grams in an instant, like something was racing out of the body. McDougall brought in other physicians to witness the results, and they all concurred. Our souls depart when the physical human body dies, and our souls weigh 21 grams. So now, the big question. After you or your soul leaves your body, where do you go?

You've heard me say this before: all cultures have a flood myth. Whether it's religious, like Noah's flood, or cultural, like the Choctaw Native American flood story, they all got 'em. Since every culture has a flood myth, many scientists no longer think it's just a story. The flood myth was probably an actual historical event.

And just like the flood myth, every religion and culture on Earth has a story of the afterlife. And the more consistent the story, the more likely it is to be true. Most religions and cultures attach a social aspect to the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians believed in Aru, or the Field of Reeds. Ah, that's the one with Kevin Costner in the corn, right? No, that was Field of Dreams. Ah, right.

Right. They saw it as a... If you build it, they will come. Could you let me get through this? Sorry, I couldn't resist the reference. Continue. Egyptians saw Aru as the perfect world, an idealized version of how we live today. Here, your soul was granted eternal paradise, but only if you passed the test.

When your soul first leaves your body, Anubis appears beside you. He then guides you from your tomb to wait on the line of souls. Yeah, it sounds more like the DMV than paradise. Please don't. Now serving soul B-125. Soul B-125, please go to window 11 for processing.

You were given water and comforted by other deities as the line got shorter and shorter. When it was your turn, you were led to the Hall of Truth. This is where Osiris, Toth, and Ma'at weighed your heart on the scales of justice. If your soul was virtuous, your heart would be very light. It would need to be. It's weighed against the feather of Ma'at, the goddess of truth and justice. You were deemed unworthy of paradise if your heart was heavier than the feather.

then Amut would eat your heart. Amut was a part lion, crocodile, hippopotamus monster. If you were virtuous, you, or more specifically your soul, was free to enter Aru. If the story of journey and judgment sounds familiar, it's because the same story is told in almost all major religions. While you await judgment, there's usually a holding area. For Catholics, it's purgatory. Inuits and some Native American tribes describe a long road, which they see as the Milky Way.

In ancient Greece, before your soul reached the underworld, you had to cross the River Styx. On board, I'm the captain. So climb aboard. We'll search for tomorrow on every shore and I'll try, oh lord, I'll try. That's enough. Okay, okay, take it easy. I wasn't going to be able to hit that next note anyway. I'm not sure you hit any of those notes. What?

Right.

Not every religion works this way, though. In Buddhism, souls are reincarnated over and over again. Live a good life, and in the next one, you'll get an upgrade. Live a bad life, and your next life will be more difficult. Once you live a life free from desire, attachment, and ignorance, you can escape the cycle of reincarnation and reach nirvana. See, now here's where I would break into a little smells like teen spirit, but it

It's too soon for another musical break. Thank God for small favors.

Most atheists will tell you there's nothing after death, just the black void. But most people, including myself, feel there's something more, something waiting for us on the other side. For almost all of human history, there was no way to prove the existence of an afterlife. We'd have to bring someone back from the dead to do that. But death is final, right? Nope.

In 1943, young army recruit George G. Ritchie was left unattended in an isolation room for 24 hours. He'd been brought in with an extreme case of pneumonia. Because no one treated him, George died. He was only 20 years old.

The medical staff gathered around his lifeless body. They were devastated and worried about fallout. George's death could have been avoided. One medical officer pulled a sheet over George's face and officially called his time of death. The officer instructed an attendant to prepare George's body for the morgue and everyone left the room. Nine minutes later, the attendant returned. In the corner of his eye, he noticed something. Was George's chest moving?

Well, it couldn't be. They checked his vital signs multiple times and nothing. Still, something didn't feel quite right. The attendant checked again. George was dead. But for whatever reason, the attendant still had an odd feeling that something was off. George was given a shot of adrenaline.

George woke up with a bang. He sat right up and got on his feet. He was drowsy but fully recovered from pneumonia. The only thing on his mind was returning to Virginia to finish his army medical training. While George was on his way back, he stopped at a small town to ask for directions. But everyone he spoke to just ignored him like he was invisible. But what was this beeping noise ringing over and over again in George's ear? It wasn't there when he began the journey.

How did he begin the journey again? He was flying, or was he driving? He couldn't remember. The beeping was getting louder until it turned into a deafening roar. It was medical equipment. George was training to be a medic, and he knew the sound was from a heart monitor. George never left the hospital.

He was lying in the same bed he died in just four days earlier. The adrenaline kickstarted his heart and he started breathing again. Though George was officially dead for quite a while, he made a full recovery. In 1965, George told his story to one of his postgraduate psychiatry students, a man named Raymond Moody. Moody was fascinated, so much that he dedicated the rest of his career to figuring out what happens on the other side.

I don't mind saying that after talking with over a thousand people who have had these experiences and having experienced many times some of the really baffling and unusual features of these experiences, it has given me great confidence that there is a life after death. As a matter of fact, I must confess to you in all honesty, I have absolutely no doubt on the basis of what my patients have told me that they did get a glimpse of the beyond.

Moody called this phenomenon a near-death experience, or NDE, coining the term in his 1975 book, Life After Life. His work inspired countless others to collect massive amounts of data on people who technically died but were revived. One of these researchers is Dr. Michael Sabom, who's written several books on NDEs. Sabom's research is where things start to get interesting.

Sabom interviewed people who'd suffered cardiac arrest, died, and claimed to have had an out-of-body experience, an NDE. These patients were asked to describe their resuscitation. What was happening in the room? Who was there? What sounds did they recall?

The patients' answers were compared to those of a control group who had also suffered cardiac crisis and were revived, but without temporary death. Patients in the control group gave vague, mostly incorrect answers. They were guessing what happened to them. They didn't really know.

But the NDE group, they described the resuscitations almost perfectly, like they were in the room, separate from their bodies, watching themselves come back to life. The accuracy was enough for Sabom to conduct further studies. And like Raymond Moody, Sabom inspired others to repeat his research. If multiple researchers independently conduct similar or exactly the same experiment, and they all find the same results, then it's hard to refute the truth.

This is precisely what happened with Sabahm's study. Over the years, researchers have asked thousands of patients to describe events surrounding their NDEs. And despite being dead, these patients are roughly 92 to 97% accurate in their observations. Doctors and nurses have also come forward with some pretty spooky stories.

Dr. Carl Green, a neurosurgeon, had a patient flatline and then describe her entire surgery, down to the most intricate details. And Green is not alone. Patients often have out-of-body experiences during surgeries where they temporarily die. This happened to my dad. My pop loved Harleys.

Dad's first wreck, a teenage girl ran a stop sign. She hit him square. His leg was severed and reattached. Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bikers. Almost 20 years later, an SUV ran alight, hit him square. Same side. This time was worse. Way worse. Dad was airlifted from the scene and died in the helicopter.

They defibbed him and brought him back, but he lost so much blood, they didn't think he'd make it to the hospital. He did, but just barely. During surgery, he flatlined again. He said he felt weightless and realized he was watching his operation, but then he felt a pull. He turned and saw his mother, who had been gone a long time. He said, "Mom, I hurt real bad. I can't do it." She said, "Yes, you can. It's not your time yet." They got dad's heart started again and brought him back.

He said the experience was more real than real life. But sometimes people do more than just float a few feet above their bodies. Some people have described events that took place down the hall from their deathbed or in a different room in the hospital. So not only do our souls have weight, they stick around to watch our physical bodies die. And we don't just stay in the room. We wander. And while we wander, we're not alone.

Almost all NDEs follow a similar pattern. It starts with the sensation of absolute peace and calm as you enter a bright white light. Through the light, you enter a tunnel and your physical body is left behind.

In 1791, British Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort almost drowned. After he was revived, he described a feeling as, in his words, "the most perfect tranquility." He felt no bodily pain. His physical senses were gone, but his mind was very active. The admiral saw his life pass before his eyes in reverse. This is a common theme in NDEs. Your life plays either in reverse chronological order or starts from your birth until your death.

Once the show is over, you see yourself completely, really for the first time ever, and then you move on. And on the other side, people are waiting for you. Dr. Mary Neal drowned while kayaking in Chile. She was technically dead for 30 minutes, long enough for her body to turn blue before being pulled from the water.

And then I was released to the heavens. My spirit rose up and out of the river, and I was immediately greeted by a group of people or spirits who had known me and loved me as long as I have existed. Seeing people on the other side is almost always a positive experience. Minister Don Piper was driving home to Alvin, Texas one night and was hit by an 18-wheeler in a head-on collision. His body became part of the car. Actually, his thigh bone ended up somewhere on the road behind him.

As he entered the white light, loved ones also met him. They were waiting for him next to a large ornate gate. And it wasn't a short trip. Don spent 30 minutes in heaven.

In the West, most people describe what is essentially heaven after they die. But just like all ancient cultures, everyone interprets their experience based on their personal biases and background. A Christian will say he saw Jesus in heaven. An atheist will enter something like a bright white ether. Muslims go to Jannah. While there, there's something or someone with us.

Emery was a first year law student who liked fast cars. After lying to her parents and boyfriend about what she was doing, she went out driving with friends. Halfway through the drive, she had a sudden urge to go home. Her friends agreed, but on the way there was an accident.

Emery's body was thrown through the windshield. She got to her feet covered in blood and walked over to where her friends were sitting. She felt like she'd been unconscious and had the strangest dreams. She asked her friends what was happening, but no one would speak. Her parents pulled up a short while later. And even though paramedics tried to stop him, Emery's father was running. She followed his gaze and realized he was running toward a body. She chased after him. He was on his knees sobbing over

Her. Emery was dead. Between his tears, her father said, "Why are you doing this?" Out of nowhere, a voice replied, "This was the agreement." Emery's father said, "No, it wasn't. The agreement was that I would watch them grow old, but never live to experience this."

Emory knew her father wasn't having this conversation out loud. It was happening in his subconscious. He didn't even know he was speaking. It was his soul speaking to someone. The voice started to disappear into a place she couldn't quite see, but Emory knew it was there. She tried to follow it. The voice was so calming and peaceful, but her world was slowly fading to black. The next time she woke up, she was in the ICU.

Thousands of people have had NDEs. You can get lost for hours reading about them online. They sound serene, life-altering, usually in a good way. "I'm Don Piper and I died on January 18th, 1989." Don Piper says he was depressed for a long time after he came back to life. But in time he realized how valuable dying had been to him, to his soul. He felt saved, especially knowing we're never actually alone.

But you can't just go and have a near-death experience whenever you want to. An NDE requires a certain type of permission. Because not everyone goes into the light. Some people go somewhere else.

Howard Storm woke up in his hospital bed. It was 1985. He was in Paris with his wife on what he thought was a romantic vacation, even though he just invited her on a college field trip for his students. But that was Howard. He didn't really get romance. He'd always been a difficult man. He was rarely happy, quick to anger, and in many ways he'd taken after his father, who was aggressive when Howard was young.

Howard's anger was with him in his hospital bed. He was annoyed at his wife for closing the curtains. And why was she just sitting there crying at the foot of the bed? What reason did she have to be sad? This wasn't happening to her. A few hours ago, Howard was screaming in agony due to a perforated intestine. At the hospital, Howard was told he needed surgery immediately, otherwise he'd be dead within five hours.

Somehow the hospital lost track of him. He lay there for 10 hours, his body slowly digesting itself. But he felt a lot better now, still angry, just healthier. And he wanted some sunlight and some fresh air. He got to his feet and went to open the windows. But something was wrong. His wife was still ignoring him.

He could feel something radiating off her, like an energy field of rage that he'd never seen before. What does she have to be sad and angry about, Howard kept asking himself. But he couldn't deal with her right now, so he went into the hallway to find a doctor to give them a piece of his mind. As he turned the corner into the hallway, a sensation hit him. He was never going back in that hospital room, not ever again. He didn't know how he knew this, he just did.

The hallway was dark. Howard could see dim flickering, but something was blocking the light. As he focused, he saw them. Faceless beings dressed in black robes. At the sight of them, he fell to the ground. Everything felt heavy. He knew these beings, whatever they were, were here for him, and they were dragging him back to hell. Remember that scene in Ghost? It was just like that. I prefer Roadhouse. Please, no zingers while I'm being dramatic. Sorry, mijo.

The dim lights got dimmer and dimmer until Howard was in pure darkness. He heard a voice say, "We're almost there." Suddenly the darkness lifted and Howard was in a vast hellscape filled with horrors even nightmares couldn't create. There were humanoid-looking monsters ripping him apart. But were you experiencing pain while this was happening? Yeah, and it was horrible. It was, I mean, it was horrible being, literally being torn apart.

Howard didn't believe in God. He did as a kid, but grew out of it. But he was desperate and prayed for help. And help arrived. Howard was pulled out of the darkness and into the light. He was shown his life, which was a disappointment and a failure. Howard, you're watching your life literally as a movie before you? Absolutely. And not only did I see my life, but I could also see my mother's feelings and how I hurt her.

I never wanted to hurt my mother. Howard wanted to stay in this place where he felt nothing but kindness, compassion, and love. But he was told he had to go back and make things right. Then his soul returned to his body. Very few near-death experiences take place in hell. But those who end up there often follow a similar path. In the lead-up to death, there is an emotional trauma. Sometimes it's drug abuse, alcoholism, self-abuse, or just being a terrible person.

Like Howard, people describe being lost, wandering a desolate landscape. They hear endless screams. Some come from creatures that look like they were human once, but no longer. Descriptions of hell sound similar to the ancient Egyptian process of death. They walk through the hall of truths to be judged. Their hearts were weighed and their hearts were devoured.

If there really is a hell, as described by so many cultures and religions, that's a terrifying thought. It makes me worry about how heavy my heart will be compared to a feather. But skeptics will argue that's the point. They say religions and ancient rulers invented the concept of heaven and hell. Maintaining order in societies of thousands and millions of people is difficult. If people believe in hell, they'll behave and be easier to control.

Since McDougall's 21 grams experiment, researching death has been taboo. So there aren't a lot of scientific studies that try to explain what happens after we die. But that would change with a study published in May of this year. A group of scientists measured and mapped the brain activity of dying patients. They proved that after the body shuts down completely, the brain becomes more alive than ever. ♪

Scientists haven't figured out how our brains work. We know what parts of our brain light up when we're engaged in different activities, but we don't know how or why this happens. What energy source forms our thoughts and feelings and memories and reactions? Scientists are still trying to figure out, does cell activity produce the mind, or does the mind create cell activity? And what is the human mind?

Are minds just another way of describing our souls? Is our soul consciousness? Are they the same thing or are they separate? And when we die, does our consciousness die but our soul lives on? Nobody really knows. In May 2023, a study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Gimo Borjgan and her team study consciousness. They wanted to know what's the minimum process required to create consciousness in our physical brain.

The study involved four patients who were in comas and on life support and nearing the end. These patients were chosen because while they weren't fully brain dead, they were completely unresponsive to any stimuli. There's a scale used to assess a person's level of consciousness after a head injury. It's called the Glasgow Coma Score. These four patients had the lowest score possible. All of them had severe brain injuries. With the permission of their families, these four people's brains were scanned as they were taken off life support.

While in a coma, their brain scans looked like this. The left side of the chart is brainwave frequency. The bottom number indicates the number of seconds left before the patient dies.

Red indicates high brain activity and orange indicates less activity. Then green, then blue is no activity. So a comatose patient on life support has activity mainly at the lower frequencies. This is autonomic motor functions like breathing, heartbeat and hormone regulation. Basically the things the body does on its own. Consciousness, on the other hand, occurs at higher frequencies. So the patients were taken off life support and something strange happened that surprised the scientists.

There is a sudden surge in brain activity at the higher frequencies. Remember, the body is now shutting down. The heart and lungs have stopped, but the brain is lighting up. Something is happening to this patient about 10 minutes before brain death. There's suddenly more activity across the entire spectrum. And then for a few seconds, a spike, highly active brain activity. Then the activity settles down again.

So it's easy to dismiss this spike as an anomaly. Maybe some randomly firing neurons are freaking out that there's no oxygen getting to the brain anymore. But then this happens.

The patient's entire brain lights up. Very high activity across the spectrum. This patient has been medically dead for 12 or 13 minutes, but their brain is fully alive and engaged. Again, a skeptic might say this is just random neurons desperately clinging to life, but that's not what's happening at all. Only specific parts of the patient's brain were active. The

The scientists saw activity in their somatosensory cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Oh, any idiot would have told you that would happen. Are you being sarcastic? Of course I'm being sarcastic. Explain to the people about the tomato sensory. Somatosensory. What'd I say?

The somatosensory cortex processes information from your senses, like touch, pressure, pain, and temperature. This part of the brain even processes proprioception, which senses your body's position. This part of the brain is activated when engaging in physical activities like sports and exercising, where your body needs to be aware of its position, movement, and balance. It's active when using fine motor skills like writing, typing, drawing, or playing a musical instrument.

This patient is dead, yet their brain is acting like their body is engaged in physical activity. Like floating above the bed or walking down a tunnel. Right.

and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, that part of the brain is used for problem solving and decision making. It assesses risk, weighs pros and cons, and considers different outcomes. This is also the part of the brain used for language and communication. And more than simple communication, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is used to construct complex ideas and engage in debate.

This patient's brain, this dead patient's brain, is engaged in highly complicated thought and reasoning as well as physical motion.

But what was it? The brain activity wasn't random. It was organized and specific. Scans showed messages were being sent back and forth to the patient's posterior cerebral cortex. Researchers believe this area of the brain is required for conscious perception, visual and sound processing, understanding spoken language, and integrating sensory information and movement. These patterns are almost identical to what we see in healthy brains that are dreaming.

This is also a pattern similar to epileptics who have an out-of-body experience. Not only were these patients dead, but they died with brain damage. And there was no brain activity before life support was disconnected. None. But for a few minutes after death, their brains lit up like Times Square. Finally, brain activity slows, and then about five minutes later, it completely stops.

But for about three minutes, this previously comatose, now medically deceased person had an extremely vivid conscious experience and showed no sign of brain damage at all. In their mind, their body was moving. Their senses were engaged. They could smell, they could feel touch. They were seeing and hearing something. They were having a conversation with someone. And that takes us back to the beginning, the big question, who are they talking to?

Is there a scientific explanation for near-death experiences, or is something supernatural at work? Near-death experiences are described the same way in every culture and have been since the beginning of recorded history. Common features include floating above your body, traveling through a tunnel toward a bright light, feelings of bliss, communicating with spirits, and seeing long-deceased loved ones. No matter the culture, the religion, or lack of religion, NDEs are a universal human experience.

This could be because there is an afterlife and we do have a soul, or the experiences are similar because our brains are built the same way. The most widely accepted scientific theory is that NDEs are hallucinations that happen as brain cells begin to die from lack of oxygen. This is called the dying brain hypothesis. This could explain why so many NDEs share common supernatural elements. They may be byproducts of the brain's final births of activity.

When your brain isn't getting enough oxygen, you experience tunnel vision as your optic nerve fails. This could be why so many people describe a tunnel. Pilots undergoing intense acceleration have reported tunnel vision and bright light. As oxygen drops in a dying brain, neurons fire in cascades that could be perceived as bright light. This happened to Neil Armstrong during G-Force training for the Apollo mission.

People who get panic attacks experience tunnel vision. Tunnel vision, feeling lightheaded, numbness in the extremities. That's what my panic attacks are like. But those effects are nothing more than the brain not getting enough oxygen, which is why taking deep breaths helps. Well, most of the time.

Lack of oxygen also causes hallucinations. Now, when mountaineers climb the Himalayas, they bring oxygen with them, but that wasn't always the case. In 1933, Frank Smythe was high on Mount Everest, higher than anyone had ever been before. He stopped to rest. He offered half his food to his companion, but then realized he was climbing alone. All the time I was climbing alone, I had a strong feeling that I was accompanied by a second person. That

That feeling was so strong that it completely eliminated all loneliness I might otherwise have felt. There's also a type of epilepsy that can cause NDEs. It's temporal lobe epilepsy. The temporal lobe of the brain is crucial in processing emotions, memory, and is also involved in the formation of the conscious self.

In studies, stimulating this region of the brain has triggered out-of-body experiences similar to those reported in NDEs. Then there are the chemical changes. There are fluctuations in dopamine and serotonin. These chemicals cause feelings of happiness and peace. There's a release of endorphins. This also causes a feeling of peace. Plus, endorphins are a natural painkiller. It's been suggested that NN-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is released in our brains upon birth and upon death.

DMT is a powerful psychedelic. Skeptics say these chemicals likely contribute to NDE's dreamlike quality. But with all due respect to the skeptics, a DMT experience is nothing like an NDE. I know this firsthand. When someone is having a near-death experience, they're very aware of their conscious self. DMT, also called the spirit molecule, detaches you from your ego. It's hard to explain. You feel like you're disconnected from everything and connected to everything at the same time.

And by the way, if you're thinking of trying DMT for fun, don't do that. It's not fun. And what about the weight of the human soul? We proved it weighs 21 grams, right? Well, no. Yes, maybe. Everything about McDougall's experiment is true, but he only worked with six patients. The experiment lacked proper controls and hasn't been successfully replicated. Okay, so what happened with more recent 21 gram experiments? What results did those scientists get?

Well, we don't know. Nobody's tried to replicate it. Why not? If science could prove the existence of the soul, it would be one of the most important discoveries in human history. But that discovery would also be extremely dangerous.

The fact scientists won't repeat McDougal's 21 grams experiment annoys me, but it doesn't surprise me. When McDougal was conducting his study, the owners of the home were worried the church would find out and be furious. When his results were released, the opposite happened. Scientists were furious, not the church. The church was thrilled. McDougal had proven the existence of a soul. He was one step closer to proving the existence of God.

But to this day, many scientists laugh at McDougal's results, calling them utterly false. Okay, prove it. Maybe McDougal didn't prove there is a soul, but nobody can prove there isn't. Science says when our brains stop working, there's nothing happening. We're just dead. But recent studies, like the one we talked about today, proves there is something happening. Science just doesn't know what.

And when science doesn't have the answer, religion often does. But governments have been trying to destroy religion, all religions, for the last 150 years. In doing so, the state has become a religion for millions of people. Don't believe me? Spend 10 minutes on X. Twitter. It's X now. I'm not calling it that. It's stupid. I don't disagree.

If science were to conclusively prove the existence of the human soul that would virtually eliminate the need for the military-industrial complex, it would eliminate the need for a militarized police force. We'd finally know for sure what our purpose is: to be virtuous, good, kind, generous, to help our fellow people navigate and survive this crazy world. If we knew for certain that the soul could go to hell, well, you'd see a pretty big drop in violent crime.

in all crime. And any would-be dictators out there would think twice before seizing power.

There is no scientific proof of a soul and an afterlife. There is evidence, mounting evidence, but evidence isn't proof. But do we really need proof? If you're a person of faith, you don't. You already know there's a God and heaven awaits, and I'm envious of those people. But what about those of us who aren't religious? I consider myself very practical. I'd love scientific proof of an afterlife. But what I find very strange is I don't really need it.

I have a sense deep down that there's something more. I think most of us do. But maybe that's just the way we evolved. We're aware that our own death is inevitable. We need a mechanism to keep us from freaking out. Believing in an afterlife is that mechanism that tells us not to worry, that everything's gonna be okay. I'm glad that mechanism is there, but I can't help but wonder if someone put it there.

Recent studies have shown that when a person dies, their cells don't start decaying immediately. They remain in a state of hibernation for quite a few minutes. That doesn't seem like an accident to me. It seems like it's by design. It's as if during those few minutes of hibernation, we're waiting for permission from someone to go somewhere. Even though I'm not religious, I have a sense those last few minutes involve a soul and a scale. And I live my life accordingly, just in case.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ, that's Cyclefish. Step into the light. There is peace and serenity in the light. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything, do him a favor, subscribe, comment, like, share. That stuff really helps him out. And like most topics we cover on the channel, today's was recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to the Y-Files.com slash tips. Remember, the Y-Files is also a podcast.

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I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music, so I'm singing like I should. But then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth, my friends, and it never ends. No, it never ends.

Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone on a film set? Were the shadow people there?

The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man I'm told, and his name was cold And I can't believe I'm dancing with the fishes Hecklefish on Thursday nights with AJ2 And the robots have been all I ever wanted Was to just hear the truth

The Mothman sightings and the Solar Stone still come to a gun the secret city underground. Mysterious number stations, planets are both two Project Stargate and what the Dark Watchers found. In a simulation, don't you worry though the Black Knight said a lie, he told me so. I can't believe

All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth So the world falls on its feet all through the night

Because she is a camel and camels love to dance

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