The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-01-17
THE SHADOW OF A SOUL
SEEN IN ITS PASSING
Queer Story of an Appearance in
Washington Scientists
Laboratory.
NEW VIOLET LIGHT RAYS
Some Persons May Not Like the
Idea that Rat Lives After
Death.

Correspondence of the indianapolis Journal
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15.-The shadow of
a soul
Nay, more; the shadow of a beasts soul!
Can you conjure up such thing in your
widest imagination?
Were you distinctly 10 see shadow cast
by something separating from the body of
an animal at the moment of death-some-
thing penetrating all barriers and passing
upward into space. then disappearing
what would you say that something was?
Call it illusion, hallucination. phantom or
what you will, such sight was lately be-
held by experimenters in the laboratory of
psychology and pysychurgy, near Chevy
Chase according to Prof. Elmer Gates, the
director.
1 obtained the strange story from Prof.
Gates's own lips yesterday. He told ii thus:
at have been experimenting with some
light rays about five octaves above the Vlo-
let-a form of wave energy somewhat akin
to X-rays but about as different from
them as they are different from sound,
This new radiant force is invisible when
produced i'm an ordinary room, but l sue
ceeded in making it visible by projecting it
upon a wall coated with substance whose
color is altered by the action of the rays
in question.
This substance was rhodopsin-the visual
purple of the retina, the seeing substance or
the eye which light acts upon This rho
dopsin | extracted from the eyes OF freshly
slaughtered animals. find that all known
inorganic and inanimate substances are
transparent to this force. Unlike the X
rays, they will shine through metals, bones
and such substances. which 1 can hold be-
tween the tube emitting these rays ana the
wall covered with rhOdOpSin without ther
casting a shadow, so to speak, or causing
the color of the wall to be changed over the
corresponding area.
II find that any living thing, however is
OPAQUE TO these rays. and that 1t will cast
a shadow as long as it retains life
"a live rat is placed in a Theoretically
sealed glass tube held in the path OF these
RAYS and before the sensitized wall As
| long as the rat remains alive 1t casts
shadow On killing the animal 1t Is found
after certain lapse of time that 1t becomes
suddenly transparent.
THE SHADOW ASCENDING.
"At the same instant a shadow having
precisely the same shape as the animal is
seen to pass out through the glass tube and
move upward on the sensitized wall.
1.-TWO of my laboratory assistants claim
| to have distinctly seen the shadow in the
! full course of it's ascension. AS soon as we
can definitely prove this to other scientific
men we will have demonstrated that some
organism, presumably not atomic, perhaps
| etheric and capable of passing through
| glass thus leaves the atomic body OF an
| animal
| ism could be caught and made to give evil
| dence that il still possessed mind, then we
would for the first time have an lnducJ Itse
laboratory proof of the continuity OF Ire
How do YOU now account for the opaque
| ness of the living organism under these
rays, TO which all lifeless matter Is trans
| parent?'' / asked the professor.
| Il can best answer that after describing
another experiment" said he. Il arranged
room lined throughout with h sheets meet 90 OIL
| connected with the earth by electrlc CON
| ductors passing through a galvanometer
sufficiently sensitive TO measure tne ann III I
! of electricity emitted by any person In the
| room. ..,o.
| the body has its every muscle and nerve
| electrically excited whenever exercised
Every muscle and nerve is an electric con-
| ductor. III l lift my arm, thus, and keep
| the muscles tense, they give OIL more eiec-
| During exercise of the mind there are
| similar electric discharges into the sur
rounding atmosphere BY quanttatlveIy
| measuring the electric waves given of by
| a person in mental activity we can effect
some measurement of that activity by
| measuring the electric waves given on by
|
| YOU have a more intense emotion OF any
| kind than have I, of that same emotion
| YOU will give off more electric waves wnlle
| exercising that emotion than Will L. Ihus
| If 7 were to take two brothers separately
| into the lead-lined room, announce TO eacn
| the news that his mother had died, the
| galvanometer would show in whom had
1 excited the strongest emotion OF grief.
! This is the first time in the history or
] psychology that there has been any con-
| ceivable method or comparing SUBJECTIVE
1
but to return to the rat in the tube My
| explanation of it's opaqueness while alive
| is this In any living body there are cleo
trio waves hurrying in all directions
| through the nerves and muscles. Light
| waves which are electric waves, cannot
penetrate such bundle of electric I'M
.'Do you think. then. that the life fluid is
an electric fluid, as many aver
II think that life Is some s unKn no ~ re,
electricity is one Life or mind is more In
timately connected with matter through
! electric force than through any other
CAN THE GHOST BE CAUGHT?
"Do you hope to catch that organism
which left the dying rat and cast its shad-
ow on the WALTZ"
II am unwilling TO discuss in detail my
experiments in these as yet unknown fields
until after they shall have been further in
yestigated by others. rs1
| III Sucn an Cdn ever NC SUI
| cessfully made then biology and psychol-
ogy will have been extended across the
border without an intervening chasm, and
the continuity of personal identity beyond
death will have been scientifically demon
| strated.'
Would that be q scientific proof of the
| Immortality of the soul?"
| NO il would not demonstrate endless eX-
| istence-merely the continuity of life be-
| yOnd what we call death.
| THE visible animal organism is COM
I posed of atomic solids liquids and gases
| May there not be etheric solids liquids and
| gases. whose particles are enthusiastically
smaller than atoms. and might there not be
an etheric body composed of them, might
be asked. Such truth could be made a CO.
ordinate part of the growing body of scien-
tific knowledge.
I'm the judgment of nearly every scien-
fist in the world such demonstration of the
| actualty of another life has not yet been
made.
COULD NOT BE PROVED.
Even If a disembodied or excarnate mind
could communicate with me by speech, APP
partition. naturalization or GEOGRAPHICALLY
would still have TO be sure that the phenom-
enon WIGS not an illusion. haIlucination or
delusiOn. If / were personally sure that
such direct communication with a spirit had
taken place the proof would be wholly per-
sonal and could not become a scientific