Do Souls Really Exist?

Up until I was in my early twenties my answer would have been a definite no. I was of the same opinion as respected author Christopher Hitchens and the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who both adhered ferociously to the doctrine; ‘when you’re gone, you’re gone.’

But soon, I was to have an experience that changed my opinion forever …

I used to be a hospital porter, and one of my main roles was to remove deceased patients from their hospital beds and take them to the mortuary. It was a busy part of the job, especially in the winter months when my colleague and I could spend an entire shift on this single duty alone.

Most of the time it would take a while before the time of death to collection, but occasionally due to bed pressures the process would be quicker. Sometimes, when moving the body across from the bed to the gurney there would still be some warmth present, indicating a recent demise.

Now, before I tell you this, up until that point, I had no experiences whatsoever of a supernatural nature. Some hospital staff spoke of seeing ghosts in the corridors at night, but I shrugged these off. I still don’t believe in ghosts, but they make great characters in stories!

Then one day, my colleague and I were in the morgue depositing a body. We were just about to slide it into the main refrigeration unit, when a feeling I can only describe as an ‘energy,’ permeated through my entire being. I glanced at my colleague who was staring straight at me alarmed. I knew instantly he had felt the same thing. We could not speak. We could not move. We could not breathe. It is so hard to describe the sensation. It felt as though time suddenly had no meaning.

It was so disturbing, that we left the body on the trolley and went outside for a few minutes to discuss what may have taken place. We went through the options; a draught from a window perhaps being the most obvious. But there was nothing. We both knew what we had experienced was something ethereal that would never leave us.

You may be surprised but I am still an atheist. While my opinions are still very much aligned with those of the esteemed Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, when it comes to religious ideology and doctrine, I have a very different opinion when it comes to the afterlife.

Rather than the idea of a soul leaving the body; of which many religions subscribe. I believe there is some kind of ‘energy’ that permeates the entire universe, linking everything together. I think our bodies are in fact, just carriers of this unseen ‘energy’ and we are mere hosts.

Sadly, my colleague, who was also happened to be a very close friend, took his own life when he was just thirty years old. But I truly believe the energy that was inside of him, is out there somewhere. In the vast expanse of the universe.

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Originally published at https://medium.com/never-stop-writing/do-souls-really-exist-78616a3e3d56