Now a retired physician, I have seen patients die. On several occasions, especially when the patient has been a friend, I have had the feeling that something leaves the body at this moment. (A "force" or "energy") How else to explain the essential difference between a dead body and a living one? Is there something which is beyond the capacity of contemporary science, or the present laws of Nature, to explain?
The idea of something surviving when we die obviously has some appeal (even if perhaps it may not have a specific identity) but, is this just wishful thinking? Am I unable to accept that my death is the absolute end?
I suspect that a majority of SoF members are content, however, to accept that we survive only through our genes (as apparent in our children), personal items such as photographs and writings, our individual achievements, or in the memories which can be shared with relatives, friends and colleagues who continue to live.
But, I still believe that there is likely to be some form of "energy", to be found in all living things, which enters at conception and leaves at death. At present, I am unconcerned about whence this might come, or where it might go.
For some time, I have been thinking what such "energy" could perhaps be properly called. After considering many possibilities, | am inclined to think of "PSYCHE-ANIMA".
Combining Greek and Latin, this word can represent a combination of breath, mind, spirit and vitality.
I would be very interested in knowing what readers of this SoF magazine might think about the possibility of a PSYCHE-ANIMA existing in all of us (as well as in our pets, the birds outside our homes, and all other living creatures), and whether YOU like the name that I am suggesting for this?
Michael Irwin Please e-mail your views to michael-hk.irwin@virgin.net Dr Michael Irwin chaired the well-attended seminar on "What Survives?” when we die, at the SoF Annual Conference in 2002 and wrote on Doctor-assisted Dying in SOF No. 59, May 2003. 19 sof 65 May 2004 Send your letters to: