The Exorcism

Ken Hollings

February 2005

The American novelist Flannery O'Connor called it 'wise blood' – the innate sense of spiritual certainty able to possess an individual so completely that faith seems like a physical fact of existence. Facts, however, are commonly regarded as being of this world rather than the next and, as such, are subject to change. What pertains to the body can be altered, enhanced or even made to disappear entirely. A growing number of personality traits have been linked to specific genetic patterns, meaning that scientists might one day be able to tweak all Seven Deadly Sins out of existence.

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Sloth, for example, has been linked to a gene that makes neurons more sensitive to dopamine, allowing the brain's pleasure centres to reward themselves. Shut that function down, and the Protestant work ethic stands uncontested. Lengthen the gene for monoamine oxidase A, and wrath becomes a thing of the past. Beef up the number of vasopressin receptors in the brain, and you can say goodbye to lust.

Could this mean then that religion too exists only inside our heads? Is spirituality simply another biological fact of existence, or has medical science found a way to mediate the tensions that have traditionally existed between the human body and the human soul? The two have, after all, been kept apart for centuries.

The early Christian saints, in imitation of the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, would sever all physical attachments with the world in order to get closer to their god. They were by no means alone in this. The vedantic sadhus of India, the bhikkus of Chinese Bhuddism and the Tantric yogis of Tibet have all been known to shun the snares of the physical world.

In 1907, to actually determine the weight of the human soul, Dr Duncan MacDougall of Massachusetts weighed bodies before and after death with a crude beam scale. Precisely 21 grammes, he claimed.

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