I tried to answer his question as calmly as I could. “The soul stays within the brain while a person is alive, but after their heart stops, it is ejected from the body.”
“No, no, no. That’s not an answer. Let me guess. You have no scientific proof of this, do you? That’s how it always is with you parapsychology types. If you’re going to just make claims without evidence, then you should just start off by admitting you’re no different than a fortune-teller. And you know something, Dr. Hashigami? I’ve never liked the way you keep coming up with all these theories that have no scientific backing whatsoever.” He was spoiling for a fight.
The other guests looked slightly confused. None of them were capable of intervening.
“In the end, everything you’re saying only exists in your own head. If you keep this up, you’re liable to discredit the entire field of parapsychology, you know. Parapsychology is still a new field of study, and it’s trying its best to find scientific evidence for its claims, but it still hasn’t left the realm of the occult. Of course, I’ll admit there’s value in such research, but I think you need another half century of real, solid, experimentally proven results. And yet you, Dr. Hashigami, come on these TV shows and say things for which you have not the slightest evidence. It’s deplorable. Simply deplorable!” Mr. Sawazaki seemed to think he was lecturing me. “Or what, are you going to tell me you’ve found scientific evidence for these claims? Then I’ll ask why you haven’t submitted them to the rest of the scientific community. Your individual claim that the soul exists does not suffice as objective proof. That’s why I say you’re the same as a fortune-teller. What do you have to say to that?”
For a moment, I thought about telling him everything. But I held back the urge.
“Unfortunately, there are good reasons why I can’t publish yet. Scientifically speaking, however, ghosts do exist. What you and the others call the ‘occult’ is just a caricature.”
“But that’s not an argument! You say you’ve got reasons? What are your reasons, then?”
“...” Suddenly, I remembered something.
My young son had once told me the same things that Sawazaki had just said.
My son was a college student now. He was my only child, and I’d loved him as much as I loved myself. I loved him so much that I took him everywhere when he was young. Sometimes, I’d even bring him to academic conferences or lectures. I didn’t know if that was the reason, but from a young age, he’d been one of those rare boys to take an interest in science. But when I’d become an official member of the SPR— about five years ago— he’d asked me a question.
“Dad, do you just want attention, or do you really want scientific proof that the spirit world is real?”
That was when I’d realized that at some point, a deep rift had developed between me and my son.
My son was a dedicated perfectionist, and a denier of the occult, just like Mr. Sawazaki.
“There are no such things as souls, and the supernatural doesn’t exist. There certainly isn’t a spirit world. It’s impossible for the minds of the dead to float around in mid-air. It’s just animal instincts in the human mind that make you feel that way. The occult can easily be explained by modern science. And parapsychology is too close to outright pseudoscience.”
My son had been highly intelligent from a young age, and ironically, his talents had led him to develop the exact opposite stance from my own research.
When he was young, though, he used to tell me all the time that he’d seen ghosts. When I pointed that out, he even analyzed his own memories as a combination of “childhood amnesia and false memories.”
He really could be a stubborn brat sometimes.
By the time I’d started to appear on TV, my relationship with my son had gone past the point of no return. I would see him occasionally, and I could literally feel the disgust in his eyes. I couldn’t help but notice. I was his father, after all. The son said that he could prove, scientifically, that the spirit world did not exist. And the father said that he could prove, scientifically, that it did.
These two beliefs were the exact opposite of one another.
Was there ever a father and son as ridiculous as we were? I chuckled to myself as I remembered his cold glare, despite the fact that I was on TV.
“It’s the spirits of the dead! The suffering of the dead becomes a curse, and stalks the earth!” My debate with Mr. Sawazaki (or more precisely, Mr. Sawazaki’s one-sided berating of me) was suddenly interrupted by a strange yell to my right.
It came from a woman in her early 50s, a self-proclaimed spiritualist named Shizuko Motomura.
The announcer, however, pretended that he didn’t hear her.
“Dr. Hashigami, you just said that after the heart stops, the soul is ejected from the body. Can you tell us more about what you meant? Do souls just float in the air, then?”
Before I could answer, Mrs. Motomura screamed in a voice like nails on a chalkboard. “They’re wandering through this studio! Spirits bound to the earthly realm, unable to accept their deaths!”
The announcer motioned for me to continue, completely ignoring her. He seemed to be urging me to answer as soon as possible. I nodded.
“Yes, that’s right. But to use more scientific terminology, they’re not ghosts so much as they are electromagnetic fields.”
“I’m sorry? Electromagnetic fields?”
“Grrckk... ahem!”
Mrs. Motomura cleared her throat, loudly, but the announcer leaned forward towards me instead.
“Can you tell us more?”
“They’re thought patterns that are saved in a magnetic field and protected by an electric one.”
“Hmm... I see. That’s quite an interesting theory. Well, I’ll be honest. I’m having a little trouble keeping up with this. So this electromagnetic field is similar to a storage device? Like you’d find on a computer?”
“That’s correct. The information is stored magnetically and protected electrically. This is the same method used in both digital and analog media.” I took out a chart that I’d had the staff prepare for me in advance. It displayed a diagram of the soul according to my theory.