Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

Contemplating Soul Projection

Illustrated by Shauna Collins

I'm currently reading Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami, and a fascinating idea that Murakami discusses is soul projection. In the story, some of the characters' souls leave their physical bodies and complete actions elsewhere on their own. While their soul is gone, their bodies become unaware that anything is happening, similar to how someone may disassociate or feel "spaced out". I find this interesting because spacing out or sometimes even disassociating is a normal thing that happens to many people. This type of disengagement could even be seen as a glitch because it's an interference in brain activity and can interrupt someone's day. Imagine, though, that every time you space out, it's your soul leaving your body?

The idea of soul projection, also sometimes called astral projection, is closely related to dualism, a philosophy which argues that our bodies and our souls, or our minds, are separate and can exist independently from each other, an idea that has been popular across many cultures and down through history, from Aristotle and Plato to Paul’s writings in the Bible to Descartes. People seem to like the idea of us all having an aspect of ourselves that is not bound to our physical selves. In the case of soul projection specifically, people seem attracted to the idea that each of us has an inner entity that is free to leave our physical body and able to travel anywhere, any time, far past our consciousness' limitations. The glitch here is in the notion that we have this trans-dimensional soul that has the ability to leave our body, which might strike us as "unusual" because our body feels so integral to our existence.

Something even more "far out" that soul projection makes me think about is dreams. If, as in Murakami’s novel, every time you space out it’s because your soul has left your body, imagine what happens during dreams, whether day dreams or dreams at night. Our dreams could then be interpreted as representations of the adventures our souls go on when they leave our physical selves, as the visions shared with us by our souls about what they do and see when they leave our bodies.

The idea of soul projection raises a number of potentially very interesting avenues of exploration. Where does the notion of soul projection, and of dualism in general, originate historically? How common is it, in fact, across cultures? What possibilities, fictional or otherwise, could the idea of soul projection lead us to contemplate? Why are soul projection and dualism such appealing ideas to so many? What are the consequences of holding this idea?

I hope to explore some of these questions this year. Here are a few links I found related to soul/astral projection, if you’re interested in beginning your own exploration.

Interesting article about Kafka On The Shore (beware of spoilers) :
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/01/24/subconscious-tunnels

Example/form of soul projection in Japanese culture:
http://yokai.com/ikiryou

More on astral Projection: 
http://archived.parapsych.org/out_of_body_experiences.htm