IN GOOD SPIRIT

Experiment to investigate out of body experiences

Scientists probing the paranormal say they hope to set up a major experiment in Britain trying to find out once and for all whether the mind can step outside the body at the brink of death.
The proposed study would involve interviewing people who had survived cardiac arrest to see if they had had an out of body experience while on the operating table, neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick told reporters at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
The researchers plan to ask 25 hospitals to place special objects and pictures around their cardiac units.
Each survivor who then claimed to have an out of body experience -- where they typically hover near the ceiling watching the resuscitation process -- would be asked if they had noticed any of the objects.
"If they do notice them when the brain is not functioning then it makes the case for the mind being separate from the brain," he said.

Fenwick also said there had been several scientific studies showing efficacy of prayer, including one in which the number of women in a clinic in Seoul who conceived after being implanted with fertilised eggs doubled when groups elsewhere prayed for them.