Searching for the Soul

Every religion believes in some form of soul, or animating principle of life. But the fact that none of them ever defined it satisfactorily seemed to bother James Kidd, an eccentric Arizona copper miner whose lifetime interest was the explanation of the supernatural. Kidd mysteriously disappeared in 1949, and was declared legally dead in 1965. Arizona authorities found among his possessions a handwritten will in which the prospector directed that his estate, consisting of stocks and bonds worth $198,138.53, be used for "research or some scientific proof of a soul of the human body which leaves at death."

Although he boggled at the unusual bequest, Superior Court Probate Judge Robert L. Myers of Phoenix ruled that the will was legitimate, ordered a hearing to find out whether anyone could properly qualify to carry out Kidd's wish. Last week, as the trial got under way in Phoenix, it was apparent that there was no lack of soul-searchers eager to undertake the task. No fewer than 17 organizations and 78 individuals had already put up the $15 filing fee and were prepared to stake their claims. Among them:

>Nora Higgins, 57, housewife and self-described clairvoyant from Branscomb, Calif., who maintains that the soul has no physical substance but consists of a hazy, tinted form resembling that of the body. At the hearing, she insisted that she had detected Kidd's soul in the courtroom, "pacing up and down with his hands behind his back, shaking his head at the proceedings."

>Another California housewife, Jean Bright, 48, of Encino, who claims to be in constant contact "through my entire nervous system" with a dentist friend who died two years ago. She asks the dentist's soul yes or no questions about the beyond, Mrs. Bright asserts, and it replies by causing her head either to nod or shake.

>William A. Dennis, 64, of Balboa, Calif., a geophysicist who contends that the soul is a center of cosmic vibrations. When the human body is alive, he says, vibrations from the soul give man the power to think and act. When the human body is dead, it is unable to accept or record these vibrations.

-- Virat W. Ambudha, 51, a lieutenant colonel in the Thailand army and author of a book called Increasing Brain Power, who arrived from Bangkok on leave in February to fight his case, which he bases in part on the enigmatic contention that the soul is a "most wonderful, delicate, small thing."

>Dr. Richard Ireland, founder of the University of Life Church in Phoenix (membership: 1,400), who claims the power to communicate with souls, frequently dons a blindfold to demonstrate his powers of mental telepathy.

Not all the witnesses are quite so exotic in their convictions. On the offchance that traditional Christian teaching provides the best answer, Richard C. Spurney, a Roman Catholic philosophy instructor at Mount San Antonio junior college near Los Angeles, plans to submit six volumes of theological research containing 50 proofs of the soul's existence from such thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas. Also interested in the bequest is the American Society for Psychical Research, Inc., whose president is Psychologist Gardner Murphy, a professor at Kansas' Menninger Foundation. Murphy, who believes that the soul, if it exists, is "probably not tangible," hopes to use the money for research into the possibility of survival in the beyond. One distinctly this-worldly claim is that of a New York City woman, Elyse Kidd, who claims to have been Kidd's wife.

Since the court hearing was announced, Judge Myers, an Episcopalian, has received more than 4,500 letters of advice suggesting proofs for the soul's existence. Most of them argue that the answer is to be found in the Bible, although a letter from India suggested: "Take a man who is about to die into a small room. All the doors, windows and ventilators should be thoroughly closed so that there is no place for the soul to get out. As soon as the man dies, his soul shall pierce or crack the window glass, thus giving proof of its existence." Courthouse observers estimate that the hearing will last all summer, but Myers considers himself fortunate in at least one respect: "I don't have to rule whether or not man has a soul." That, he explains, is a matter outside his court's jurisdiction.

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