Though
it rarely comes up in polite conversation, most of us know that we will be dead
sometime in the next 50 years or so. A
few may linger on perhaps, but many of us will be gone even before then. Our lives are “but a breath”, as the psalmist
says—and sadly, some of us don’t even have that
long.
Good
old death is the single opportunity every one of us will share in regardless of
nationality, race, class, or ethnicity.
We share this destiny with everything that moves on the face of the
earth or beneath the surface of its oceans.
But the fact that everything
dies is cold comfort to the individual facing his or her own end with trembling
and dismay.
To
paraphrase another psalmist: while the
fear of God is—at least to some—the beginning of wisdom, the fear of death must surely be the beginning of
horror, perhaps its throbbing core. How
will it come to us? Will there be
anything left of us after its chilly, desiccating visit?
Ecclesiastes,
the most courageous book in the Bible, offers this very empirical observation:
Man’s
fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no
advantage over the animal. Everything is
meaningless. All go to same place; all come
from the dust, and to dust all return. (3: 19-20)
The
rejoinder to this dismal and submissive view is some version of the sentiment
expressed in Dylan Thomas’ famous poem Do
not go gentle into that good night (1951).
If we are clever enough, can we find a way to delay death, deceive him,
or avoid him entirely? Is it a matter of
strength of will, or piety, or the right combination of vitamins, herbs, and
potions?
Several
encouraging, if conventional options have been developed over the centuries,
for example, reincarnation, resurrection, and the demarcation of various
supernatural realms for the undead. Though
more research is needed, these hypotheses are at least palliative and seem to
have little negative effect on the natural progression of a human life on this
side of the veil.
For
those enthused with darker
understandings there is psychic possession, vampirism, and certain vodou
practices, among others. More recently
there have been some amazing medical and technological innovations. These methods collectively entail taking
resurrection into our own hands, since our collective faith in the Creator’s
ability or willingness to perform this operation may be equivocal. All of these techniques seem to belong
together, in my view at least, because they entail a violation of natural
law—at least as set forth in Ecclesiastes.
If the
fear of death is the beginning of horror, cheating
death—by violating the natural laws that govern it—is the chugging, clanking,
smoke-belching machinery that moves it along.
Cheating death is one of the classic plot lines in horror and science
fiction literature. In Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927)
H.P. Lovecraft wrote that horror must contain
“…a
hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of
that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular
suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard
against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.”
Necromancy is the attempt, through various
occult procedures, to communicate with the dead, to conjure what remains of the departed
in order to obtain knowledge, often of the future. The word is derived from an older Latin term
meaning divination or prophecy using an exhumed corpse. The practice is ancient, and speaks to the
indelible human perception that something
survives of our loved ones and associates after death. Variations of it exist in virtually all human
cultures.
There
are several examples of necromancy in classic literature. Following specific instructions given him by Circe,
the sorceress, Odysseus invokes the spirits of a crew member, a prophet, his
mother, and various ancient Greek celebrities, like Achilles and Agamemnon, who
provide him useful information or ask him to complete unfinished business for
them. (The dead crew member just wants to
be properly buried.) In the Old
Testament, there is an interesting story in 1 Samuel 28. Saul, facing a difficult battle with the
Philistines, and not having the ear of God at such a critical moment, asks the
witch of Endor to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel, in hopes that he
will provide some military advice.
Samuel is unhelpful though.
Necromancy
is the subject of H.P. Lovecraft’s The
Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1941), which was discussed in two recent
posts, (see also “…doe
not call up Any that you can not put downe…”... and Charles
Dexter Ward—Additional Diagnosis). In
that story is the memorable quote from one Borellus, an actual seventeenth
century physician who specialized in chemistry and biology. Lovecraft took some poetic license with
Cotton Mather’s somewhat inaccurate paraphrase of Borellus, but the truth—in
fiction, as in real life—often needs enhancement and embellishment in order to
be effective:
The
essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious
man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape
of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential
Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call
up the shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been
incinerated.
Lovecraft’s
novel implicitly warns us that in necromantic practice, an incomplete set of such essential Saltes can be problematic. Considerable experimentation and caution are
recommended. Yet it may be that the
entire residue of the corpus is unnecessary for useful results. Instead of the entyre Bodie, it may be sufficient to merely reconstitute the Head.
Is
there a modern, more reliable means of conjuring the dear and the not-so-dear
departed, both for edification and profit?
Some readers may be familiar with the recent feature story in The New
York Times* that described one young woman’s plans to preserve her connectome—a microscopically detailed three
dimensional map of her brain—using advances in cryogenic technology.
Diagnosed
with an inoperable glioblastoma in her brain stem, she was given only a couple of
years to live. She and her boyfriend
spent their remaining time together studying controversial research in
neuroscience and recent developments in cryonics. A Reddit campaign and a contest—“The Brain
Preservation Technology Prize”—helped generate funds and interest in her
project.
Two
options were available to her: 1) traditional
cryonics, which involves storing brains or bodies at -300˚ Fahrenheit once they
have been injected with antifreeze, or 2) chemopreservation, in which a
chemical fixative is introduced into the brain by way of a still intact circulatory
system, solidifying the structures and allowing them to be stained with a dye
that facilitates later examination under an electron microscope. In the second method, the brain can then be
encased in hard plastic and kept at room temperature, a great convenience.
The
young woman and her boyfriend opted for the traditional approach. The article’s description of how cryogenics
was implemented with a human subject is disquieting. While in hospice, the young woman stopped
eating and drinking to hasten her death, but exceeded the 12 day limit and was
reclassified as an outpatient—her condition was considered “stable”. She was transferred to a nearby apartment,
where she died two days later.
Although
a team of cryonics experts were on standby, the woman needed to be officially
declared dead before they were allowed to begin their procedures. The nurse who could do this was an hour late
in arriving, it being shift change at that hour. (Timing is everything.) Once the young woman was deemed officially
dead, the cryonics team applied CPR to revive her circulatory system, anticoagulants
were pumped through her arteries into her brain, her body was immersed in an
ice bath, and she was transported to the cryonics laboratory.
Her
boyfriend watched from an observation window as the woman’s head was detached
from her body and the cryoprotectant was pumped into it through the cerebral
arteries. Her head would be kept in a
container of liquid nitrogen, not far from about 140 others, including that of
baseball great, Ted Williams.
Theoretically,
a well preserved brain, using the chemopreservation method, can be digitally
sliced into microscopically thin sheets using an electron microscope. When these images are stacked, a three
dimensional map of the interconnections among brain cells can be
developed. Insofar as a person’s mind or
soul resides only in these
interconnections between brain cells—not all would agree—it should be possible
to reconstruct memory and other elements of the deceased’s personality from the
patterns that are revealed. This mapping
is called the connectome.
Instead
of relying on Borellus’ inexact essential Saltes, the young woman and her
boyfriend fervently hope, along with “transhumanists” like Ray Kurzweil, (see http://www.kurzweilai.net/), that future
technological advances will allow the young woman’s connectome to be uploaded
into a computer, and so experience a kind of resurrection or conjuration. She would literally become a “ghost in the
machine.”
It is
typical of our hubris to believe that our minds and souls resemble, or are
indistinguishable from our most highly developed technologies. Over the past century or two our minds have
been compared to steam engines, telephone switchboards, and now computers. These technological metaphors are intended to
help us comprehend what is ultimately subtle and inexplicable, as if the work
our hands is somehow comparable to what God or Nature has wrought. This is the sin of idolatry. Yet because we
are alone among all mortal creatures in knowing of our inescapable end, and terribly alone in
grappling with that great horror, this seems forgivable.
********************
*“Hoping
to Transcend Death, via Cryonics”, The
New York Times, 9/13/15.
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