Study Suggests Soul Sale Obesity Panacea

Palo Alto, California, August 12, 2022 -- A team of metaphysical researchers announced today a discovery that may provide a quick, painless, unexpected cure for chronic obesity. The dramatic conclusions were made public following the completion of a three-year study focused on determining the weight of human souls.

Human soul (detail)

Conducted by scientists at the Occam Center for Multiplied Entities in Palo Alto, the study replicated and expanded on earlier work by Dr. Duncan MacDougall, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1907. Dr. MacDougall measured the comparative weights of dying people both immediately before and immediately after expiring and found a weight loss of approximately 21 grams which he correctly attributed to the effect of the soul departing the body.

"Inexplicably, Dr. MacDougall's work was never properly followed-up," Dr. Wilson Umbra, a scientist and spokesman for the Occam Center, said. "Our study, performed over 100 years later, was far more extensive and exposed both certain accuracies and certain fallacies in MacDougall's earlier findings."

According to Dr. Umbra, the human soul does not possess a fixed mass, as faultily proposed by Dr. MacDougall, but rather varies proportionally to body weight. The soul was also found to weigh considerably more than earlier thought.

"We think it may have been a problem with inaccurate instrumentation," Dr. Umbra said, "but Dr. MacDougall's results, while admirable, were several orders of magnitude off the mark. Our findings show a soul-to-body-mass ratio of nearly 15 percent. In other words, a 200 pound person is lugging around excess weight, in the form of his or her soul, of almost 30 pounds."

The Occam Center tested over 450 terminally ill volunteers over the course of the three-year study. Each of the volunteers was positioned on a highly accurate scale, with his or her weight recorded ten times per second prior to and following departure from the earthly plane.

Volunteers were induced to participate in the study thanks to "our offer of first-class hospice care, excellent food, drink and painkillers for the final days and weeks, and a generous cash award to be disbursed at the discretion of the terminal volunteer following his or her demise," according to Dr. Umbra. "It was a very popular inducement. We were heavily oversubscribed."

The considerable cost of the study, Dr. Umbra said, was funded "via a grant from a wealthy, unnamed private source with extensive interests in the spiritual, entertainment and weight-loss industries."

"The implications of these results in terms of the treatment of fat people are, of course, earth-shaking," Dr. Umbra said. "Think what kinds of mental anguish, personal expense and self-deprivation overweight Americans go through every day in the vain hope of reducing their body weight by just one or two percentage points, while all the time they're carrying around dozens of pounds of excess baggage they never even thought of and have no use for."

According to Dr. Umbra, the Occam Center is currently building an extensive branch office, the Metaphysical Slimming Center in Mephistopheles, Oregon, which will specialize in "quick, painless removal of up to 15% of body weight at no cost."

"How does a typical weight loss center work?" Dr. Umbra asked. "You pay out an exorbitant fee, are starved and poked and prodded for several weeks, then lumber away feeling like death and just as flabby."

"That's why our approach," Dr. Umbra said, "is so innovative. The Mephistopheles Center won't charge you a dime for relieving you of your excess weight. Instead, we'll actually pay our clients a significant sum – in cash – via a special arrangement with a private equity partner who wishes to remain anonymous. You'll leave on the same day feeling better than you ever have in your life and, best of all, you'll keep that excess weight off right up until the last moment of your life – guaranteed."

Asked whether Mephistopheles Center weight-loss clients were expected to experience any side effects or discomfort following the procedure, either while still alive or throughout the unfathomable recesses of eternity, Dr. Umbra said, "Look at it this way: there's no sex in heaven. Check the Bible. The true essence of life is to look and feel your absolute best while you can still make the most of it. Leave the soul-searching for someone else."

While the Metaphysical Slimming Center has yet to open its doors, its client list, Dr. Umbra said, "already numbers in the thousands".

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor