I think that one of research line on this subject i OOBE. Many schoalars are working in this direction. Recetly, new scientific papers are publisched on this.

I suggest that you add Psychology of Religion to your topics list, and explore some of the major literature in their journals. You can find The Society for the Psychology or Religion and Spirituality,which is Division 36 of thhttp://www.giffordlectures.org/e American Psychological Association, at http://www.apadivisions.org/division-36/

The American Academy of Religion at https://www.aarweb.org/

The journal Review of Religious Research at http://link.springer.com/journal/13644

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion at http://www.sssrweb.org/

You might also find interesting some of the books published as part of the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at http://www.giffordlectures.org/

Many of the Gifford Lecturers asked these tough questions.

I think western science separate the studies to physical, mental, emotion, and spiritual. For TCM, some text use the word mind which include mental and emotion together. Emotion can affect our mental thinking process, but I am not sure whether Western science has proven it, except from psychiatry view, they identified the hormones Serotonin to affect mood and thinking process, but exactly how, I think they are still working on it. TCM stresses on emotion during their treatment of a patient as it can affect physical health. I think the closest is the study of negative energy ... vibration, etc. Think they can detect some vibration, some patterns of thoughts using colours through MRIs, etc. TCM uses the concept of Qi, which they say is a continuum from the finest vibration to the most coarse. The finest is beyond the spectrum of our eyes, but I am not sure about those of some animals. The most coarse is the blood. One of the measurement may be vibration ... I am speaking not from the Western scientific or Western definition of scientific research views. Just some observations and articles that I have read. A psychiatrist, Elizabeth Ross (you can google her, she wrote a few books but not from Western scientific method) studied about dying people, and how to better take care of their psychological needs, instead of just ignoring the discussion of the subject of "death". Later stage of her life, she focused on OBE (out of body experience) and claimed they (not sure which organisation) have compiled OBE testimonies for research which comprises 20,000 cases world-wide (at that time). I think there are also some studies by psychologist and psychiatrist on metaphysics and parapsychology side. They try to measure such as what happens to the brain (with whatever instruments they have now) when a person goes into deep meditation ... think some studies in India and Tibet, etc. If we  believe the soul or spirit or whatever we call it leaves the physical body upon the physical death of the body (i.e. the body stopped functioning) and go somewhere which may not be in physical realm, then maybe these areas are beginning to touch that boundaries. Another area is consciousness, and also when the soul enters a baby's body. We can see it as a physical or biology process as we can create an embryo out of body using IVF techniques nowadays. But then for it to grow into a functioning human being, we need to put it back into the womb. At certain stage, the baby starts to have its own consciousness and life separate from that of the mother. Some interesting speculation can be found from some interviews with western scientists such as Einstein and Stephen Hawkings who seem to be able to conquer and explain whatever that is physical (physics) but try to go beyond what is physics. Sorry, I don't have any references to Western journals ... just some thoughts. All the very best, and please do keep us posted ... 

Some would argue that the existence of the soul and afterlife have already been scientifically proven.  This is a good place to start:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_Mind

The road importance of the discovery of science cannot be under estimated .Their contribution is remarkable & also have made us proud of 21 st century .With all this salutation of science science can never be Omni present & Omni potent .

With this forget about the existence of soul as SOUL never dies & it will remain even after the departure on the earth ,SOUL keeps our the fruits of our action of our life which can be generated in our next life .

We know as human beings we keep our energy force of our action thru our Mind & brain .Whatever may be our standing & contribution for our working environment & whatever may be our position for our selfish end although our conscious wanted to have the right course of action but our mind takes different action with the result we may know & experience of our wrong during action .

This is the world in which we are living & it is a fact rather unfortunate in certain cases human being does not want to change the behavior his action.his anger,his ego .his greed.& such related areas for his activities & we as viewers know the result & outcome up their action in the news paper .

While writing this i am fully aware regarding the present of my mind . Even politician every where in the world for which it has been mention that power corrupt power & Absolutely power corrupts absolutely .

We are also aware regarding the negative action of certain business magnets ,industrialist ,production units ,where in order to make a financial gain what mixing & other action they take in the production for preparing finish products.

When we think regarding the existence of SOUL which is a very holy soul in every human beings joining with the divinity & our heart  . With our departure our heart stop our activities & ending with life . With all the development of medical science it becomes impossible for medical science to  keep human beings survive as with our birth death is certain & not in our hand .

As early indicated our holy SOUL never dies .Its existence may come out with our next birth bringing the our survive soul joining with us with all resulting fruits of our action positive & negative for which we are taking our next birth .

It is these which we all are observing that human being are not same with intelligence,attitude,behavior ,& their follower up with the social surrounding . 

With this scientist of any region cannot afford to make a ground of experiment for the SOUL which is holy -divine & grace for all the entire human community of the universe .

This is what i believe & my personal opinion 

Thank you for your opinions!

Probably if you study every thing existing in nature, both immaterial and

material, by the " scientific method", that can  become

"Science". May be right this affirmation?

Good point.  If these things were proven they could no longer be considered "supernatural.". Some scholars use the term "extended naturalism."

I have found some of the new research on psychedelic drugs and the spiritual or mystical experiences they induce very interesting. Their is some theory on the human spirit that may be found at http://www.maps.org.

Some works, as Pin Van Lommel (about Near-death Experience) e Ian Stevenson (about reencarnation) are good indicators in this sense.