No doubt you've seen plenty of ghost movies and TV specials about the paranormal or pondered the existence of a soul. Maybe you've asked yourself: Is there some essence of a person that remains after kicking the bucket?
Mary Roach, acclaimed author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, tries to answer that question by looking at scientific study of the soul in Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Whether you embrace the idea of a soul wholeheartedly or think it's all fluff, you can't deny that it's fascinating.
Roach documents her extensive research of various subjects related to the spirit -- reincarnation, spirit mediums, the search for the physical soul in the body, spirit photography and so on.
Penned like a story and sprinkled with refreshingly sharp humor, the book is difficult to put down. I've never laughed out loud so much while reading a work of nonfiction.
In a footnote in the chapter on spirit mediums, Roach quips, "I take it as nothing beyond happy coincidence that the [Society for Psychical Research] membership roster has ... included a Mrs. H.G. Nutter, a Harry Wack, and a Mrs. Roy Batty."
Scientists have approached the question of the soul in a variety of ways. There's a researcher who interviews children who show evidence of having been reincarnated: They talk about and recognize people whom they've never met. Another tests the accuracy of the readings of spirit mediums. The International Ghost Hunters Society goes to known haunted sites waving tape recorders around, trying to capture otherworldly voices. No joke.
One chapter, "The Little Man Inside the Sperm, or Possibly the Big Toe," chronicles the search for the physical presence of the soul inside the body. In a related chapter, Roach discusses Duncan MacDougall's attempts to prove the existence of the human soul by weighing consumption patients at the precise moment of their death. Rather disconcerting.
The scientific attempts to study the existence of a soul clearly range from kooky and preposterous to shrewd and insightful. Roach documents scientists who have been duped into thinking that rolls of cheesecloth are ectoplasm, a "physical manifestation of spirit energy" produced by spirit mediums. Other researchers have devised contraptions that could theoretically measure the precise amount of energy that may be released at the moment of death, citing advanced concepts of quantum physics and information theory.
I was intrigued upon reading that our very own University houses one of only three parapsychology labs in American universities. One ongoing project interviews patients who have clinically died (meaning their heart has been stopped and restarted) to see if they've experienced any "near-death experiences" -- floating out-of-body sensations, witnessing their own deaths and resuscitations and so on. Conclusive proof of this happening would require the patients accurately describing images displayed on a laptop screen facing the ceiling. (So far, no luck.)
Roach approaches the subject as a whole with a skeptical attitude, never taking any explanation for granted. She has no problem making fun of scientists when their conclusions are ridiculous, but still grants respect to those who deserve it.
While Spook ends without a definite verdict -- slightly disappointing -- this highly entertaining, educational and fascinating journey is completely worth the read.
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