Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife [Hardcover]

People frequently confuse a breezy style, humor and ability to entertain with being superficial. While Mary Roach's latest book isn't quite as compelling as "Stiff" it's an enjoyable journey one step beyond. When Roach is serious (which pops up between very funny quips)she asks some important questions about the afterlife, our perception of it, ghosts and reincarnation. Perhaps it's the subtitle that disappoints people but having read "Stiff" I knew what to expect. If you come to this book ignoring the subtitle (this skeptical humorist tackles the afterlife and science although more about that later with a sense of humor but doesn't quantify the afterlife with science herself).

Roach asks some penetrating questions with humor. For example, she discusses an author that discusses reincarnation, birthmarks and how a pregnant woman can see the corpse of someone. The soul of the slain man turns up in her child. Also, she discusses a pretty creative idea--emotional imprinting from an event that can leave birthmarks on the skin of the unborn creating a duplicate of a birthmark from the person whose soul has flown into the unborn child. She goes on a journey to investigate a family that claims their child has memories from a previous life and while going as an unbiased observer using humor and logic to deflate some of these unusual claims.

Yet she's always hopeful. She relates the story of a computer that is used for near death experiences. She discusses Professor Bruce Greyson's experiment in near death experiences using a computer with images that can only be seen if you were hovering below the ceiling. Patients that have had defibrillators put in have their hearts stopped to see if their defibrillators are working (they should restart the patient's heart). Many people claim to have seen the attempt to revive them floating above their body. If that's the case they should be able to see the computer screen and tell Greyson what images are on it. She also takes a look at cases involving ghosts and other related areas.

Roach focuses on the scientific approaches taken by various people to try and verify the afterlife's existence. This isn't a "science vs. faith" argument. Instead, this is an attempt to see if the scientific approach works or not in these various experiments. Roach asks some practical and hard questions about these various experiments, theories and researchers. The subject is more elusive here than in "Stiff" for obvious reasons. This isn't a book about faith. Roach is trying to find some solid basis for faith in the afterlife and that is going to continue to be challenging.

Roach discusses in her afterword that she starts all of her books in complete ignorence of the subject. Does that provide her with a sense of the impartial attitude that journalists need to write material like this? I'm not sure but it does allow errors, holes and mistakes to occur. It also means that she really doesn't have a whole lot to prove. Regardless of whether "Spook" is as balanced and informed as it should be Roach asks some provocative questions and tries to find answers. You may not be enlightened but you will be entertained and the questions that Roach asks are always interesting. While the answers don't always hold up to scrutiny Roach's journey to discovery is always entertaining.

I can see where Ms. Roach probably found herself a bit cornered while exploring the subject of life after death. First, she doesn't want to turn this book into a sprawling tome that explores the meaning of human existence. She also doesn't want to go down the long road of exploring every spiritual quest ever taken on by humanity. Then there are considerations regarding strongly held religious feelings; you don't want to step on the wrong toes. So, I think Ms. Roach took the right approach to the book in exploring a few areas of possible interest, looking at them as objectively as possible and seeing if anything raises an eyebrow.

So, the shortcomings of "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife" may not be so much the fault of the author. If you've ever watched a Bigfoot documentary, you know that you're going to be disappointed if you expect some hunter to emerge from the woods with an eight foot tall ape-man on a leash. Also, you know that the blurry footage is a guy in a gorilla suit, no matter how much you'd like to believe otherwise. These documentaries always jazz up the footage with a little editing and some scary music. That's because simply showing how unrealistic it is to believe in Bigfoot after all this time doesn't make for entertaining viewing. They're taking advantage of us because we want to be taken advantage of, just a little.

Mary Roach respects us more than that and gives us what she can. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for very entertaining reading. The one thing that was really missing for me was that feeling of "Aha!". I understood that Ms. Roach couldn't take on everything regarding the subject but I wished it had been a little wider in scope. I would've liked a little more philosophical exploration and perhaps a bit of sociological and psychological examination regarding our views on death. I'm not suggesting Roach should have done an Elizabeth Kubler Ross examination on the process of dying or re-written "Being and Nothingness", but something to chew on in those areas wouldn't have been bad.

I think there might have been a little more to touch on regarding the subject other than debunking soul weighers and psychic mediums. For instance, the culturally independent archetypes that we all share, or the discoveries in physics, mathematics, biology and philosophy that entice us to believe that there may be a God or at least a design. Then again, this book isn't called "Science tackles God", its called "Science tackles the Afterlife", but the discussion of one seems to so inevitably tie into the other, which once again leads to the complications I mentioned above.

I can't let the author completely off the hook, though. "Spook" pales in comparison to Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark", a book that deals with similar subject matter, and more, in a more thought provoking manner. I also have a new rule regarding review snippets claiming a book to be "Hillarious!"; they are never "Hillarious!". I think "Hillarious!" is book-critic speak for "the author makes occasional off-the-cuff comments." Then again, Roach didn't need to re-write "The Demon Haunted World" and I don't get the impression that she would claim herself to be "hillarious!" Perhaps my greatest criticism of Roach's approach is that she sacrifices some of the exploration previously mentioned for long, detailed accountings of her research. I think she could have convinced the reader that she thoroughly explored the subject without giving us so much detail. She may have mistaken our enthusiasm for her own when it came to the minutiae of her subject. The few inset diagrams and photos never seem to get to the heart of what we want drawn out. Maybe she could have even stepped on a toe or two. Also, I don't know that science tackles the afterlife so much in "Spook" as does a healthy skepiticism. This is another trap; you really can't "prove" a negative.

"Tackling the afterlife" may look like a wellspring to a writer looking for a subject, but it turns into a blind alley. I can't say that its entirely the author's fault, and I wouldn't dismiss other work from Mary Roach, but "Spook" never really finds its footing. I don't think that anyone expects to find the truth of our human destiny in this book, but they won't find much else, either. Inviting as this book may seem, both skeptics and those looking for something more than life has to offer will be disappointed.

If you're tuned in to her boisterous, quirky sense of humor, you'll find Mary Roach's book will take you on a sprightly voyage around the earthly borders of the afterlife. Don't expect any serious examination of whether there is or can be any real evidence of something beyond those borders, and you'll enjoy the excursion.

Building on the success of _Stiff_, her well-received survey on the world of corpses, our author advanced to the obvious next stage. She set out to write a book about secular investigations into the hereafter, beginning from a state of utter ignorance and friendly skepticism. She lets us look over her shoulder as she pokes around rather randomly into reincarnation research in India, the vaginal and gastric origins of ectoplasm, the accuracy of industrial scales used to weigh the soul, near death experiences, tape recordings of the long-dead in Donner Pass, and testimony from a ghost once allowed into evidence by a North Carolina court. She has a great deal of fun, much of it gossipy, some of it delightedly gross. The list of eminent men and women who have tried to cage and measure spirits is long. (I had no idea that Alexander Graham Bell's Mr. Watson was a devotee of spirit voices plucked from the ether.)

Ms Roach is game for pretty much anything, enrolling for example in a school for mediums. Skepticism wins almost every round, though never too decisively, which might spoil the party. The most interesting research is into possible correlations between hauntings and (1) infrasound or (2) EMF, each of which can induce a sense of uncanniness in a certain percentage of the population.

In sum, you will learn nothing substantial from the book, but it's not intended to resolve any serious questions. It's an entertaining, anecdote packed ramble through some of the fringe science community's haunted attics, under the aegis of a tour guide whose chatty, brassy style will turn off some tourists and enchant many others.