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Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
by Mary Roach

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14990.Spook_Science_Tackles_the_Afterlife?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166669250m/14990.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14990.Spook_Science_Tackles_the_Afterlife?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7956.Mary_Roach">Mary Roach</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3738269?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 3 of 5 stars Got soul? Mary Roach tries to figure this one out in her book, Spook. She looks into many scientific studies of the afterlife, and so far, despite a lot of gruesomeness, no research has indicated that we do anything else except stop being when we die. Poof.
 
 Reincarnation - Back when my daughter was a baby, I got excited when she started talking about her “other family” - the one where her dad drove a truck and she had siblings. But nothing really came of it, and she eventually stopped talking about it. This sort of thing happens frequently in India - a kid starts talking about his old family two villages over. But it’s difficult to gather good evidence on this, (is the child amorously eying the attractive widow he supposedly left behind in a past life enough proof?) so it’s still inconclusive.
 
 Weighing the Soul - Scientists have tried weighing the soul of men, dogs, sheep, mice… It was a guy testing this out on people dying of TB that came up with the theory that a human soul weighs 21 grams, but that was only one example out of six he got to convince to die on a scale. The others had things happen like someone bumping the scale and messing things up (”Crap, can you please die again? We goofed.”) And not much has come from people drowning mice and trying to capture their breath and killing a bunch of sheep (some actually gained a few ounces upon death.)
 
 Near Death Experiences - It looks as though being sliced open and having your oxygen intake toyed with can cause one to see white lights, feel like they’re floating outside their body, and hallucinate about departed loved ones. Still, there have been some pretty interesting cases, like the woman who could describe the odd instrument used on her despite her eyes being taped shut and her flat EEG, or the woman who described a shoe lying on a ledge outside the hospital building she saw when she floated away from the scene of people trying to resuscitate her.
 
 Sigh. As much as I want to believe in the spooky stuff, the older I get, the more I begin to realize I’m more suited for Skeptic than Coast to Coast.
 
 PS: Ooh, I KNEW I was onto something by reading Mary Roach! Her next book out (Fall 2007) is about the physiology of SEX.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/231470?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Kendra's review
rating:

bookshelves: heebie-jeebies
recommended for: morbid people
status: Read in January, 2007

Got soul? Mary Roach tries to figure this one out in her book, Spook. She looks into many scientific studies of the afterlife, and so far, despite a lot of gruesomeness, no research has indicated that we do anything else except stop being when we die. Poof.

Reincarnation - Back when my daughter was a baby, I got excited when she started talking about her “other family” - the one where her dad drove a truck and she had siblings. But nothing really came of it, and she eventually stopped talking about it. This sort of thing happens frequently in India - a kid starts talking about his old family two villages over. But it’s difficult to gather good evidence on this, (is the child amorously eying the attractive widow he supposedly left behind in a past life enough proof?) so it’s still inconclusive.

Weighing the Soul - Scientists have tried weighing the soul of men, dogs, sheep, mice… It was a guy testing this out on people dying of TB that came up with the theory that a huma...more Got soul? Mary Roach tries to figure this one out in her book, Spook. She looks into many scientific studies of the afterlife, and so far, despite a lot of gruesomeness, no research has indicated that we do anything else except stop being when we die. Poof.

Reincarnation - Back when my daughter was a baby, I got excited when she started talking about her “other family” - the one where her dad drove a truck and she had siblings. But nothing really came of it, and she eventually stopped talking about it. This sort of thing happens frequently in India - a kid starts talking about his old family two villages over. But it’s difficult to gather good evidence on this, (is the child amorously eying the attractive widow he supposedly left behind in a past life enough proof?) so it’s still inconclusive.

Weighing the Soul - Scientists have tried weighing the soul of men, dogs, sheep, mice… It was a guy testing this out on people dying of TB that came up with the theory that a human soul weighs 21 grams, but that was only one example out of six he got to convince to die on a scale. The others had things happen like someone bumping the scale and messing things up (”Crap, can you please die again? We goofed.”) And not much has come from people drowning mice and trying to capture their breath and killing a bunch of sheep (some actually gained a few ounces upon death.)

Near Death Experiences - It looks as though being sliced open and having your oxygen intake toyed with can cause one to see white lights, feel like they’re floating outside their body, and hallucinate about departed loved ones. Still, there have been some pretty interesting cases, like the woman who could describe the odd instrument used on her despite her eyes being taped shut and her flat EEG, or the woman who described a shoe lying on a ledge outside the hospital building she saw when she floated away from the scene of people trying to resuscitate her.

Sigh. As much as I want to believe in the spooky stuff, the older I get, the more I begin to realize I’m more suited for Skeptic than Coast to Coast.

PS: Ooh, I KNEW I was onto something by reading Mary Roach! Her next book out (Fall 2007) is about the physiology of SEX....less

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