Dying to Know the Truth
Jun. 10th, 2007 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
le_bebna_kamniBook #13: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach
Unlike Joe Nickell, Mary Roach is neither a scientist nor a skeptic. Instead, she's a neutral journalist tackling the age-old question of what happens when we die from the perspective of scientists that have tried to find out what lies in the great beyond.
Roach's book is a collection of research, both old and new, from scientists in regards to the existence of souls, ghosts, out-of-body experiences, and communications with the dead. She starts by taking the reader on a journey to India, where she meets with Dr. Kirti Rawat, director of the International Centre for Survival and Reincarnation Researches. They visit the homes of several children who claim to remember past lives, and she does an excellent job of covering both the skeptical and credulous sides of the various case files. She then leads us through a brief tour of history and the past scientific follies of the afterlife, before coming back and exploring more modern day approaches to crediting or debunking the afterlife.
My favorite chapter, I think, is Chapter 10, "Listening to Casper". Although short, it explores the experiments of psychoacoustics researcher Vic Tandy in haunted locations such as Warwick Castle. Tandy has found that certain waves of infrasound (i.e., below what the human ear is consciously supposed to detect) create sensations of fear or unease, and at nineteen hertz can actually resonate with the eyeball to create the appearance of "manifestations". Older buildings with thicker, more solid walls are more conducive to infrasound, and Tandy believes that this may be one reason why older buildings tend to attract "ghosts".
While her book maintains a relatively neutral tone, the bulk of her chapters are actually spent in debunking pseudo-scientific attempts to "prove" the afterlife. Her most credulous chapter is on out-of-body experiences, but even she acknowledges that there haven't yet been any successfully controlled studies to support an interpretation. In the end, Roach concludes that "the debunkers are probably right", but with a playful twist admits that it's still a lot of fun to believe in ghosts.
Spook is definitely well-written and very well researched. Combined with Roach's ever-ready wit and comfortable narrative style, Spook makes for a very pleasant read. Two thumbs up!
Unlike Joe Nickell, Mary Roach is neither a scientist nor a skeptic. Instead, she's a neutral journalist tackling the age-old question of what happens when we die from the perspective of scientists that have tried to find out what lies in the great beyond.
Roach's book is a collection of research, both old and new, from scientists in regards to the existence of souls, ghosts, out-of-body experiences, and communications with the dead. She starts by taking the reader on a journey to India, where she meets with Dr. Kirti Rawat, director of the International Centre for Survival and Reincarnation Researches. They visit the homes of several children who claim to remember past lives, and she does an excellent job of covering both the skeptical and credulous sides of the various case files. She then leads us through a brief tour of history and the past scientific follies of the afterlife, before coming back and exploring more modern day approaches to crediting or debunking the afterlife.
My favorite chapter, I think, is Chapter 10, "Listening to Casper". Although short, it explores the experiments of psychoacoustics researcher Vic Tandy in haunted locations such as Warwick Castle. Tandy has found that certain waves of infrasound (i.e., below what the human ear is consciously supposed to detect) create sensations of fear or unease, and at nineteen hertz can actually resonate with the eyeball to create the appearance of "manifestations". Older buildings with thicker, more solid walls are more conducive to infrasound, and Tandy believes that this may be one reason why older buildings tend to attract "ghosts".
While her book maintains a relatively neutral tone, the bulk of her chapters are actually spent in debunking pseudo-scientific attempts to "prove" the afterlife. Her most credulous chapter is on out-of-body experiences, but even she acknowledges that there haven't yet been any successfully controlled studies to support an interpretation. In the end, Roach concludes that "the debunkers are probably right", but with a playful twist admits that it's still a lot of fun to believe in ghosts.
Spook is definitely well-written and very well researched. Combined with Roach's ever-ready wit and comfortable narrative style, Spook makes for a very pleasant read. Two thumbs up!
