Can you weigh a soul? What's ectoplasm made of? Is reincarnation real?
Mary Roach has done the definitive investigation of the definitive investigators, and she offers the results of her exhaustive research in exhilarating fashion in "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife."
It's unusual to find an author who can write authoritatively on scientific matters while still maintaining a distinctive sense of humor. Roach's book asks the big questions about life after death: "Will some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?"
The book is filled with both humor and fascinating tidbits about the people who undertake scientific quests to prove the afterlife.
The subject suggested itself from the research she did for her earlier best seller, "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers." Roach came across a study done in 1901 by Duncan Macdougall, who had weighed the bodies of TB patients as they were dying, trying to calculate the mass of the human soul.
"I just loved that study," Roach said in a telephone interview. "I love that can-do spirit: 'We can use science to prove this; we can do anything!'"
That led to explorations of other ghost-related investigations. "Some of the studies are current," she said. "Some are from the past, some are from other countries. It's about people trying to get proof of an afterlife, trying to get proof of something more."
Did she find that proof? "I don't want to give that away. For me, it's more about the lives of people trying to find proof, a fun look at the schemes people come up with to do it."
Q: You've gone about this from a scientific standpoint.
A: Right. I've tried to take it out of the realm of the anecdote. I've tried to take religion, soul and the afterlife out of it; I've just focused on the science.
Q: How did you get started?
A: The first thing I did was try to find universities where there's still (psychic) research going on. It's very hard to find; in this country, only the University of Virginia and the University of Arizona are still doing it. I'd meet one person with something to say and ask them where to go next.
Duke University used to have a formal laboratory, where they were looking at telepathy and telekinesis, but it's hard to get funding for that now. The University of Edinburgh has a parapsychology unit. At Virginia, the inventor of the Xerox machine, Chester Carlson, made a grant specifically for the investigation of the survival of personality.
Q: You've done a lot of historical research.
A: I would just stumble onto it. Reading the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, I found myself on some interesting paths.
Q: You've discovered some interesting characters ? Macdougall, for one.
A: Oh, yes, and Hereward Carrington. He's one of my favorites. I wish "Spook" had photos in it; he was such a dashing man. Carrington would set up all these elaborate experiments (to try to detect unseen "entities"), and nothing would happen until he walked out of the room. Then there would be a response.
Q: What kind of response have you had?
A: Sometimes on call-in radio I get calls from people who feel I don't know what I'm talking about, because I haven't read this or that book. When people have had a mystical experience, it becomes religious to them.
Oddly, the most extreme cases ? the most vocal and vehement reactions I got ? were in Berkeley, Calif.
Q: Will you be doing more writing on this subject?
A: I won't be doing anything else in the realm of the paranormal because of the slipperiness, because it's frustrating not to be able to pin it down.
I'm finishing up the next book. It's more bodies in the lab, but this time they're not dead: It's on lab-based sex research. The working title is "Bonk."
Q: You have a gift for titles that consist of just one evocative word.
A: "Spook" almost didn't make it. There were a lot of e-mails back and forth, trying to turn it into something else. Someone suggested "The Soul," but that doesn't sound like a Mary Roach book! I don't know what they were thinking.
"Spook" had the right tone, the right irreverence. It's goofy and fun, not a heavy philosophical slog. I think the topic can scare people off. They think it's either some spiritual New Age thing, or something highly scientific or technical. It's neither.
And it's not quantum mechanics: I kept that down to two pages. My aim is to provide a fun read.
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