SPOOK -- Science Tackles the Afterlife

Name of Review Item: 
SPOOK -- Science Tackles the Afterlife
Media Type: 
Book
Author/Creator: 
Mary Roach
Name of Reviewer: 
Thom Hanson
Date of Review: 
July 8, 2020
Stars: 
5

Mary Roach in her precocious manner has written a book on the scientific investigation of life after death. Although precocious is usually a term reserved for children asking questions more associated with adults Mary has not outgrown a frank and unabashed curiosity unconstrained by social convention. How refreshing! She directs this unblinking spotlight to address the age-old question: is there something in our constitution that allows human consciousness to exist independent of the physical body and survive bodily death?

Mary begins with accounts of her visit to India where she spends time with Dr. Kirti Rawat of the International Centre for Survival and Reincarnation Researches. Rawat has collected several hundred cases whose evidence suggests survival of consciousness through the mechanism of reincarnation. She joined Rawat in investigation of reincarnation of a man accidentally electrocuted who incarnated as a male baby in a village in the region of the village he previously lived. They interview family and friends and in the process Rawat acquaints Roach with the system and criteria he uses to qualify accounts as evidence of possible genuine reincarnation.

Roach’s investigation of Rawat’s work became more acceptable after her first looking into the work of an American MD, Dr. Ian Stevenson. Stevenson, a tenured professor at the University of Virginia who passed away in 2007, collected evidence on over 800 cases suggestive of reincarnation over a thirty year period. The Virginia University Press has published four volumes of these case studies. His 1200-page Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects Volume 1: Birthmarks, published by Praeger in 1997, is still available but the non-academic or non-researcher reader may find some of his other books more approachable.* He was also a contributor to JAMA and Psychological Reports publications.

Roach includes a brief history of the seeking out of the source of souls as found in western literature and investigates opposing theories from the early days of medicine in which some believed the soul is present in the male sperm whereas others contended it was to be found in the female egg. She details how such investigations were made possible by major advances in development of the microscope by the Dutchman Antoni von Leeuwenhoek which made it possible to actually observe live sperm and ova for the first time.

She then moves on to the history and latest efforts in weighing the body of dying animals and of individuals dying from terminal illnesses. "Weighing the soul" was at one time considered to be a potential proof of the presence of a soul in the human body. She investigates ongoing efforts to see and photograph souls and looks into reports and experiments with ectoplasm, considered by some to be a semi-material state of matter that serves as a bridge between two states of matter, and by others to serve as the reservoir from which is formed a body that survives independent of the physical body after death.

Roach reports on investigations of mediums tested in university laboratories, travels to the UK to undertake training to have the skills to be a medium then goes on to review the range of equipment whose inventors and users purport make it possible to communicate with disembodied spirits.

She spends some time reviewing various instruments currently being used for detection of disembodied people. Her healthy skepticism walks the line between debunking joined with forensic investigation yet remains open-minded enough to recognize western investigations are only as good as the instrumentation used.

There are numerous other chapters. One looks at how a ghostly appearance figures into settlement of a contested will. Another at the effect of electromagnetic fields on human sensitivity toward other-wordly visitors. And, near the end, a good sized chapter on NDEs (near-death experiences) in which a variety of Dutch and American (for example) experiments and experimental configurations are described.

In the end Roach admits to a belief in ghosts but as always does so in the context of the jury still being out as researches continue in a variety of university, institutional and private labs.

This is perhaps one of the best most contemporary contextual overviews of research that directly impacts understanding of extension of human consciousness beyond the body. I would consider it essential reading for anyone wanting to get a sense of placement of his or her efforts toward OOBEs in our technological culture.

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* Such as:

                 Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Second edition, revised and enlarged), Univ. of VA Press, 1980

                 Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Praeger 1997

                 Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation, MacFarland, 2000