Spook’d
Filed under: Book Slut, Heebie Jeebies - June 27, 2007 @ 5:15 am
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.
June 27th, 2007 at 6:28 am
I love people who constantly try and chip away at anything that makes life wonderous and magical. I’m all for scientific study but soemtimes I wonder what we gain from people who would like us living in a cold, sterile, unimaginative world. Guess that’s the creative in me speaking.
Just another reason to live for the now, consume as much as you can, and screw anyone that disagrees with you.
Who is this Mary Roach anyway and why should I believe what she has to say?
I still love you BTK… *sigh*
June 27th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Ah! I’m a skeptic too who so wishes she wasn’t.
Great review.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I almost (!) believed in reincarnation after reading my past life analysis at http://www.thebigview.com/pastlife/. Try it out! Here is mine:
Your past life diagnosis:
I don’t know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Phillippines around the year 775. Your profession was that of a writer, dramatist or organiser of rituals.
*In my current life I’m a writer and organizer of rituals, i.e. yoga
Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Ruthless character, carefully weighing his decisions in critical situations, with excellent self-control and strong will. Such people are generally liked, but not always loved.
The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
Your lesson is to combat violence and disharmony in our world, to understand its roots and origins. All global problems have similar origins.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Life after Death? The crux of all religions. Most afterlife constructs are the vanity of ego. The hope we discover the truth after death is, most likely wishful thinking. More likely our self delusion continues ala the tibetan book of the dead. What really gets me mad are the conning charlatans that claim to speak to the dead and make the afterlife so completely banal.