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    Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
    Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
    Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
    Audiobook8 hours

    Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

    Written by Mary Roach

    Narrated by Bernadette Quigley

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    “What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that’s that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?”

    In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario, and visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged through cadavers and calves’ heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts, and the last surviving sample of “ectoplasm” in a Cambridge University archive.

    Editor's Note

    A journey to the afterlife…

    With a fair balance of a scientist’s skepticism and curiosity, Roach seeks answers to questions about the afterlife from a variety of respected and quirky sources. The answers may be no more concrete than ghosts, but they’re just as thought-provoking and fun.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 10, 2005
    ISBN9781597378857
    Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
    Author

    Mary Roach

    Mary Roach is the author of five best-selling works of nonfiction, most recently Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Her writing has appeared in Outside, National Geographic, and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications.

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    Reviews for Spook

    3.5/5

    1,185 ratings104 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I still can't get over the quality of Roach's writing. She takes her subject very seriously without removing the humor and mystery. If she wrote high school science textbooks, I might now understand biology, chemistry, and physics.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Take a tour of the afterlife "sciences" with Mary Roach. Is EVP real? Do mediums really contact the dead? This lighthearted romp through the industry of the afterlife will entertain and satisfy curiosity.
    • 4/5
      Roach gives us another fascinating read with her trademark snarky voice, the topic this time asking whether there is life after death and is there a scientific way of proving it. We follow her to a school for mediums, exploring the tools that, through history, have purported to call/record/tape or otherwise prove that spirits of the dead walk this earth. She even witnesses an operation to insert a pacemaker where the patient's heart was temporarily stopped. She reports on efforts to weigh dying people to prove that the soul has weight and really exists and studies which decide when a soul would actually implant in a person.This is relaxed nonfiction, totally fun to read with laugh-out-loud moments.
    • 2/5
      Not a big fan of this particular book - I think a lot has to do with the 'reader' trying to be too engaging. It lacked the depth of some of her other books and came across as just another story... instead of an investigation.
    • 4/5
      If you are looking for a scientific study of the afterlife this is not the book for you. If you are looking for a story of someone's adventures doing their own afterlife research you will enjoy this book. Entertaining but only somewhat informative.
    • 5/5
      Mary Roach is her usual, analytical and down to earth self in this fun romp through the afterlife. She researches extensively, often becoming a subject herself to get answers, and experiences she can then impart to her readers. She is not a scientist herself, so her books are successful in talking to the readers, not talking down to them. This book, may not make you a believer, but it will inspire you to ask big questions, and to ponder your own beliefs.

      My biggest criticism however, is in the person who lends her voice to the audiobook. In all other Mary Roach audiobooks I've listened to, she has read the book herself, and her conversational tone is fun, and not at all a distraction. This book is unfortunately read by someone else, who seemed to have a snarky tone to her voice, the entire time. While I could get past that, she also read parts of the book in overly fake accents, which seems insulting, at worst, and distracting at best (the opening of the book takes place in India, with all conversations with anyone from India read in a put on fake Indian accent), and since Roach has travelled extensively while researching this book, you can imagine how many fake accents one must endure throughout. While I loved this book, I am going to steer clear of any of Roach's books read by this person, and any other audiobooks she may have lent her voice to.
    • 2/5
      Interesting information, but where is the tact? Even in comedy, we can do without the racist remarks and the narrator’s horrifying impressions. I’m sure that if I’d read instead of listened to this, it wouldn’t have been nearly as offensive. However, I listened and heard a lot of really gross choices from the author and reader. Again, nice research. Disgusting execution.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed reading *Bonk*, by the same author, which is about the wacky things sex researchers have been compelled to do over the years. For the most part, the sex researchers were doing worthwhile research.

      This book is similar except it's about people looking into life beyond death. I had expected a different focus, hoping for a religious overview maybe, but reading this reminded me of watching a Louis Theroux documentary a while back, in which Louis visited crazy people of the tin-foil hat brigade who were fighting aliens with alien guns, and it all felt exploitative in a reality TV kind of way.

      Mary Roach certainly has a knack for harnessing the weird and wonderful and she writes about bizarre happenings in a comical, deadpan way, but any humour was offset by the feeling that too many people are wasting their lives due to -- if not mental illness -- scientific illiteracy. I find this more sad than amusing.
    • 5/5
      I found this extremely entertaining. Roach researched all sorts of experiments into attempts to contact dead people--supposed reincarnated people, mediums, attempts to weigh souls departing from the dead, etc. She tries out some of the methods herself and even goes to "medium school," but of course, none of the methods work. My only problem with the book is that, at the beginning, Roach presents it as some sort of evaluation of whether people have souls, when really it is a tour of parapsychology methods and experiments that most people--including those who believe in the afterlife--would dismiss as ridiculous.
    • 2/5
      I was only able to get through about half of this book before I had to turn it off. Although I admire what this author is trying to do, she, right off the bat, states that she gives very little credence to anything other than science, quickly dismissing anything which is not of scientific nature. She then proceeds to tell a series of anecdotes about her experiences in trying to research the afterlife. I also found the use of poor ethnic accents to be a little bit off-putting as well.

      In my own opinion, I feel like the research done in this book is haphazardly put together and poorly researched. The author, a self-professed lapsed Catholic, doesn’t even bother to get Catholic doctrine correct on the theology of Eucharist. In other spots, she very clearly displays a negative bias against any organized religions.

      In my humble opinion, any scientist looking to seek out the truth about anything, has to put their feelings to the side and take a strong, unbiased, objective look at their subject. This clear chip on the author’s shoulder, I feel, hinders the entire study. Because of this, I feel that I can only give this book two stars.
    • 5/5
      This is a tale of Mary Roach, the author, investigating the history of spiritualism, belief in ghosts, and the afterlife. It is filled with biting humor and scientific skepticism as she interviews believers, reads old documents, and speaks with science researchers. If you enjoyed her first book, Stiff, you will like this one.
    • 4/5
      BOok is good, narrator and their fake accents is annoying af
    • 3/5
      I don't think I'm the greatest fan of Mary Roach's style. It's informal, easy to read, self-deprecating -- but when it comes to a topic like this, I don't want to hear all about Mary Roach unless it really illuminates the subject matter. Granted, stuff like near-death experiences and the various ideas of what happens to us after we die are things I've been interested in for a long time, and don't really need an entry-level primer on. (I had to memorise the stages of an NDE as described by Kenneth Ring for my religious studies A Level.)Still, where this deals with facts instead of impressions, it's interesting stuff. A couple of the studies and anecdotes were familiar to me from what I already knew: I still find the case of the woman who saw the surgical tools being used on her despite having her eyes taped shut an interesting one. (It's convincing because it wasn't a typical tool, not something she'd have come across elsewhere, and she didn't see the instruments before or after her operation.)Overall, this probably isn't going to convince you either way, if that's what you're looking for, but it's certainly got some interesting snippets of information.
    • 3/5
      After reading and really enjoying Stiff, I was slightly disappointed with Spook. She repeats herself between the books and doesn't seem as interested in this subject as with actual corpses. I prefer this subject over the other so maybe I'm a little biased and over-informed to really enjoy this book (I didn't learn nearly as much as I did from Stiff) but I would still recommend this to people interested in the subject, especially if they're looking for a sort of starter read. I still enjoy Roach's writing style and distinct voice, though.
    • 2/5
      Roach employs an obnoxiously condescending tone throughout most of the book (as if her private title is Dumbasses: People Who Believe in Life After Death), but the subject matter and considerable research is very interesting. If you would like to start reading her work, I would suggest Stiff or Bonk over Spook.
    • 3/5
      This one didn't grab me the way her other books have, though certainly I've found myself retaining a lot of the info in here. I think that perhaps it's just the nature of the topic-- there's so much quackery and superstition and non-science that it felt a little....soft at times.
    • 2/5
      I adored STIFF and was unimpressed with SPOOK. There was much less of the science-y anecdotes that I love from Mary Roach and a ton of haphazard historical stories, many of which I already knew about. Unlike STIFF, SPOOK was pretty slow paced and there were a good 100 pages I think she could have left out. I loved the very end, where she talks to scientists actually looking for near-death experiences, but that was just a slice at the end of the book. This was super disappointing, and I think I'll have to take a break before reading another Roach book.
    • 2/5
      This one is really hard for me because I like Mary Roach. The truth i I only read it as far as I did because I liked several of her other books a lot. This book didn't do it for me. I didn't like the way she attacked the subject. I didn't think it was funny, although I think it was trying to be in places. It seemed to have no clear direction on what kind of book it wanted to be. I stopped reading about 60% of the way through. Again if it hadn't been Roach I would have set this one down much earlier. She can write and there were some interesting parts but not enough to keep me going.
    • 4/5
      Mary Roach is the Dave Barry of popular science writing. Her text is funny, her chapter titles are funny, her footnotes are funny, even her page numbers are funny.* Spook explores the history of “scientific” studies of the afterlife. This is, of course, a subject that lends itself to cheap laughs, but all of Roach’s are earned.
      I can do no better than just describe some of the issues covered: reincarnation; ovism vs. spermism; the soul’s weight (apparently about 20 grams), volume (about 0.3 quarts) and color (greenish-purple), leading one researcher to conclude that leprechauns are discarnate human souls; attempts to X-ray the soul; the Carrington Soul Box, which incorporated hermetic seals, anesthetics, “ionization rays”, and a live monkey; ectoplasm (including an actual sample in the Cambridge University Library, which, strangely, appears to be cotton cloth); various communications with the spirit world (including a claim that Heaven is full of sailboats); Ms. Roach’s experience in a medium school (“There are moments, listening to the conversations going on around me, when I feel I am going to lose my mind”); attempt to get in touch with the dead using tape recorders (conducted, ominously, at the USFS Donner Party Picnic Ground); using EMF and infrasound to induce hallucinations; a note from a dead man settling a law case; and NDE experiments.
      Extremely recommended* “17”. See?
    • 5/5
      Amusing and inciteful. The author tackles reincarnation, spirit mediums, out-of-body experiences and the like. Very interesting reading.
    • 3/5
      I didn't enjoy this one as much as Stiff but it was still interesting.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to. I decided to read it because it seemed like a natural sequel to the excellent "Stiff." I feared that since the most likely results of the research in the book would be entirely negative or at best offering some narrow wiggle-room for their most optimistic interpretors. Which is exactly what the experiments produced. But Mary Roach knows how to keep her writing interesting and moving at an energetic pace despite the mundane results produced by those searching for proof that people outlast their corporal bodies. Highlights include a trip to meet a North Carolina family whose great-grandfather returned from the grave to make changes to his will, descriptions of the various contraptions invented to weigh the human (or animal) soul, scientists investigating the possibility that electro-magnetic fields and infrasound might cause feelings of being haunted, and descriptions of mediums from the spiritualism movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with their methods of producing "ectoplasm" from a variety of bodily orifices. I would definitely read more of her books.
    • 4/5
      Now this was fun! I've never read Mary Roach before, but I enjoyed her exploration of possible evidences for life after death very much. She's a skeptic, but not a debunker – she would like to see solid evidence that some sort of consciousness continues after the body dies, but for the most part what she finds is that even where scientists and other investigators are trying to be rigorous in their experiments, squishiness often intrudes. Results can be interpreted in various ways, and the ways subjects and investigators perceive occurrences are influenced by their beliefs. Still, some of the researchers Roach visits are surprisingly objective, and on a few of occasions Roach allows that the paranormal explanation of events might have something to it. And, as she points out, choosing to believe that the more mystical answer might be right might just be more fun!”Has my year among the evidence-gatherers left me believing in anything I didn't believe in a year ago? It has. It has left me believing something Bruce Greyson believes. I had asked him whether he believes that near-death experiences provide evidence of a life after death. He answered that what he believed was simply that they were evidence of something we can't explain with our current knowledge. I guess I believe that not everything we humans encounter in our lives can be neatly and convincingly tucked away inside the orderly cabinetry of science. Certainly most things can – including the vast majority of what people ascribe to fate, ghosts, ESP, Jupiter rising – but not all. I believe in the possibility of something more – rather than in any existing something more (reincarnation, say, or dead folks who communicate through mediums). It's not much, but it's more than I believed a year ago.”Roach reminds me of Bill Bryson or Sam Kean – a fine storyteller. She includes some personal information and responses, but she doesn't overshare.. Her description of her efforts to unobtrusively examine the “ectoplasm” she has borrowed from the Cambridge University library archive, while sharing a library table with other library visitors, is entertaining, and certainly conveys the repulsiveness of the stuff. Tales of her participation in other experiments, such as when she sits in a soundproofed room at Laurentian University to find out if exposure to EMF's will make her sense presences and see and hear ghosts, and in investigations, such as when she brings in a forensic handwriting expert to determine the authenticity of a “ghostly” will, are engaging and told with sympathetic, if sometimes flippant and earthy, humor. Her footnotes are also amusing.This was particularly interesting in conjunction with The Witch of Lime Street (also better than that one, btw) in that Roach includes a couple chapters which overlap the subject of that one – Harry Houdini and the Scientific American “medium challenge.” Roach actually gives a better context for understanding how serious scientists could have been taken in, at least temporarily, by mediums who appear now to be so obviously fakes. The table tipping and cheesecloth ectoplasm still looks pretty blatantly phony from where I sit, but at the time, when photography was in its early years and X-rays, radio waves, etc. were newly discovered and poorly understood I can imagine how things might have looked different, and open-minded people might more plausibly have imagined disembodied personalities zipping about in the ether.So, lots of fun, and recommended for those with an interest in the subject. 4 stars.
    • 3/5
      I am fond of Mary Roach's books and enjoyed this book as well. Mary does a nice job on researching the topics and describing her findings with a sense of humor. She has an inquiring mind and a logical analysis. This was not my favorite of her books but still recommend the book.
    • 4/5
      When "science tackles the afterlife" in Mary Roach's 2005 book "Spook," you don't find much in the way of answers to age-old questions, but you do find a good time. Roach, as in other books with mostly one-word titles like "Stiff," "Gulp" and "Bonk," seems more interested in satisfying her curiosity and discovering science's lighter side than in hard science. Her college degree was in psychology. Still she imparts some information you are not likely to find, at least not all in one place, in any other science book.Her most amazing bit of information may be simply that a few scientists really have made serious studies of such questions as: Do human bodies lose weight after death, possibly because of departing spirits? Can mediums really communicate with the dead? Do near-death experiences really give glimpses into heaven? Can cameras, recorders and other devices capture evidence of spirits that cannot be detected by the human senses?The evidence in these studies proves inconclusive, yet often suggestive. Roach herself, if still skeptical about an afterlife at the end of her book, nevertheless seems hopeful. "I believe in the possibility of something more ...," she writes. "It's not much, but it's more than I believed a year ago."Thus, "Spook" is a book both believers and skeptics can take some comfort in. It doesn't prove their position, but neither does it disprove it. Is there life after death? This book leaves most of us where we began, relying not on science but on what we believe, or what we want to believe.
    • 3/5
      As engaging and interesting as any of Roach's books. I liked it slightly less well than Stiff, probably because I've never given a second thought to the possibility that the soul exists, whereas the body is undeniable and, to me, undeniably fascinating. (I've been horrifying my family by suggesting that I might want to donate my body to anti-landmine armor research post-mortem ever since I read Stiff, but I would settle for organ donation and a green burial.)Particularly fun were the chapters on early 20th-century spiritualism, with their extremely gross (typically Roach) descriptions of ectoplasm.
    • 3/5
      In her previous books Ms. Roach has tackled subjects as varied as human sexuality and the “secret” life of human cadavers, so it seems somehow appropriate that she complete that circle with a look into the afterlife. Ms. Roach’s always thorough research drives the content of this book (I often wonder how she finds some of her sources) and her trademark wit and light writing style make it educational yet entertaining to read. One review I read recently stated, “If Mary Roach were a college professor, she would have a zero drop-out rate”. I agree whole-heartedly. From searching for the weight of the human soul to near death experiences and then on through séances and reincarnation Ms. Roach covers most the bases. I say most because I wish she had included a few more contemporary examples of fascination with the afterlife and the paranormal. I understand that not everything can be covered in one book, but maybe a little less about the soul/sperm experiments? If I had criticize one thing in this book (as well as in “Bonk” … it was sperm related too??) it would be that sometimes Ms. Roach does latch onto to one particular aspect of her research and lets it dominate too much of the book. This will definitely not stop me from picking up another since I can always skim through a few pages or fast-forward through a minute or two of an audio book. “Gulp” is already in my TBR pile.


      I enjoy Ms. Roach’s books because she gives the reader so much more than a dry accounting of what she discovered in her research. She includes the more questionable and bizarre discoveries and, if she can get away with, often participates in ongoing research and experiments, enabling her to give the reader a first hand account
    • 4/5
      Having had more than a few paranormal experiences, I was a believer. But this book made me think twice. People usually believe what they see/hear/feel, but there are many explanations for these experiences. Although some of my own aren't explained in this book, many are. Which is perfectly fine with me.
      It follows the history of science trying to prove in the afterlife, souls, etc. as well as the history of paranormal experiences (and how they can be explained scientifically), and the history of so-called psychics and mediums. Mary is a wonderful writer, she makes you feel like you're traveling along and experiencing these things with a close friend who, while seriously investigating, is having fun and not adverse to calling people on their BS. She's sarcastic, naturally funny, and relatable. I loved this book!
    • 4/5
      After reading "Packing for Mars" and enjoying it so much that I became annoyed the author was already married, I was looking forward to "Spook".With such high expectations, it is only natural that I was somewhat disappointed with "Spook". Certainly, Roach does a good job explaining the science in a way that even I can understand and there will many humorous turns of phrase that left me wondering how I could claim them as my own. And Roach does Gonzo journalism as well as anyone. However, "Spook" just didn't grab my attention as well as "Packing for Mars".Part of this lack of attention grabbing is no doubt due to the topic; life after death doesn't interest me as much as space exploration does. And "Packing for Mars" certainly had myriad more references to faecal matter, which my immature self always loves (although Roach's section on ectoplasm partially made up for it).Still, it's a four star book in my mind and that's nothing to be spooked by (see what I did there?)
    • 3/5
      I loved Mary Roach's "Packing for Mars," and when I told that to a friend, he lent me "Spook." I enjoyed this book too, but not as much. I got some big laughs from "Packing for Mars" (while learning a lot), while Roach seemed more subdued in "Spook." Only in her last chapter did I feel some of the same spirit she showed in "Packing for Mars."

      "Spooks" is subtitled, "Science Tackles the Afterlife." The title is a bit misleading. For most of the book, a more accurate subtitle would be, "Science Tackles the Psuedo-Science Intrigued With the Afterlife," as Roach investigates mediums, parapsychology investigators, and the like. In the few instances where she talks with true scientists, the final answer she arrives at to the question, "What might science tell us about any afterlife?" is, "Nothing, really."