Mary Roach is a science writer. She is also pretty funny. I knew, when I read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, that would have to read every book she writes, so, in honor of Halloween, I am reading this, which delves into ghosts and other paranormal activity in an effort to find scientific evidence of an afterlife.

The first two chapters are about reincarnation and the old-timey practice of scouring the inside of bodies (thankfully most of them were dead) in search of a soul. To give you a glimpse into her style, she seems to be fairly respectful of believers (she accompanies a man in India as he tries to verify alleged cases of reincarnation, and they manage to get along cordially enough), and at the same time she manages to sneak several fart jokes onto page 72 (most of them she kindly footnoted, so I could have been spared – too bad I almost always read the footnotes).

Sometimes footnotes are where you find the most interesting information. Did you know (maybe Catholic readers knew this) that you can’t just throw away stale Communion bread? The priest has to eat it unless it is too far gone to be safe, in which case it has to be burned. There are even special rules for disposal in the event that someone vomits it up. I wonder if the priest has to drink the leftover wine too, or if it can keep until the next time it is needed (does wine keep?).

I learned something about the common belief in reincarnation. I thought there would be a waiting period, you know, like how they don’t reassign a cell phone number for a few months after someone disconnects it. It doesn’t look like this is the case – I guess a person can die and go right back into another body. Somehow this makes me a little bit sad to think about.

The chapter on finding the soul inside the human body is plenty morbid – think about people rooting around in dead animal parts (at least most of them were dead) and humans whenever possible looking for a particular body part that could be identified as the soul. It seemed so ridiculous to me, and I realize that this is ethnocentrism on my part, since I have such a strong belief in the soul and and understanding (based on faith) that it cannot be found in a toe bone or in the spine somewhere. I think of the body as a glove. It is tangible, but on its own it cannot move or function (no zombie jokes, please). Then if we imagine a hand placed into the glove, suddenly the glove can move, but only because something else is maneuvering it, something that can’t be seen from the outside, but which inhabits the entire glove – that’s the soul, and when the soul is inside the body, the body is alive. Take away the soul, and it’s just a body.

On faith – it’s hard for a scientist/science person to understand faith. Mary Roach says the following: “But can you prove that, Dr. Crick? If not, then it’s no more good to me than the proclamations of God in the Old Testament. It’s just the opinion, however learned, of one more white-haired, all-knowing geezer. What I’m after is proof. Or evidence,anyway–evidence that some form of disembodied consciousness persists when the body closes up shop. Or doesn’t persist.” She talks of proof as being “comforting.” Of course she is right about this, but faith is hard because you have believe anyway in the absence of proof and its comforts.

I am enjoying this book, and am still enthusiastic to read everything Mary Roach has ever written, but I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to get her proof in this book.

Here is a song for you, a 10,000 Maniacs cover of an Iris DeMent song called “Let the Mystery Be” (special guest, David Byrne). I tried to embed it, without success, but it’s worth a click [After you follow the link, you have to click "start"]: Let the Mystery Be