The Afterlife:In the US, Mary Roach's book carried the title Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Bad title. It's obviously pandering to the ghost hunters, and is somewhat inaccurate anyway, writes Shane Hegarty.
Science does occasionally tackle the afterlife here. Sometimes it even drags it down to earth, although as often it lets it wriggle free. But Roach's adventures become a little more transcendent in the chapters that feature those who think they are using science.
There are the "recordings" of disembodied voices on audio tapes; the various attempts to weigh the soul, to see what colour it is and from where it exits the body; the spiritualistic snot that is supposed to be ectoplasm; and the weekend workshop in which people learn how to become mediums. (Be more general in your information, Roach is advised. You're more likely to get a reaction.)
Nevertheless, the science is often very real, with earnest boffins currently trying to get to the bottom of reincarnation, ghostly visitations and near-death experiences. There are chaps such as Michael Persinger, who will put electrodes on your head and make you think you've sensed a ghost. Or Prof Bruce Greyson, who has a computer screen pointed towards an operating theatre ceiling so that any cardiac patients whose heart requires stopping can see it should they have an out of body experience. No luck so far.
And then there are those who are replete not just with qualifications but a with cultured credulity, such as Dr Kirti Rawat, who travels India meeting supposed reincarnations. Travelling with him, Roach's arrival on the sub-continent begins with a rat dropping on her head. She squeals. Rawat comments: "You are blessed! The rat is the conveyance of Lord Ganesha!"
Roach is clearly obsessed with death: her previous book was the enjoyable Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. She has a relentless curiosity, judging by the countless alleyways her research takes her down, and a sparkling sense of humour. This is often a very funny book, in the Bill Bryson mould of science and history writing, in which the facts are wowing and there is much hilarity to be found in the cast of characters (past and present) who have attempted to trap the human soul as if it were a devious mouse.
She has an unfortunate penchant for witty but irrelevant asides, such as a pointless note on why the word "motion" is a euphemistic noun for a bowel movement. But generally she acts as a sceptic and a bubbly, curious outsider, who is keen to ask dumb questions and is self-deprecating when she actually does something dumb herself.
She is also delightfully sensible. "Dead people never seem to address the obvious - the things you'd think they'd be bursting to talk about, and the things all of us not-yet-dead are madly curious about," she complains. "Such as: Hey, where are you now? What do you do all day? What's it feel like being dead? Can you see me? Even when I'm on the toilet?"
She pitches her book at the casual sceptic, but leaves enough in there for the believers in ghosts, heaven, reincarnation and everything else associated with the afterlife. It's good for the marketing, maybe not so good for those who want neater conclusions. Her final line is particularly glib - quite a cop out, in fact. Then again, she has forewarned the reader that she is no Richard Dawkins.
"Are these people whose EMF-influenced brains alert them to 'presences' picking up something real that the rest of us can't pick it up, or are they hallucinating?" she asks at the end of one chapter. "Here again, we must end with the Big Shrug, a statue of which is being erected on the lawn outside my office."
Shane Hegarty is Assistant Features Editor of the Irish Times
Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife By Mary Roach Canongate, 293pp. £14.99