“Back off, I’m a scientist!”

Book review time. Just finished two of the finds from my last library trip, and was amazed at how they complemented each other. At the same time, I liked one significantly better than the other.

Spook, by Mary Roach, had lots of interesting stuff in it (like ectoplasm, one of the more ludicrous chapters in 19th century spiritualism, which resulted in mediums undergoing full body cavity searches before seances…. But I kept thinking about Slimer from Ghostbusters.) Ultimately, though, it felt kind of shallow, and Roach seemed condescending rather than engaged. Like a Victorian tourist watching native basket weavers, who has no intention squatting in the dirt and trying her hand at basket weaving herself. I got the feeling she thought these scientists were rather quaint for spending their time looking for proof of an afterlife.

Then there’s Will Storr vs. the Supernatural, by British journalist Will Storr. I loved this one. I started out not liking it because in the first few chapters he’s completely histrionic, like “OMG THESE AMAZING THINGS ARE REALLY HAPPENING AND IT’S UPSETTING MY WHOLE WORLD VIEW OMG!” Then he has a lightbulb moment. Like, “Hang on. Those rods are moving because your fingers are canted slightly. That’s not paranormal.” And he completely swings the other way, toward skepticism, but that launches him on almost the same investigative journey that Roach went on. The difference is, Storr is completely engaged, and he’s using the information he gathers to help define his own worldview. He gets into meaty stuff like discussions of Cartesian dualism that must necessarily result from believing in any kind of life after death, a bit of quantum mechanics, psychology, etc. And he has another lightbulb moment: that to be a completely devoted skeptic requires as much faith as being a devoted believer. While the believer has absolute faith that there is life after death, the skeptic has absolute faith that there isn’t. And neither stance is completely satisfactory to Storr, who comes to his own indepenent conclusions, which resonated very much with my own feelings about the whole issue, which may be why I loved his book so much. (I also have a weakness for cute scruffy Brits, but never mind that)

Interestingly, both Roach and Storr talk about Allison Dubois, the psychic that the TV show Medium is based on, and I love Medium. Not because it’s about a psychic or the paranormal. It’s really well written and is doing some amazing things in the horror genre. And Joe Dubois is played by a cute scruffy Brit.