Last night I finished reading Spook by Mary Roach and it was a good time, particularly for the cynics out there. She, the perpetual skeptic, goes in search of scientific proof of past lives, ghosts and life after death, amongst other things. Her journey covers several continents and meetings with some of the most learned people in their respective fields, but rather than giving the reader answers she gives us the facts and lets us figure out what we believe on our own. Roach had me laughing out loud several times with her wry observations and self-depreciation and in the end I’m with her in thinking that the human mind has an enormous capacity to convince itself of whatever it wants to believe.

[This is a post from a previous blog. Original date: 29 July, 06]