I chose this book in an attempt to understand a quirk of my own psychology, namely my reluctance to read novels featuring ghostly phenomena after dark. I read considerable amounts of paranormal fiction. In fact, I delight in characters who are vampires, werewolves, or powerful witches. I can read these without fear because I truly don't believe that they are real, but ghost books freak me out! What's the difference? I've come to the conclusion that it is the result of several very vivid dreams about dead relatives that have shaken my skepticism, leaving me feeling like these people actually visited me. I didn't find the dreams scary, but I guess the prospect of meeting ghosts who don't have my best interests at heart is the source of my fear.
As the author points out, belief in the paranormal involves emotions. Rational evaluation requires leaving the majority of emotion out of the equation. This is not always possible for me (and, I imagine, for many other people). Important people in my life have been killed in tragic ways and I cannot separate my experience from my thoughts about them, leaving me vulnerable to really wanting to believe in life after death. I sometimes think that my prefrontal cortex is a skeptic, but my amygdala is a believer. It's a source of dissonance. I think I will have to continue reading ghost stories only during sunshine hours.
I appreciated the author's final pages, where he describes the zetetic outlook: a suspension of judgement and a willingness to explore these concepts. I would like to explore this mindset. In the end, I agree with Mary Roach, who writes at the end of her book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, “The debunkers are probably right, but they're no fun to visit a graveyard with.”
