The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries. —Nikola Tesla

"Here's the easiest way to think of it," she said. "Look at that speaker." She pointed to a nearby shelf on which a miniaturized wireless speaker was playing classical music. "Let's say Mozart traveled ahead in time and joined us right now at this table for lunch—he would be amazed to hear music coming out of that tiny box. In his world, there were no recordings. When he heard music, there was always an orchestra present. Seeing this speaker, he might mistakenly conclude there is an orchestra hidden behind the wall—or even a miniature orchestra inside the speaker itself. There would be no other options within his intellectual grasp. He would never conclude that the music was in fact hovering silently all around us in the form of radio waves and was somehow being received by this speaker."

Faukman looked around the room and imagined it full of invisible radio waves.

"We could try to explain our reality to Mozart," she continued, "but he would have no frame of reference to comprehend it. Even the first primitive recording technique wouldn't be invented for another hundred years after his death. My point is, here we are sitting at this table in modern Manhattan, and yet explaining nonlocal consciousness to you is a bit like attempting to describe radio waves to Mozart. In his reality, music comes solely from live musicians playing instruments in real time, and no other possibilities exist."

"Consciousness is not a flesh-and-blood organ in your body. Consciousness exists in the quantum realm. It is therefore extremely difficult to observe with any predictability or repeatability. You can use your consciousness to observe a bouncing ball, but when you use your consciousness to observe your consciousness…you get an endless feedback loop. It's like trying to observe what color your own eyes are, without the use of a mirror. As intelligent or persistent as you are, you can't possibly know, because you can't observe your eyes with your eyes—any more than you can observe your consciousness with your consciousness."

The true nature of death, Katherine knew, was the secret we all yearned to understand…across every culture, every generation, and every era. Unlike most of life's unknowable mysteries, however, this was a secret that was guaranteed to be unveiled to every one of us…yet only at the end. Our last moments of life…become our first moments of truth.