Overview

The book emerged from Schlitz’s recognition that her earlier work on worldview transformation had omitted a critical driver of change: awareness of mortality.¹ As an anthropologist and consciousness researcher, she had spent decades investigating phenomena that challenge materialist assumptions — remote viewing, distant healing, experimenter effects — but had not yet addressed how death itself functions as a catalyst for transformation.¹ The project was also motivated by a practical crisis: Americans avoid discussing death, leading to unwanted end-of-life interventions, financial ruin for families, and missed opportunities for dignified dying.¹ The book is accompanied by a feature-length documentary film of the same title.¹

Central argument

The book’s core claim is that our beliefs about death and the afterlife are not fixed but can transform — and that such transformation has measurable effects on how we live, how we die, and how we grieve.¹ Schlitz argues that worldviews function as lenses through which we interpret mortality, shaping our intentions, actions, and emotional responses to dying.¹ She draws on a worldview transformation model developed with colleagues Cassandra Vieten and Tina Amorok, which identifies how direct personal experiences — particularly those suggesting consciousness beyond the physical body — can shift people from materialist to more expansive frameworks.¹

The argument proceeds in three moves. First, the book documents the diversity of worldviews about death across cultures, religions, and scientific perspectives, showing that no single framework has a monopoly on truth.¹ Second, it presents evidence from parapsychology and consciousness research — near-death experiences, mediumship, reincarnation cases — that challenges the materialist assumption that consciousness is produced by and dependent on the brain.¹ Third, it demonstrates how engaging with these alternative perspectives can reduce death anxiety, improve end-of-life care, and catalyze personal growth.¹ The book does not advocate for any particular belief system but instead promotes what Schlitz calls worldview literacy — the capacity to understand and appreciate multiple models of reality while recognizing that one’s own beliefs arise from particular life experiences and values.¹

Key concepts

• Worldview transformation model — A framework developed by Schlitz and colleagues showing how direct experiences that cross the boundary between physical and metaphysical knowing can shift fundamental beliefs about reality, particularly beliefs about consciousness and survival.¹
• Worldview literacy — The capacity to understand and appreciate one’s own worldview and those of others, recognizing that different people hold different and potentially equally valid models of reality arising from their particular life experiences and values.¹
• Death literacy — The ability to engage with diverse perspectives on mortality and the afterlife, bringing awareness to what is true for each person about life, death, and what may lie beyond.¹
• Death-rebirth motif — A recurring theme in transformative experiences where confronting mortality or undergoing symbolic death leads to renewal, expanded consciousness, and a shift from extrinsically oriented goals toward intrinsically oriented ones that connect to something larger.¹

Evidence discussed by the book

The book draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with people from diverse backgrounds, including scientists, wisdom holders from various traditions, children, and individuals facing terminal illness.¹ Schlitz conducted focus groups, participated in ceremonies and rituals, and collected narratives about how people’s views of death have shaped their lives.¹ The book features extended case studies, including Lee Lipsenthal, a physician and meditation practitioner who faced esophageal cancer with equanimity informed by past-life experiences and a deep spiritual practice.¹

The work also draws on research from parapsychology and consciousness studies, including near-death experiences, mediumship, and cases of the reincarnation type.¹² Schlitz cites survey data showing that approximately 75 percent of Americans believe in life after death, with Americans more certain of an afterlife than people in most other nations.¹ The book also presents demographic data on the aging population and statistics on end-of-life care, including findings that most Americans want to die at home but only 24 percent are able to do so, and that many elderly patients receive aggressive treatments in their final months that may increase rather than reduce suffering.¹

Significance

The book represents an effort to bring anthropological and consciousness-research perspectives to bear on practical questions about dying and end-of-life care.¹ It builds on Schlitz’s earlier work on worldview transformation, extending that model to address mortality awareness as a driver of personal and social change.¹ The work is part of a broader movement to improve death literacy and end-of-life care in Western societies where death has become medicalized and taboo.¹ The accompanying documentary film extends the book’s reach beyond academic audiences.¹

It contributes to ongoing debates about the relationship between consciousness and the brain, particularly in the context of near-death experiences under extreme physiological conditions.²