Traditional academic science describes human beings as highly developed animals and biological thinking machines. We appear to be Newtonian objects made of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organs.

• Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.
• An important consequence of freeing oneself from the fear of death is a radical opening to spirituality of a universal and non-denominational type.
• A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.
• There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.
• Consciousness after death demonstrates the possibility of consciousness operating independently of the body.
• Coming to terms with the fear of death is conducive to healing, positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.
• For any culture which is primarily concerned with meaning, the study of death - the only certainty that life holds for us - must be central, for an understanding of death is the key to liberation in life.
• The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death.
• The motif of death plays an important role the human psyche in connection with archetypal and karmic material.
• The materialistic paradigm of Western science has been a major obstacle for any objective evaluation of the data describing the events occurring at the time of death.