Novak argues that at death, the conscious and unconscious minds separate. The conscious mind, stripped of all memory and emotion, enters a state of total amnesia before eventually reincarnating with no recollection of prior lives. The unconscious mind, cut off from rational thought, retreats into an automatic review of its stored memories, generating its own heaven or hell based on moral self-judgment.
The theory elegantly accounts for commonly reported phenomena, from the emotionless calm of early near-death experiences to the repetitive behavior of haunting ghosts. Art also shares an update that Richard C. Hoagland survived his surgery, reads a dismissive response from NASA's SOHO team about solar super flares, and takes a remarkable call from a grandmother whose three-year-old granddaughter described memories of a previous life and death in vivid detail.
Key Moments
Hoagland survives surgery: Art delivers the good news at the top of the hour: Richard Hoagland has come through heart surgery and is still alive, with the next 48 hours critical. A direct emotional payoff to the previous show's vigil.
NASA Soho's flippant Paul McCartney reply on super flares: Art reads an email exchange in which a listener asked NASA Goddard's Soho team how likely a super flare from the sun was; after being passed between scientists, the only answer she received was a quote from Paul McCartney - 'Tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun.'
Peter Novak: solving the oldest mystery without ever having had an experience: Art introduces Peter Novak, who claims to have solved the mystery of what happens after death using only psychology - never having had a near-death experience, past-life memory, ghost encounter, or contact with the dead, which Novak argues makes his theory less biased.