Lucidity, awareness, and “otherworldly” sensations experienced at the brink of death and awe-inspiring medical reports of notable doctors People like to wonder, and this is the kernel of science.   – Ralph Waldo Emerson During the Second World War, the Austrian poet and writer Karl Skala (1924–2006), went to Russia with his troops. He and his comrade, Hannes, caught under artillery fire, took refuge in a fox inn. Hannes got hit and died there. Skala, heavily wounded, experienced that they were both rising up high in the sky, and found themselves looking at the battlefield below. Feeling the weight of …