a comfort and encouragement to friends trying to make sense of that universal human experience, death. Death is a “hot” topic in contemporary American culture. Since the publication of Kübler-Ross’s accounts of near-death experiences,27 a steadily increasing number of books have appeared that deal with dying, death, and the afterlife, and mainstream media (both print and visual) now regularly deal with the topic. But if the more popular-level media offer any indication, the real point of interest