Heavens on earth: the scientific search for the afterlife, immortality, and utopia (First edition.)

In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans' belief in life after death.

For millennia, the awareness of our own mortality and failings has led to religions concocting comforting notions of an afterlife, of heaven and hell, utopias and dystopias, and of the perfectibility of human nature. 'Heavens on Earth' explores the numerous manifestations of the afterlife - a place where souls might go after the death of the physical body.

Religious leaders have toiled to make sense of this place that a surprisingly high percentage of people believe exists, but from which no one has ever returned to report what it is really like.