Author Dianne Arcangel discussed life (consciousness) after death and shared several stories from her book Afterlife Encounters. She said she wrote the book to help her deal with the loss of her husband as well as to change the world's skeptical view of after-death communications.
According to Arcangel, afterlife encounters bring comfort to the bereaved and occur when a person feels "any sense of being connected to or in the presence of a discarnate personality." In one of the accounts from her book, a mother helped police solve her son's murder after an afterlife encounter with him. In another anecdote, two people located in two different states received a vision from a recently deceased man about money hidden in a wall. Arcangel believes such stories provide evidence of an afterlife.
Arcangel, who has looked into more than 10,000 case studies, is convinced that "afterlife encounters are normal and healthy" and said they can bring healing to everyone involved in the experience, not only those who are grieving. She also suggested grieving people drink eight ounces of water every hour to help with the physical symptoms that accompany loss. During the show, Art Bell admitted that he had been contacted by his late wife, Ramona, and shared details from some letters he had received.
In the first hour, expert in privacy issues and technology, Lauren Weinstein, touched on several internet-related topics, including online music and video piracy, the coming showdown between HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVD formats, China's internet restrictions, and individual privacy versus the U.S. government's need to protect national security by tapping phones and searching emails.