Exploring the afterlife

The existential question that never bears an answer.

- Hein Kaiser

From philosophers through to clergy, mystics and atheists to you and me. For as long as humanity has existed, the same question has hamster-wheeled throughout millennia: What happens after we die? Heaven, hell, the great void or expire and simply become compost. It's the great existential question that never bears an answer.

The afterlife has been the stuff of mythology, legend, volumes of books and a stack of speculation and science fiction.

But some people have been there. It's called a Near Death Experience or NDE and former journalist Sarah Bullen has been there and then, as writers do, authored a book to share the experience. The Other Side is a spectacular exploration of the theme and Bullen doesn't only recount her own journey; there are fascinating accounts of other mystical experiences between the pages. All researched and validated.

While there is no hard and fast scientific evidence of what really happens when we die, Bullen said that her own experience cemented a conviction that there is something else in the beyond and that we are part of it and it is a part of us.

Her own experience occurred during an extended period when she was in a coma.

"I absolutely know what happened," Bullen said.

"I was lying on life support in a hospital bed, but I wasn't there.