Original subtitles

[tense music]

- Tonight, it's something we've all wondered about.

What happens when we die?

- Everyone's heard of the phrases "pearly gates"

and "a city on the hill."

- Spinning white light came towards me

out of this murky darkness.

- Do we go to an actual place

and if so, what kind of place?

Is it a good place?

- The main street is said to be paved with gold.

Many cultures prior to Christianity have the same sort

of paradise that you have to be judged in order to enter.

- Or something very different?

- Fire, brimstone, eternal suffering.

It's the bad place

and it's terrifying even to non-believers.

- People spend more time trying to stay out of hell

than they do trying to get into heaven.

- And what if instead of going anywhere,

we're simply reborn?

- It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while,

someone comes back from the dead.

- Now, remarkable stories from around the globe, of heaven,

hell, and life after death.

[dramatic music]

Many people believe in some kind of heaven,

a place you get sent to if you've lived a good life.

It's a concept that dates back centuries.

[tense music]

- I think sort of the classic Christian view of heaven is

that it's a lush, idyllic paradise somewhere in the sky

where God and the angels and the saints reside.

Ask most Christians to describe heaven

and you'll probably get some version of this.

- [Dennis] This idea of a lush

and bountiful heaven is first made popular

by a 16th century Dutch painter named Hieronymus Bosch.

- Bosch is born in the mid 15th century.

His most famous religious work is known

as "The Garden of Earthly Delights",

which he creates just a few years before he dies.

- Looking at the details of the painting, it's fascinating.

We see men and women of multiple races

gathering in a beautiful garden,

playing with animals, even hanging out with Jesus himself.

- Due to how popular this painting is,

it's copied extensively which helps spread this particular

idyllic image of heaven.

- [Dennis] But this isn't the same picture

that the Bible paints.

- It might surprise you to learn that Jesus

and the Bible in general doesn't actually tell us much about

what heaven looks like.

All Jesus says is that it's a particular place

that he'll prepare for us

and in the gospel of Luke, Jesus declares that when we die,

we'll be with him in paradise.

That's about it, at least from his own words.

- Outside of Jesus' own words, the bulk of the description

of heaven comes from the Book of Revelations,

which is the last book of the Bible.

- There's a lot of death in Revelation

as we work our way towards the end of the world,

so it makes sense that this is

where we would get our most detailed description

of the afterlife, especially heaven, which

of course, the Bible is trying to help us reach.

Everyone's heard of the phrases "pearly gates"

and "a city on the hill."

These ideas come from Revelation.

Heaven is described as a new city

of Jerusalem, high up on a mountain.

It has tall walls and 12 gates made from pearls.

- The main street is said to be paved with gold

but clear as glass, and there's no need for a sun or the moon

because it's illuminated by God.

- Whether it's a city paved in gold or a lush garden,

the main point about the Christian view of heaven is

that it's marvelous.

It's a wonderful and amazing place,

and you definitely want to go there.

- [Dennis] Surprisingly, the concept of heaven

doesn't start with Christians.

It goes back much further.

- Many cultures prior to Christianity have the same sort

of place, an ideal paradise that you have

to be judged in order to enter,

and one of the earliest is in Iranian religion,

which is known as Zoroastrianism.

- Zoroastrianism predates Jesus by 600 years

or more depending on who you ask.

It's based on the teachings of a prophet named Zoroaster

as set forth in a text called the Avesta,

which describes a judgment

that takes place on a bridge called the Chinvat

that you cross when you die.

- Interestingly, the more righteous you are,

the bridge stays wide,

but the more sinful you are, the bridge narrows

to the edge of a blade.

[tense music]

- If you've lived according to the right principles,

you enter the House of Song, which is basically heaven.

- The idea of tests and judgments is a sort

of common thread throughout various

different religious traditions.

We see it in stories of Egyptians, of the Chinese,

and even the Polynesians.

And all of these cultures believe in this good place,

a place after death that we are judged worthy of or not.

- [Dennis] While the question of whether

that good place is real has puzzled us all,

in 2008, a neurosurgeon named Eben Alexander

claims he knows the answer, because he's been there.

- Well, I grew up in North Carolina, went to a

conventional Methodist church which basically promised

eternity in heaven if you'd been living a very,

kind of Christian life.

But as a scientist,

I was falling away from some of those beliefs.

Having gone through this long career of taking care

of neurosurgical patients, I really could see no way

that conscious awareness could survive

the death of the brain and body.

- [Dennis] Then a terrifying experience

provides a new perspective.

- Was at 4:30 in the morning, November 10th, 2008.

I awoke with severe back pain,

headache and soon thereafter,

my family, when they saw me having seizures

on the bed, called 911.

- [Dennis] Eben has a severe case of bacterial meningitis.

As he falls into a deep coma, his life starts slipping away.

- This bacteria is resistant to antibiotics.

In hour one, you might have two or three bacteria,

but if you get 12 hours out, you've got literally trillions

of these bacteria and they are just taking over.

- [Dennis] The bacteria attacks the part

of the brain controlling speech, consciousness,

memory, and emotion.

For seven days, Eben hovers near death.

- My survival went from 10% to 2% with no chance

of recovery, and the doctor was recommending stopping

antibiotics and taking me off the ventilator

and just letting me go.

- [Dennis] Then against all odds,

not only does Eben wake up, he's somehow okay.

It's a medical miracle,

but Eben believes the miracle is actually not medical.

It's divine.

- My whole journey started

in what I call the Earthworm-eye view,

like being in dirty jello, like roots

and blood vessels all around me.

There was a slowly spinning white light

that came towards me out of this murky darkness.

It came packaged with a perfect musical melody.

It opened up like a rip in the fabric

of that ugly, Earthworm-eye view realm,

and led me up into this brilliant,

ultra-real gateway valley.

There was this beautiful forest going off around a meadow,

sparkling waterfalls into crystal blue pools.

There were thousands of beings dancing

in this meadow down below.

Lots of joy and merriment.

There were children playing and dogs jumping.

Up above were these swooping orbs of angelic choirs,

I mean, the words do not do it justice.

Towards the very end of my journey, I recognized

that there were thousands of beings going off

around me into the distance, heads bowed, murmuring energy,

and it was all leading me in a certain direction.

That's what I was witnessing was his sense of of being drawn

to where these beings were.

And there was a beautiful young woman beside me as a kind

of a spiritual guide on this butterfly wing.

She looked at me with a look of pure love

and that message from her

to me I think was the main message I was

to bring back to this world.

You are deeply loved and cherished forever.

And I cannot tell you how comforting it was,

but I knew by then that I could trust in the universe,

that I would be taken care of.

- [Dennis] When he shares this experience,

Eben's doctors are skeptical.

They think he was dreaming, perhaps even hallucinating.

- But Dr. Alexander rejects that idea.

As a neuroscientist,

he believes that his brain should have been so damaged at

that point that it wouldn't have had

the ability to hallucinate.

- His educated belief is

that he actually witnessed the divine.

When he came close to death, he realized

that heaven was real because in his mind, he went there.

- [Dennis] Eben Alexander goes on

to write a book about his experience,

and while his account

of visiting a wondrous place he calls heaven becomes

well-known, it's far from the only one.

- There are lots of stories

of people having near death experiences

and one thing that's really hard to dismiss is that all

of these people describe similar experiences of reaching

or encountering some state of being

that they would describe as heaven-like.

- [Dennis] While many consider heaven

to be a spiritual realm,

there's one group that believes it's a very real place.

- Heaven is often thought

to be a place we reach when we die,

but what if you didn't have to wait that long to enter it?

What if you could enter heaven without having to die?

According to some Tibetan Buddhists,

heaven is literally a place on Earth.

It's called Shambhala.

- [Hugo] The 14th and current Dalai Lama describes Shambhala

as a pure land in the human realm,

where only those with the right merit may enter.

- So the key here obviously is describing it

as existing in the human realm.

So it's said that this realm is located somewhere

in Central Asia, in or around the Himalaya mountains.

- The first mention of Shambhala actually comes

from an ancient Hindu text known as the Vishnu Purana,

which dates back to around 400 AD.

This Sanskrit name is adopted into Buddhist tradition,

which finds its way into Tibet around the seventh century.

- [Dennis] A thousand years later, the idea

of Shambhala reaches Europe,

inspiring a few very brave souls

to head out to find it.

- One of the first Europeans who tries

to find Shambhala is a 17th century Portuguese

Jesuit named Estevao Cacella.

Now through religious circles,

Cacella hears about this legendary kingdom

of heaven on Earth near the Himalayas.

- In 1627, he leads a mission from India into Bhutan

to the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, Tibet,

which is the home of the Panchen Lama,

the second highest ranking Tibetan Buddhist monk,

after the Dalai Lama.

- Cacella is hoping to get guidance on finding Shambhala

and he stays in Tibet for three years,

but as far as we know, he never makes it to Shambhala

before he dies in 1630.

- Even though he probably never reached Shambhala,

the report that Father Cacella sent back

to Portugal about his expedition

and his meetings with Buddhist monks is

what really introduces the Western world

to the name Shambhala

and to the concept of a heaven on Earth.

- And so the search for Shambhala is on.

For centuries, all these different explorers

and writers speculate

where in Central Asia this utopia might be hidden.

[dramatic music]

- [Dennis] Then in 1924, a Russian husband and wife team

embarks on perhaps the most promising search

for this paradise on Earth.

- Writer, Helena Roerich

and her archeologist artist husband, Nicholas,

become obsessed with Shambhala after Helena claims

that she received telepathic directions from an otherworldly

spirit, imploring them to go and find it.

- This intrepid duo get the attention of the Bolsheviks

who had just overthrown the Russian government

and the Bolsheviks then become convinced

that if they can find Shambhala, they will be seen

as being on the side of the good.

- Soviet Secret Police leader Gleb Bokii

even thinks that Shambhala might hold secrets

to powerful knowledge, things like mind control,

advanced weapons, and prophecies of the future.

- So the Bolsheviks decide to fund the Roerich's

journey to search for Shambhala, and we know a lot about

their adventures in part because

they took extensive documentation in their diaries.

- [Dennis] Over the next four years,

the team explores thousands of miles.

- They crisscross various mountain passes

in the Gobi Desert, charting several peaks

for the very first time.

Along the way, they visit temples

and meet with spiritual leaders to collect clues.

- It's an intense journey.

They have to deal with rebel groups

and looters, not to mention extreme desert

weather conditions and starvation.

Several of their team members actually die

during the expedition.

- [Dennis] But do they ever reach Shambhala?

- The Roerich diaries describe an area

of the Altai Mountains

where they meet, quote, "an old believer"

that shows them the entrance to Shambhala,

but it's sealed with stones

and the old believer tells the Roerichs that the people

of Shambhala won't emerge from the entrance until it's time

to rid the world of evil.

- Unfortunately, their diaries don't say if anything else

happened, so we will never know if they actually

did find Shambhala.

- [Dennis] Whether successful or not,

the Roerich quest inspires a much more sinister

expedition a few years later.

- In the 1930s, as Hitler

and the Nazis are gaining power in Europe,

they become increasingly interested in augmenting

that power with the divine.

- Hitler's right hand man and head of the SS,

Heinrich Himmler is obsessed with spiritualism

and the occult, and he recruits an officer named Ernst Schafer

to lead a team to Tibet in search of Shambhala.

- Schafer, who's much more scientifically

minded than Himmler isn't thrilled with the idea,

but he also knows he can't refuse Himmler if he wants

to stay alive.

So he sets off for Tibet, but he doesn't find Shambhala.

- Schafer has to bring something back to Himmler,

so he starts collecting all sorts

of things from his time in Tibet.

He collects plants and animals.

He collects casts of various Tibetan people,

all sorts of archeological

and anthropological evidence that he can give

to his boss upon his return.

- Lucky for Schafer,

the Nazis are receptive to this trove of research

and ultimately consider his expedition to be a success.

They even reward him with his own institute inside

one of their prestigious organizations.

- [Dennis] Despite these failed attempts,

some believers still hope Shambhala will be found.

- According to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, it's in Shambhala

that a new supreme being called Kalki will be born.

Now, Kalki will come forth

and defeat those trying to destroy the kingdom

and usher in a golden age of peace.

- This is forecast to occur in the year 2424 or 2425.

So maybe then we'll finally find out if heaven

is a place on Earth.

- Of course, many people believe there's a darker side

to the afterlife, one that's usually known as hell.

- The word hell itself,

it actually comes from an eighth century Anglo-Saxon phrase

used by the pagans to describe what they envisioned

as the netherworld of the damned.

- Hell is like the ultimate horror when it comes

to the afterlife, right?

Fire, brimstone, eternal suffering.

It's the bad place

and it's terrifying, even to non-believers.

- It's in our music, in our movies,

in our books, great works of art.

Hell is everywhere in the human collective psyche.

- The idea of what hell looks like varies from culture

to culture, but one thing is clear,

no matter how it's imagined, it's always the place

where people face the consequences

for their behavior on Earth.

- The Mesopotamian religion has a versions of hell

called Kur, and it's basically a sealed fortress

where prisoners must drink dirt and eat stones.

- For the ancient Greeks,

once the dead get to Hades, the underworld,

which is famously guarded

by a terrifying three-headed dog named Cerberus,

they receive judgment and anyone who's deemed wicked

proceeds to a place called Tartarus

to receive their divine punishment.

- Hindu text about spiritual punishment describes several

realms similar to hell.

Torture there can include things like dismemberment,

piercing, and burning, depending on

what specific offenses a person might have committed.

- The ancient Egyptians believe

that upon death, a person would be judged by 42 judges

and their heart would be weighed

against the feather of truth.

- If the heart is lighter than the feather,

then they're allowed to pass into the permanent afterlife,

but if it's heavier, they're thrown

to the god Ammit, the devourer of the dead,

and portrayed as this hybrid being that's part hippo,

part lion, and part crocodile.

Ammit would torture them in a lake of fire

and then eat them.

- The Christian version of hell

ultimately becomes the most famous.

Hell is a dark place where unrepentant sinners go

after being judged by God after death.

- [Dennis] This version of hell becomes widespread,

thanks to a bestselling 14th century author.

- In 1321, the Catholic Italian writer Dante Alighieri

pinned his famous divine comedy.

- It's an epic poem which is divided into three sections.

In the part called "The Inferno",

he maps what he calls the nine circles of hell,

based on levels of how bad the punishments are.

And Dante goes into substantial detail about the type

of torture which is involved.

- He also describes which particular bad deeds

will earn you a place in hell.

Being lustful earns you a spot in the second circle.

He puts Cleopatra and Helen of Troy here, for instance.

Heretics end up in the sixth circle

where they spend eternity in entombed, in flaming crypts.

- [Dennis] But all these accounts of hell

leave out one crucial detail.

Where is it?

- Though the Christian Bible doesn't offer a precise

location for hell,

we do get some clues, like "heart of the Earth,"

and "lower earthly regions," which contribute to the idea

that hell might be located underground.

- It might have to do with the ancient Egyptians.

They believed in an underground hell long before the Bible.

For them, it was reached through caves which are dark,

scary, hot, and very real.

- [Dennis] This idea is further developed in something

called the Book of Caverns.

- The Book of Caverns is not an actual book

in the traditional sense.

It's a collection

of religious documents inscribed on tomb walls written

between 1300 and 1200 BC,

and is perhaps the best source for the Egyptian idea of hell.

It details the journey the sun god Ra takes

through six caverns of their netherworld.

- It lays out many familiar themes of how like judgment

and punishment, but there's also a real focus

on the underworld as a geographical place

because it gives several hints about an actual topographical

structure of the caverns.

It's almost like a map to hell.

Though as far as we know,

no one has been successful in finding it.

- [Dennis] The ancient Greeks also believed

hell was underground.

In fact, an influential scholar named Strabo claimed

it could be reached via a portal called Pluto's Gate.

It's named after the Roman God of the underworld,

and it's a place Strabo said he actually visited.

- And at this site,

there's a stone temple which is built over a cave believed

to be the gateway to hell,

and that's because this cave is deadly.

Anyone who gets too close to it

and lingers there dies from suffocation

by this foul smelling gas emanating from the cave,

sometimes referred to as the breath of death.

- To the ancients,

this is pretty convincing proof of the underworld

and what else but hell could actually be down there?

- Pluto's Gate becomes a major tourist attraction.

People come from miles around

to sit at a safe distance in the specially built seating

and watch as priests send live animals into the cave.

Everything from bulls to birds,

and when they pull them back out, they're dead.

- [Dennis] When Earthquakes hit the area

in the sixth century AD,

the cave is destroyed and its location is lost to time.

- As we get into the Dark

and Middle Ages, people decide that these accounts

of an entrance to hell must be mythical.

So Pluto's Gate is chalked up as legend.

- [Dennis] Then in 1965, a team of Italian archeologists

sets out to look for it.

- And sure enough it's found, in present day Turkey

near the city of Pamukkale.

- [Dennis] Following a thermal hot spring,

the team uncovers the ruins filled

with inscriptions dedicated

to the god of the underworld, Pluto.

- The cave is located along a geologically active seismic

fault line, which releases deadly carbon dioxide gas,

which will kill any human or animal today.

Anyone who visits the cave will see

dead birds lining the entrance.

- [Dennis] And today, archeologists continue to search

for other physical caves

that ancients might have interpreted as hell.

- [Robert] In 2012, an archeologist

named Michael Galaty

is working in the Mani Region of Southern Greece as part

of a team excavating the extensive Alepotrypa cave.

- What's fascinating about Alepotrypa is not

that it was used by the ancient Greeks,

but that it predates them by thousands of years.

It's one of the earliest known inhabited

places of that region.

It's clear that ancient people once lived

and died in the cave.

- Excavations have identified the remains

of over 170 different people across several centuries,

and it appears to have been in use from about 6,000 BC

all the way up to 3,200 BC.

- It's around that time

that a catastrophic earthquake takes place.

[rocks clattering]

Burying not only the entrance to the cave,

but hundreds of people trapped inside.

[explosion rumbling]

- Think of it like the ancient eruption of Pompeii.

You have all these innocent people trapped

and buried except unlike Pompeii, many of the people

inside the Alepotrypa Cave wouldn't have died instantly.

Many might have died slowly from things like

injuries or starvation.

It would've been torture,

and maybe this is where the idea of hell comes from.

- Archeologists have found

that there was also a large society of people living just

outside the cave at that time,

so they would've seen this happen

and they might've heard the tortured screams

of the poor people trapped underground inside

for several more days.

[dramatic music]

It would be horrifying.

Like hell on Earth.

- Galaty, like many others, is fascinated with how

and why all of these cultures

around the Mediterranean tell a similar story

of hell being a physical place on Earth that's underground

where people are tortured.

He thinks that the tragedy

of the cave collapse in Alepotrypa may have inspired

this storytelling tradition.

Basically, a prehistoric origin story for all

of our modern beliefs about hell.

- Lots of people consider death to be life's final curtain,

but what if there's an encore?

Would you want the chance to do things differently?

- Across the world,

many faiths believe in something called reincarnation.

So what does this mean?

Well, you die and then you get to start again.

You get another life, you get another chance to try

and do better.

- [Robert] Reincarnation means that your soul gets reborn

into a different body.

- The word reincarnation literally means

entering the flesh again.

So similar to the Christian viewpoint,

the soul is essentially immortal.

It just moves from body to body over time,

instead of immediately going to heaven or hell.

- [Dennis] Reincarnation is a core belief in Buddhism,

which was founded around 600 BC.

- Buddha taught his followers that the cycle of life

and death is endless.

When we die, our soul is reborn in a new body.

But what form that body takes is based on our karma,

essentially how good or bad we were in our previous life.

- Live well and pure,

come back as a healthy and successful human.

Live sinfully, and you might end up as an earthworm.

- [Dennis] Perhaps the greatest example

of Buddhist reincarnation today is the Dalai Lama.

- The Dalai Lama is the head of Tibetan Buddhism,

which is the most prominent school of modern Buddhism.

- Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama is the same soul

reincarnated in a new body each time he dies.

- There have been 13 Dalai Lamas prior to the current one,

dating back to the early 1400s.

So if you do the math, it means that

the current Dalai Lama has been reincarnated

so many times that he's actually been walking the Earth

for over 600 years.

- [Dennis] The current Dalai Lama was revealed in 1937.

- In December of 1933, the 13th Dalai Lama dies and soon

after, the highest ranking Tibetan Buddhist monks have

to start looking for his replacement, the embodiment

of his reincarnated soul.

- [Robert] It can take years and there are very strict rules

and steps as well as a series of tests.

- Obviously, one of the first criteria is

to find a child born right

after the previous Dalai Lama died.

The monks test many such children,

but in 1937, they meet Lhamo Thondup.

Like the others before him, he's just the right age.

- [Dennis] Incredibly, this boy proves

to be different almost immediately.

- The monks ask the boy

to make selections from a large group of objects.

Thondup chooses two items that had belonged

to the previous Dalai Lama, a drum and a walking stick,

and he literally says the words, "It's mine".

- It's pretty uncanny.

Why would this boy be so drawn to these particular objects

unless his soul recognized them?

- [Dennis] Believers in reincarnation

point to other examples outside of Buddhism as well.

- Perhaps the most well-known researcher of reincarnation

and past lives is a psychologist named Ian Stevenson from

the University of Virginia.

- Stevenson publishes 20 books during his career,

most of which involve interviewing children who claim

to have unusual, vivid memories

and then comparing them with records of deceased people.

- [Dennis] Stevenson's most shocking story comes

from the Pollock family in Hexham, England.

In 1957, John and Florence Pollock's

young daughters, Jacqueline and Joanna die

after being struck by a car.

- In early 1958, Florence gets pregnant again

and gives birth to twin girls

that they named Gillian and Jennifer.

- John immediately sees similarities between Gillian

and Jennifer, and his deceased daughters.

Particularly with Jennifer,

who has two birthmarks on her hip

and on her forehead, in the same spots

that Jacqueline had scars.

- [Dennis] Once the girls are old enough to talk,

they have some very interesting things to say.

- The girls recount stories and facts

only their deceased older sisters could have known.

- Florence describes overhearing the twins talking about

the car accident in the present tense,

as if they're reliving it.

They say things like "There's blood coming out of your eyes.

That's where the car hit you."

Though there are a lot of skeptics out there,

Ian Stevenson continues

to interview the family over a period of decades,

and the girls continue to exhibit

this incredible behavior.

- After compiling all of his research,

Stevenson has enough evidence to conclude

that the Pollocks are legit

and do provide enough evidence to support

the idea of reincarnation.

- While we can't be sure if the stories are true,

they certainly provide hope

that death doesn't have to be the end.

- Reincarnation isn't the only possibility

for a second chance at life.

Instead of coming back as a new person,

what if you can come back as yourself?

- In the Bible,

people die all the time and presumably end up in heaven

or hell, but we shouldn't forget

that there's an alternative.

It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while,

someone comes back from the dead.

- Coming back from the dead is commonly referred to

as resurrection, or sometimes called anastasis

from the Greek word meaning rising up or standing up again.

The most famous resurrection story is that of Jesus Christ.

- [Dennis] Jesus isn't the only one believed

to rise from the dead.

- There are many accounts of Jesus himself actually bringing

people back from the dead during his ministry on Earth.

- The gospel of John tells the story of Lazarus of Bethany.

While lying on his deathbed, desperate for help,

his sisters, Mary and Martha go looking for Jesus

who is quite far away.

When they find him

and tell him about their brother,

Jesus replies, "Our friend Lazarus is asleep,

but I am going to awaken him."

- That's when Jesus utters his famous words,

"I am the resurrection and the life.

You who believes in me shall never die."

- Jesus has the tomb of Lazarus open

and he commands the deceased Lazarus

to rise up and come out.

Miraculously he does, and Lazarus's sisters are overjoyed.

- [Dennis] According to the Bible, it's not just Jesus

who has this miraculous power.

- One of Jesus's most about followers is the apostle, Peter.

He's a fisherman from Galilee that devotes his life

to spreading the word of Christ.

Peter basically becomes his right hand man.

- In Acts 9, Peter is preaching in Lydda

when two men from the nearby town of Joppa show up.

They tell him there's a local seamstress named Tabitha

who fell ill and died.

She was a pious Christian known for her charitable acts,

and she was so beloved by everyone in Joppa,

they were hoping Peter could come quickly

and see if there's anything he could do.

- According to the story, Peter wastes no time getting

to Joppa and he goes to the upper chamber of a house

where the townspeople have cleaned

and laid out Tabitha's body,

and he decides to show them the power of the Lord.

- He kneels down next to her,

says a prayer, and commands, "Tabitha, arise."

She opens her eyes, sees Peter and sits up.

He takes her hand, lifts her up,

and calls in the others to see what he has done

through God's grace.

- The story of this resurrection miracle spreads

and creates many more Christian believers, which is exactly

what Peter had planned.

- [Dennis] These accounts help lay the foundation

for a stunning prediction.

- In the book of Revelation,

it foretells that there will be a complete

and total resurrection of the dead, as in every person

who has died will be brought back to life.

- The idea is linked to this notion

called the second coming.

It's something that we see not only in the book

of Revelation, but also other creedal statements

like the Apostles' Creed.

- Basically, after ascending to heaven, Jesus returns

to Earth to judge both the living and the dead.

To judge the dead, he'll have to raise them.

Yes, all of them.

- Just imagine what that would mean.

Untold billions of bodies pulled from their graves

and reanimated, on top of the existing living population.

- [Dennis] There might be a much more tangible way

to bring people back from the dead, and sooner.

- The idea of resurrection has captivated

the human imagination for millennia,

but where did the idea first begin?

- One of the most powerful gods in the Egyptian pantheon is

Osiris, the god of agriculture and fertility.

And according to his legend, Osiris is murdered

and dismembered by a jealous rival god, his brother Seth.

- Osiris's faithful wife, the goddess Isis, reassembles him,

wraps him in linen strips, anoints him with sacred oils,

and buries his body.

- This ritual resurrects Osiris,

and he ultimately becomes the God of the underworld,

and it's because of this legend

that mummification becomes all the rage

with Egyptian pharaohs who also want a shot at immortality.

- But some Egyptologists like Kurt Sethe

in the 1930's proposed that Osiris might actually

have started out as a real life king of Egypt,

and this suggests

that a human can somehow come back from the dead

and become deified.

- [Dennis] A similar theme is echoed in Greek mythology.

- Resurrection happens several times in Greek myths.

In most cases, it's a gift bestowed upon select humans

by the gods, but that's not always how it goes.

- In one story, there's a demigod named Asclepius,

who is the son of Apollo and immortal woman,

and Asclepius is a doctor who lives in the human world

and he's really honed his healing skills, to the point

where he starts dabbling with raising people from the dead.

- [Dennis] First up, the son of the king of Athens.

- Asclepius resurrects Hippolytus

after he dies in a chariot fall.

He also resurrects the Thracian king named Lycurgus

and a prince of Crete called Glaucus, amongst others.

- This angers Zeus,

who thinks only real gods should be resurrecting people,

so he strikes Asclepius down with a lightning bolt.

[lightning booms]

- [Dennis] Farther east, ancient Hindu tradition

has its own famous resurrection story.

- In the Hindu holy text known as the Mahabharata,

there's a great story about

a beautiful princess named Savitri.

She meets and falls madly in love

with a woodsman named Satyavan,

who's really an exiled prince.

- After they get married, they receive an unwelcome prophecy

that Satyavan will die on their one year anniversary.

And sure enough, that's exactly what happens.

- Savitri is devastated

and when Yama, the god of death, comes

to take Satyavan's soul, she pursues him across the desert

to the entrance of the underworld,

all the time she's pleading that he return

her beloved husband.

- Now, Yama isn't in the business

of giving back the dead,

but he's moved by the princess's devotion,

feels bad for her, so he offers to grant her one wish.

Anything, except giving back her husband.

- Savitri cleverly tells Yama that her wish is

to have many children, he agrees.

But then she follows up by asking how she's supposed

to have this large family without Satyavan,

the only man she has vowed to love?

- So Savitri basically outsmarts the god of death

and she forces him to resurrect her beloved husband.

- [Dennis] As powerful as these stories are,

most scholars consider them to be myths,

but can there be some truth to the concept

of reanimating the dead?

- Any sensible doctor will tell you that the type

of resurrection described in the Bible

or other religious myths just isn't scientifically sound.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean

that when we die, it's all over.

Science has increasingly found that the body

and brain don't just go from 100 to zero instantly.

- One of the most fascinating areas

of modern research involves what are called zombie genes.

These are genes that increase their activity for up

to 12 hours after death, meaning that their associated cells

are still alive and active.

We used to think that all biological processes stopped

after death, but apparently that's not the case.

- In related research, scientists have successfully

reanimated pig brains and organs up to an hour

after the animal has died.

- This is a huge step towards

what would clearly be the ultimate goal,

to actually, medically bring someone back from the dead.

Perhaps resurrection will one day be possible with

or without divine intervention.

[dramatic music]

- Whether we end up in paradise or hell,

in a new body or in our old one,

all humans can rely on an absolute certainty.

Someday, we'll find out where we go when we die.

I'm Dennis Quaid.

Thanks for watching "Holy Marvels."