Joanna Lander, a clinical psychologist, interviews patients who have had near-death experiences; she aspires to understand what occurs between the times when a person dies and then is revived. She becomes frustrated when many of her patients cannot or will not give accurate information about their experiences. She realizes that the scientific evidence is contaminated by the influence of Dr. Maurice Mandrake, a persistent and almost omnipresent charlatan "researcher" who publishes best-selling books about near-death experiences and convinces patients that their experiences happened exactly the way his books describe NDEs, such as learning cosmic secrets from angels: