Prologue : Memento mori

Part I. Varieties of mortal experiences and immortal quests. A lofty thought : imagining mortality ; What dreams may come : imagining immortality ; Heavens above : the afterlives of the monotheisms

Part II. The scientific search for immortality. Heavens within : the afterlives of the spiritual seekers ; Evidence for the afterlife : near death experiences and reincarnation ; Evidence for the afterlife : anomalous psychological experiences and talking to the dead ; Soul stuff : identity, replication, and resurrection ; Afterlife for atheists : can science defeat death?

Part III. All our yesterdays and tomorrows. All our yesterdays : progress, decline, and the pull of pessimism ; All our tomorrows : utopias and dystopias in fiction and in fact

Part IV. Mortality and meaning. Why we die : the mortal individual and the immortal species ; Imagine there's no heaven : finding meaning in a meaningless universe.