A line of towering thunderheads flickered in and out of view with each stroke of lightning. The road was covered with a treacherous sheen of water. It was nearly four in the morning and I had no business driving this late. Making matters worse, I had worked all night and I was dead tired. But I kept going. More than anything I wanted to make it home. In my fatigue I had neglected to fasten my seat belt.

The miles rolled by in the darkness and the rain poured down in sheets. My head began to nod but over and over I wrenched my attention back to the road. I struggled to stay awake, trying every trick I knew. I slapped myself on the cheeks. I shook my head. I sang. I chewed gum and I kept going.

Soon my mind began to drift and a parade of captivating images floated before me. I saw myself swinging back and forth on the swing set at my old grade school. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then I was gliding down deeper and deeper into the well of memory, falling effortlessly, drinking in the feeling of deep relaxation that comes only with deep sleep.

The next thing I knew, a pair of soft hands grasped my face and pulled my head up sharply. A loud voice, kind but very firm, exploded in my head, "Wake up, Michael! Now!" My eyes flew open and adrenaline surged through my solar plexus like a powerful electric shock. The car was hurtling directly toward a massive bridge abutment only fifty feet before me, the speedometer hovering near eighty. In a heartbeat I wrenched the wheel to the left and a split second later the concrete pillar flashed by my right window.

I pulled over to the side of the road, shaken and gasping for breath. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I soon fell into a troubled sleep. Like the image of the deadly bridge abutment flashing past my window, images of my life began to race by in rapid succession. As though I were falling from a precipice to my death, I saw my entire life unravel sequentially before my eyes. I saw that I had been amazingly self-centered and had done precious little to help anyone but myself. I saw myself groping in the dark, feeling my way through blind alleys and dead-end pathways one after another after another.

And then there was nothing. The next thing I knew, sunlight was pouring over the dashboard.

Clearly, something unusual had happened to me. But it was far from over: Things kept happening. For the next forty days I experienced the most intense and profound series of changes I have ever known. I lost my job. A woman I loved more than life itself vanished from my life forever. Finally, a faulty heater burned my cabin in the countryside to the ground along with all my possessions.

My insurance had lapsed and I was suddenly rendered homeless and penniless. A sympathetic friend generously allowed me to sleep on the floor in his basement. At the age of twenty-nine, I was left rudderless in a state of profound despair as a bitter northern winter howled at the tiny frost-encrusted window of my stark quarters. Times were bad and work was scarce. I spent the bulk of my days huddled in a cheap sleeping bag on the concrete floor searching my mind for answers that never seemed to come. I often prayed for guidance but I felt totally alone - as though my prayers were nothing but leaves in the wind.

Then something happened. Awakening one night from a series of vivid dreams, I felt as though someone or something had been speaking to me, but I could remember nothing. Lying in the darkness, I suddenly arrived at an outlandish and impractical decision: Although I lacked the appropriate academic background, I resolved to go back to college at the age of thirty, obtain the requisite premedical training, and then go on to medical school. Understandably, my friends and family thought this plan utterly absurd. At that point, my chances of succeeding seemed laughable at best.

It would be several years before I would hear the voice of an angel again. When I did, it would be because of Matthew Slater's final demise. I met Matthew the month I graduated from medical school. My wife and I were looking for a place to live in the country near the hospital where I would intern. We needed a large garden space and the Slaters had just the thing - a ten acre tract of fertile land replete with a two acre garden plot.

Matthew was a brilliant pediatric cardiologist and intensivist. He had personally developed an intensive care unit that was known for hundreds of miles around. When a child was so gravely ill that no one else could help, he or she was flown to Matthew's unit as a very last resort. His dedication was such that he would often set up a cot next to patients undergoing the most critical phases of treatment and sleep next to them through the night until they had stabilized. He had saved many hopeless cases and had won the admiration of countless grateful parents and referring physicians. He was one of the most important and most beloved mentors I have known.

Matthew was a man of infinite kindness and patience. He was soft-spoken and benign and his greatest pleasure was his gardening. He specialized in cantalopes. The two of us split the garden half and half and I devoted my portion to my own specialty, watermelons. We often met there in the evenings after a particularly stressful shift and told each other of the dayâs trials and tribulations while tending to our plants. But mostly Matthew just sat in the dusk in the middle of his lush field of melons with a faraway gaze. He seemed to savor every minute of every day. At the end of the fall, he confided in me that he had leukemia.

That winter was without a doubt the hardest of my entire life. I fell gravely ill and was hospitalized for a month. My recovery was tenuous and painful. In the middle of this Matthew came down with pneumonia and, before anyone could even prepare themselves, died suddenly one afternoon of respiratory failure. He left a beautiful wife and a tiny daughter behind.

It was shortly thereafter that I heard the angel speak again. I was lying in bed in the middle of the night in that twilight state between wakefulness and sleep when I felt him there. I kept still. After a few minutes he said very simply, "Write." "Write? Write what? What are you talking about"? I queried silently. But he gave no answer, as if to say, "You know." In a few moments he was gone.

That was twelve years ago. I am now an emergency physician and the medical director of a busy trauma center in western Colorado. To this day I shake my head in wonder when I look back upon the series of events that has driven me inexorably to this point. I see now that it all began that night when my life was saved by the angelic hands and voice that deftly guided me from a certain and violent death. And I also see that I have been shepherded to this place in my life for a reason.

Now I speak with angels all the time.

In the course of my work, I witness a great many deaths. Over and over I watch as people die in every conceivable way - some as the result of violent automobile or industrial accidents, and some as the result of criminal assault. I attend others who have taken their own lives through poisoning, hanging, carbon monoxide, slashed wrists, or gunshots to the head. Still others die from acute or chronic illnesses such as heart attacks, strokes, and respiratory failure. Some pass away naturally from ãold ageä and are transported from nursing homes for me to pronounce dead.

Attending the death of another human being is awe inspiring, and I regard it as a sacred privilege of the highest order. I am fortunate indeed to have been granted such generous access to this incredible event. When I witness a soul leaving its body I am deeply humbled and filled with wonder. The power of death is stunning in its intensity. Death changes everything, for both the one who dies and for those who are left behind.

During my years of medical practice, first as a family practitioner and now as an emergency and trauma physician, I have experienced a major shift in the way I view death and in the way I view my role as a physician. I have always believed the soul survives the death of the body, that something goes on after the heart stops beating, after the lungs stop breathing, after the cellular machinery grinds to a halt. This is not unusual. The vast majority of physicians are very spiritually aware and believe the soul goes on after the body has fallen away.

Many years ago in the earliest phase of my career I acknowledged and honored the continuity of the soul, but I felt there was little if anything that was required of me after a patient had passed away. Like most doctors, I said a brief prayer and immediately turned my attention to the grieving survivors. There was nothing, I told myself, that I could do now to help my patient. The matter was out of my hands.

But as I saw more and more people die, something within me began to change. I started to wonder: Was it really considerate of me to simply turn away the minute a patient shed his or her physical form? If the soul went on, wasnât it my duty to see what I could do to help? Wasn't it responsible, compassionate to at least try?

And so I began to do just that. After I had pronounced a patient dead, I continued to minister to the being that lay before me. Unbeknownst to those around me, I began to extend myself to the departed soul in a kind of silent communion akin to prayer. I began asking the newly liberated souls of my patients if there was anything I could do to help them.

At first my efforts seemed in vain. I had no sense that anyone was listening, that anyone cared. I even found myself wondering, as we all do from time to time, if there really is a life after death. Often, when I grew discouraged, I would catch myself thinking that the concept of the soul is just a fanciful construct of the mind, a desperate rationalization, the ego's way of reassuring itself when faced with the stark reality of its final demise.

But I persisted in my attempts because I wasn't sure. If there was any chance at all that the soul was still present after death, I reasoned, then it was my responsibility as a physician to make every attempt to ease its suffering during the harrowing transition from this world to the next.

Finally something started to happen, something that changed my life at a very deep level: As I spoke to the departing souls of my patients, I began to sense that they were somehow speaking back to me.

The first few times this happened I was deeply shaken. The logical, sensible part of my mind went into overdrive trying in every way possible to rationalize this phenomenon, to explain it in some reasonable way, in a way that was acceptable to me as a physician and scientist.

But I was not successful. I was receiving very distinct and persistent impressions from the souls that were shedding their earthly forms before me, and they weren't going away. In fact, my new apperceptions grew stronger and more vivid with the passage of time. Before long I found that I was having substantial conversations with these souls.

And then, as if this wasn't enough, something even more astounding began to happen: I began to sense and finally converse with other beings - presences of light and love and wisdom that seemed invariably present during these critical rites of passage. This book is a record of my dialogues with these beings, in particular with one who seemed to have a special interest in me.

During my silent conversations with newly freed souls and the angels that accompany them, I have gathered a great deal of fascinating information about the way things work in both the world of spirit and the everyday world of form that we, the living, currently inhabit.

How do these conversations occur? Iâve asked myself the same thing many times. The answer is that I don't really know and I don't really care. What I do know is that I don't hear any actual voices and I don't see any forms. Neither do I experience any kind of 'automatic writing' or 'channeling.' I simply think of questions and, when I do, answers effortlessly flood into my mind. The whole process seems very natural and leaves me with a peaceful feeling.

The overall quality of my life has improved immeasurably as these conversations have transpired. I am content with my lot in life. I am in harmony with my family and all the people I work with. I sleep well and worry very little. My health is good and my finances in great shape. Most importantly, I feel very close to the Spirit and want more than anything to help implement the greater plan.

One of the most important things you should know is that, as I have written this book, I have grown increasingly certain that it doesn't take any special skill or talent to communicate with angels. If there is but a single message I hope this book conveys, it is this: God and his divine agents are freely accessible to any and all human beings without exception.

Believe me: No psychic aptitudes or powers whatever are required to speak with the Spirit or with its angelic agents. Any such notion is nonsense. I know this because I am an ordinary person. I have no special qualities or mystical talents and yet I have managed to develop a rich and intricate relationship with the beings I speak with. I have found that all that is necessary to commune with the Divine is a simple belief in a world beyond, a willingness to speak with its beautiful inhabitants, and a rudimentary ability to quiet the mind and listen. That's all there is to it. Anyone can do this, even you - if you will only try.

What's more, I have come to understand that in time nearly everyone will do this. There is every reason to believe it is our destiny, our duty as human beings to reach a point of evolution where we each speak directly with God - without the aid of third parties, such as clergy or psychics, of any kind.

The chapters that follow will help you understand angels, how they see things, how they communicate, and how they go about their work. The conversations within will help you understand more about the process of life and your ability, your responsibility to shape your own reality. Most importantly, this book will provide you with a number of specific, practical guidelines that will enable you to develop a healthy and productive relationship with your own angels. It will even teach you how to speak easily and naturally with them yourself.

I hope this book will challenge other health care providers to increase their contact with the dead, the dying, and the comatose patients they care for. I say 'increase' because I believe many doctors and nurses are already communing with the dead and dying they attend. Many of the health professionals who have read this manuscript have remarked to me that they too have felt the certain presence of the soul and, in some cases, angelic beings when attending the death of a patient. I suspect that tens of thousands of health care professionals around the world are trying to communicate with their patients through the difficult transition of death and will welcome this account.