As the limousine climbs the switchbacks through Chotek Gardens toward the Prague 6 ambassadorial residence, Robert Langdon presses to understand Katherine Solomon’s discovery before they confront the ambassador, unsure whom to trust.

Katherine explains her nonlocal consciousness model using a radio metaphor: the brain receives a constant flood of “stations,” so it relies on filters to avoid overload. She describes everyday filtering such as selective attention (the “cocktail party effect”) and habituation, then links the idea to religious traditions that frame ordinary mind as a veil over a larger unity.

Katherine identifies a modern biological mechanism for this filtering: GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), an inhibitory neurotransmitter that reduces neuronal firing and effectively “tunes” the brain by blocking excessive input. She notes that newborns have high GABA levels that narrow perception, and Tibetan monks show elevated GABA during deep meditation, chemically shutting out most external input.

Her deeper insight came from a paper by Brigita Gessner about an epilepsy chip that triggers the brain’s GABA response to prevent seizures. Katherine contrasts low-GABA seizures with the “postictal bliss” that can follow—states of peace, connectedness, and out-of-body sensations—and proposes that a reboot-like shutdown occurs before GABA filters fully return. In that brief timing gap, the mind may glimpse “unfiltered reality,” which Katherine suggests is beautiful and transformative; she tells Langdon GABA may be the key to why humans cannot perceive reality as it truly is, and hints her discovery goes further.

Elsewhere, in the Old Jewish Cemetery, the Golěm kneels in silence to draw strength and listen for guidance from his predecessor. Hearing the whispered choice “Truth or Death,” he affirms his purpose—protecting a “beautiful soul” through retribution—and decides he will choose both.