Prior to her introduction to the Other Side Bonnie Cox had occasional psychic experiences. As a teenager, she saw, superimposed on her father's face, the face of her grandmother at the moment of her death, three hours before the family was notified. At age thirteen, as recounted in the prologue to The Lightbearer, Bonnie had a near-death, out-of-body experience when her heart stopped for two minutes during spinal surgery. She has appeared on the TV show, The Other Side, where she discussed her relationship with her deceased fiance, and has been a guest speaker on the near-death experience at colleges in southern California.