Neville says he keeps a chronological record of others' mystical experiences, and names Christine, Bob and Benny as having had the birth in the same order he teaches, with Benny anxiously awaiting one more in July.

Hungry to find someone else who had had the same experience, he found a twenty-two-year-old adopted boy in San Francisco who had just had it, but the boy quarrelled with his parents and vanished before Neville could learn the later phase; later his friend Bob Crutcher, then Christine, then Benny had the experience too.

Neville names friends — Bob, Christine and Benny — in whom the same drama has unfolded, and says he would compile their accounts with his own the way Luke compiled his narrative.