A Good Death

	Book review on The Art of Dying by Fenwick, Peter and Elizabeth (2008) Reviewed by David Lorimer, 2008 published in Network Review No 97
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Subtitled 'a journey to elsewhere' the latest book by Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick breaks new ground in our modern understanding of experiences surrounding death. In 1886, only a few years after the founding of the Society for Psychical Research, two substantial volumes (1,300 pages in all) appeared entitled 'Phantasms of the Living', by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore. They cover much of the same ground as the Fenwick's book in terms of deathbed visions and coincidences, and the authors approach the cases with the same open-minded spirit of enquiry. I read them over 25 years ago when researching 'Survival?'. Their conclusions and implications point in the same direction as the Fenwicks, highlighting the difficulties of explaining such experiences within the Procrustean framework of scientific materialism. The Fenwicks coin two new terms: ADEs - actual death experiences - for cardiac arrest cases, and ELEs - end of life experiences - which cover much of the material in this book. The book is based on 1,000 new cases sent in and engages palliative carers as well as patients and their relatives.

The main types of experience covered are deathbed visions where the dying see relatives shortly before death, deathbed coincidences where the dying appear to relatives at the time of their death, apparitions to bereaved relatives, visions of light and mist around the dying body, and strange coincidences involving stopping clocks and even birds. The cases cited are a rich qualitative resource which builds up a coherent pattern within the mind of the reader, containing as they do common but independently established features.

Two chapters are devoted to discussing explanations of these visions and coincidences in terms of drugs, organic confusional states, beliefs and expectations. None of these seem an adequate explanation of the data. More strongly than this, the standard brain-based and epiphenomenal view of consciousness cannot even begin to engage with let alone explain these cases. They violate in a coherent fashion the very basis of materialism, namely that conscious experience is exclusively a property of localised brain function. By the same token, they point to the need for an extended view of consciousness. The term 'coincidence' is a dangerous one in this field, since it implies that there may nothing to explain in cases where a relative unexpectedly sees an apparition of a dying person at the time of their death or even experiences their symptoms from a distance. This indicates an underlying field connectedness of consciousness which is subject to human intention or synchronicity, especially in cases where clocks stop at the time of a person's death (remote PK?). The metaphor of the journey emerges strongly throughout the book, implying not so much the end as a new beginning.

The later part of the book discusses the unsolved problem of con­sciousness in relation to NDEs and the experiences outlined in the book. The Fenwicks cite other evidence for the interconnectedness of mind such as Rupert Sheldrake's telepathy experiments, OBEs and what they call TDEs (temporary death experiences) as well as the context of transcendental philosophy that postulates consciousness and mind as fundamental. Scientists can now be encouraged to hone their own minds so as to open up to these hidden breadths and depths for themselves.

In the final chapter there emerges a tension between the model of death as a journey to elsewhere and phrases such as 'the moment before extinction' and the contention that 'it is in the nature of death that there are no survivors. No one can really tell us what it is like.' Elsewhere, they say that 'there are very few accounts of what the subjective review of dying is like - simply because they don't return to tell us and there has been no attempt to investigate this area as it is considered to be scientifically irrelevant.' This statement ignores the vast literature and research on survival in the last hundred years and the contents of David Fontana's cited book. Indeed, as I showed in my own book, the subjective experience of dying maps very well onto the NDE in terms of leaving the body and going on a journey.

The psychological aspects of death are examined in the last chapters, which reflect the title of the book: the nature of a good death. Reconciliation is an important factor, and it seems that the dying can to some extent orchestrate the timing of death. Overall, the Fenwicks conclude that death is a structured and supportive process, and they call for a new education in spiritual care of the dying. Equally, the book is part of a wider movement towards a new, qualitative science of conscious­ness that is required in order to provide a coherent rational framework for experiences considered anomalous or even impossible within the current materialist paradigm. One can only hope that scientists will not simply ignore the phenomena described here but will begin to make a genuine effort to engage with these experiences and their implications for what it means to be human - the very nature of life and death.

 

 

 

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