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The Art of Dying (Paperback)
Peter Fenwick, Elizabeth Fenwick
3
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R474
R393
Discovery Miles 3 930
Save R81 (17%)
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A new book to help the dying, their loved ones and their health
care workers better understand the dying process and to come to
terms with death itself.The Art of Dying is a contemporary version
of the medieval Ars Moriendi--a manual on how to achieve a good
death. Peter Fenwick is an eminent neuropsychiatrist, academic and
expert on disorders of the brain. His most compelling and
provocative research has been into the end of life phenomena,
including near-death experiences and deathbed visions of the dying
person, as well as the experiences of hospice and palliative care
workers and relatives of dying people. Dr. Fenwick believes that
consciousness may be independent of the brain and so able to
survive the death of the brain, a theory which has divided the
scientific community. The "problem with death" is deeply rooted in
our culture and the social organization of death rituals. Fenwick
believes that with serious engagement and through further
investigation of these phenomena, he can help change attitudes so
that we in the West can face up to death, and embrace it as a
significant and sacred part of life. We have become used to
believing that we have to shield each other from the idea of death.
Fear of death means we view it as something to be fought every step
of the way. Aimed at a broad popular readership, The Art of Dying
looks at how other cultures have dealt with death and the dying
process (The Tibetan "death system," Swedenborg, etc.) and compares
this with phenomena reported through recent scientific research. It
describes too the experiences of health care workers who are
involved with end of life issues who feel that they need a better
understanding of the dying process, and more training in how to
help their patients die well by overcoming the common barriers to a
good death, such as unfinished business and unresolved emotions of
guilt or hate. From descriptions of the phenomena encountered by
the dying and those around them, to mapping out ways in which we
can die a "good death," this book is an excellent basis for helping
people come to terms with death.>
Most of us at the very least wonder about our own immortality and
many people are convinced that there is something beyond death,
beyond the blackness of the grave. In Western Judaeo-Christian
culture we absorb from an early age the idea that virtue now has
its own reward - later. We are taught that the universe is
essentially moral and that there are absolute human values. But
increasingly, science presents us with a picture of a much more
mechanical universe in which there is no absolute morality and man
has no purpose and no personal responsibility except to his culture
and his biology. We no longer live in an age when faith is
sufficient; we demand data, and we are driven by data. And it is
data - data that apparently throws some light on our current
concepts of Heaven and Hell - that the near-death experience seems
to offer. The near-death experience (NDE) is intriguing for two
major reasons. First, it is very common and secondly, it is
cross-cultural. The results of one NOP survey in America suggest
that over 1 million Americans have 'seen the light'. Any experience
that is so common must have had some influence on the way we think
about life and death. Indeed, it could be the very engine that
drives our ideas of an afterlife. Many people believe that in the
NDE we are given glimpses of Heaven (or Hell). But it is just as
reasonable to assume that it is the NDE itself which may have
shaped our very ideas about Heaven and Hell. The experiences
described in this book are all first-hand accounts from people who
wrote to me or to David Lorimer, chairman of the International
Association of Near Death Studies (UK), after a television
programme, radio broadcast or magazine or newspaper article made
them aware of our interest in near-death experiences. We asked 500
of those who wrote to answer a detailed questionnaire about their
experiences. Our aim was to gather in a standardised format as much
detail as we could about the NDE, the people who have experienced
it and the effect that the experience has had on their lives. It is
from this database that the statistics quoted in this book have
been drawn, and the accounts given to me by these people and by
others who have written to me since then form the basis of the
book. But their accounts provided much more than mere statistics.
Each one was special in its own way, and provided a personal
testimony which I found both moving and utterly sincere. It is very
seldom that an author can so truthfully say that without others a
book could not have been written - in this case, without these
people there would, indeed, have been no book. I feel privileged to
have been allowed to read their accounts, and I am grateful to
everyone who, by being willing to share their experience with me,
has helped in this search to find the truth in the light. Peter
Fenwick London December 1994
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