Death and dying, Heaven and Hell

[ironbark]

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross is a Psychologist who is renowned for her work with the terminally ill and her books on death and dying.

Over many years of counselling she heard a number of Near Death Experiences from her patients.
As a medical professional with a scientific approach and outlook she dismissed these experiences as aberrations and hallucinations resulting from neurochemical activity as the brain shut down.

Usually there was a breathing space between the passing of her patients but on one occasion Kubler-Ross had three patients die within a twenty four hour period. She found herself counselling these patients and their families continually during this time.
Kubler-Ross went home exhausted, collapsed……and had her own NDE.

The first thing she experienced was an overview of her interactions with other people over the course of her life…what shocked her was that this view was clearly from the ‘perspective of the other’. Kubler-Ross reports seeing, through others eyes, all the hurt and pain, consciously and deliberately inflicted and inadvertently caused, that she was responsible for.
This experience brought her to the absolute depths of despair. Hell.

Mercifully, according to Kubler-Ross, this experience was immediately followed by all the comfort, love, joy and support, deliberate and inadvertent, seen through the eyes of others, that she had caused.

Kubler-Ross reports coming out of this experience- shaken, relieved…and still very sceptical.

She determined to approach those friends and family members who had, in the NDE, been the recipients of ‘inadvertent’ pain….and ask of them “Did I ever hurt you in this manner”.
From each one came the same form of reply…”Yes…but I have not spoken of it to you or others…how did you know”.?

Kubler-Ross told few others about her experience. Some time later she was guest speaker at a conference on death and dying and was, as usual, asked the inevitable post speech question- “What do you believe happens after death”?
This time she answered without hesitation- “The afterlife”.

The next day newspapers ran articles- ‘Psychiatrist discovers Life after Death’…
and her husband didn’t speak to her for a week. ;-)

………………..
Addenda

Following the publication of her book on the stages terminally ill patients go through prior to death Kubler-Ross advertised a position as Assistant. Some 5000 applications came in from around the world…some from professionals with higher academic credentials and qualifications than Ross herself. Overwhelmed Kubler-Ross deferred making any decision.

While walking through the ward one day she noticed a distinct change in the mood and atmosphere…her ‘radar’ picked up and she kept an eye out for who/what might be responsible for the tangible lift in spirits. It did not take her long to become aware of the elderly cleaning lady who chatted and laughed with the patients and sometimes sat on their beds and held their hands.

Without thinking about her own status and authority Kubler-Ross approached the cleaning lady and asked “What are you doing with my patients”?
The cleaning lady, thinking she was in trouble and at risk of loosing her job, could hardly utter a word.

It took Kubler-Ross some time to talk the cleaning lady into accepting the position of Assistant.

To love means not to impose your own powers on your fellow man but
offer him your help. And if he refuses it, to be proud that
he can do it on his own strength.
--Elizabeth Kubler-Ross


http://www.elisabethkublerross.com/

http://quotations.home.worldnet.att.net/elizabethkublerross.html

[xchrom]

1. this is a long time ago now -- but reading kubler-ross

was helpful when my partner was dying/died.

[Silent3]

2. Well, that does it...

...there just has to be an afterlife, God, and a special, undefinable Power of Love out there.

I'm glad we finally got that cleared up. :)

[ironbark]

4. Nah....

Not 'proof'.

But I see no reason to exclude it from the evidence basket.

(If we gather enough we could build a probability ;-)

[trotsky]

3. Great fiction.

Thanks for the link!

[ironbark]

5. You've got a point

But if you keep your hat on no one will notice.

;-)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

6. I think she was probably a very intuitive

woman, which is interesting because she was a scientist.

If you hang around with dying folks a lot, it changes you.