
As it happens, I’ve been reading some excellent books and want to share them with you. I’ll start with two on the provocative topic of near-death experiences (NDEs).
Sebastian Junger is probably best known for his 1997 book The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea, a gripping account of a tempest off Massachusetts in 1991 and the destruction of a fishing boat. It became a hit movie starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Junger’s new book, In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife, displays the same action-scene virtuosity. The book begins with a harrowing youthful surfing adventure, when Junger nearly drowned, and proceeds to a more recent meeting with mortality, “face to face,” when he almost died in the emergency room after suffering an aneurysm.
Junger is a hard-boiled reporter and staunch atheist. He relies on facts and science. These characteristics make him a trustworthy witness when he’s reporting other-worldly experiences. No woo-woo here. Instead, Junger confronts his own skepticism, questioning everything. One section of the book explores particle physics (much to the dismay of some of my book group members), in order to show that the world is really a very, very weird place, where bewilderingly non-rational stuff goes on routinely. Similarly, despite his efforts, Junger can’t explain some aspects of his NDE, hence maintaining some openness to the possibility of an afterlife.
I loved this book. I moved on to one of Junger’s sources: After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond (2021) by Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist. In more workmanlike prose, Greyson shares his decades of surprising research with patients who’ve had NDEs. Sticking to the facts, like Junger, Greyson remains open-minded, questioning all his assumptions about the human body. He closes with a fascinating discussion of recent thought about the distinction between the mind and the brain.
After a painstaking and critical examination of the evidence, this conscientious scientist writes,
The evidence that under extreme conditions we can perceive beyond what our physical senses see and hear, and that we can remember things our physical brains have not processed, comes not just from NDEs but from a variety of research avenues. So it makes sense to me to live our lives as if this is really the way things are–that we are more than our physical bodies, that some part of us may continue after our bodies stop working, and that we may be intimately connected to something greater than ourselves. And that has tremendous implications for how we live our lives, and for what makes our lives meaningful and worthwhile.
If you’re skeptical, I understand. I also suggest you give these two brave skeptics a chance and check out their challenging books.
Roger–What a lovely comment. Dr. Greyson, like you, points out that people have no reason, by and large, to lie about these experiences. I also hope that you see Matt again.
Ros–Would love to hear more about this!
Fran–Yes, those very things provide Sebastian Junger with evidence that there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Greyson makes the argument that, awesome as human brains are, they are also a kind of limit. As are our senses. (Ask a dog.)
Sarah–The Greyson book is filled with stories like yours about your mom. He’s clear that something is definitely going on :–)
Doreen–And I have on hand Judi Dench’s book as well as An Immense World! Thanks for the suggestions!
Amy–Thanks for this reference to Sunday Morning. I haven’t reread the whole thing but will soon. I agree about our barking up the same trees. I felt that ever since I learned, so many years ago, that you were writing about Annie Dillard! Did you see Roger’s comment alluding to Wallace Stevens?
Reading about NDE people has changed my life
There are things that we know or are pretty sure must exist that are hard to measure (Higgs boson, anyone? Gravitational waves from the big bang?) So I think that there are probably systems or events or processes that we *aren’t* sure exist that are also hard to measure. Thanks for mentioning these books, Kathy
I’m always happy to see Kathy Ewing in my inbox. This is an important topic. I have had a couple of NDEs, and I have heard stories from parishioners who had them. Not all of them fit good Methodist theology about what they should be like.
I must admit I’ve been drifting closer to Wallace Stevens’ thinking (thank you, Amy Kesegich). But I have those personal experiences and the stories told to me by people who had no reason to lie. I also have hope that, somehow, I will see our son, Matt, again. I don’t know how to fit that into the truth that death is precisely the thing that makes our time and the people we spend it with precious. But then, I think of death as the limit, not just of life, but of what we can understand, and if life transcends that limit, so will what we can understand.
I consider myself to be a strictly rational human being.
However: When my mother was in her last day in the hospital, and I went home after visiting her, as I was falling asleep I saw a lotus flower opening up. Then the phone rang, and it was the hospital telling us that she was gone.
Go figure, Horatio!
Thanks for reminding me of these books. What a lovely reflection for a Sunday morning! I just taught Steven’s “Sunday Morning,” this week, so these ideas are on my mind even more than usual. I love how we bark up a lot of the same trees, which makes your writing and your friendship so special to me.
Thanks Kathy,
It was fun to discuss the Junger Book with you on our road trip last week and I look forward to reading both books. Just have to fit them in between my two regular book group books and other stuff. Thank you so much for your review