Someone mentioned on this thread recently that Kubler-Ross' motivation for the Stages of Grief (specifically that acceptance was valued as the last stage) was the comfort of the institutions and nurses and doctors who would just prefer not to have to deal with the anger and other strong, aversive behaviors of dying people. After reading an interview with her, I doubt that was the point. I think the actual foundation of her ideas is clear from the following excerpt (especially the parts in bold) although you may also want to read the entire very interesting interview in OMEGA, Vol. 50(2) 83-101, 2004-2005 titled, You Cannot Die Alone cconducted by Kenneth Kramer. I got a copy through a full-text link in PsycINFO but that may be specifiic to the electronic subscriptions owned by my university.
Suicide and Dr. Kevorkian I take it that you feel that one of the reasons why you are here in this life is to call people to wake up to this, that is, to let people know that what's going on here is so superficial and of such secondary importance, and that the real lesson in life is to learn about death. No, the real purpose of life is spiritual evolution. That is the goal. Death is one door through which you can do it. Dying is the easiest door. Because if you do it with dying patients, especially dying children, they're real teachers. They teach you everything nobody ever teaches you in medical school, or in seminaries, or in churches, or Sunday school. And if you listen to those patients, with all the listening in the world, you don't have to go and get a guru, you have your guru right here, in Huntington Beach, in Fresno, in Kalamazoo. Anywhere you go, go and visit dying children. Befriend them, start conversations with them, and they will teach you anything you want and need to know. You don't have to go to India, or Sai Baba, or any of these really big people, because you may not be able to afford it. Nobody has to come miles and miles and miles to find the truth. You can find the truth anywhere in the world. I may live in the Virginia mountains, and I can find it there if I look. I have to look and then I can find it. And then you hear about people fighting, like in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Muslims fight the Christians, and the Serbs fight the other guys. There's nothing but fighting and jealousy and competition. They have so much unfinished business. Kevorkian is a good example. He goes around killing people and he feels like a big hero. He doesn't know that what he is doing is totally wrong. I invited him to come to one of my workshops to get in touch with why he is doing this. Because I am absolutely sure he has some unfinished business. Probably the death of his wife which he couldn't help. That's my presumption, I don't know that for sure. I told him, I could heal him from that unfinished business. Then he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life killing people, which is a "No-No." And he said, "Yes," he would come. And I was very excited. Then the next day I got the phone call that he only comes if I agree to witness one of his killings. And I am sure he would have misused that for PR. As an advertising gimmick. And I said I can't do that, because I totally disagree. There are very few basic Universal laws. "Thou shalt not kill" is one of them. And you don't go around killing people, even if they are one month or two weeks before their actual death. Because you cheat them out of the last lessons that they have to learn in order to graduate. They are very unhappy afterwards, when they see how close they came to real graduation, then they have to come back and start over again. It will be a thousand times more difficult. So you would oppose what Dr. Jack Kevorkian is doing? Totally-one hundred percent. Because you feel that death is that final lesson? Everybody is allowed to die, even if you die in a sudden, unexpected way. Everybody is allowed to die when the time for graduation is right. It means they have learned what they came to learn, and they have taught what they learned, and they have taught what they have promised to teach. Then you are allowed to die. It's your graduation. And you make a quantum leap upwards in your spiritual evolution. If you kill somebody months before there is one more lesson to learn, you have to start from scratch. They will not be grateful. So the same would apply to suicide then-say, if I take my own life then, in a sense, I cheat myself. That's not true of all suicides, you must know. Say you have a teenager who is dreadfully depressed and kills himself, for no other reason than because he is so depressed and there is no other way out. And he says, "I am diagnosed manic-depressive." And they give him all sorts of pills and anti-depressants. And they get worse, and they do not respond to that kind of treatment. They need Lithium, any element that takes care of that biochemical disorder. They will be evaluated like dying of cancer, because they have this organic pathology that nobody diagnosed and they will not have to pay the price for it. If the same aged teenager commits suicide as revenge, because the boyfriend went out with another girlfriend, and you really want to make your ex-girlfriend guilty and feel miserable for the rest of her life, that she dared to pick another boyfriend. If it's a revenge act, then they have to come back and learn rejection. Then they also know after the transition what could have been if they had accepted that with humility and acceptance, what wonderful voice would be waiting for them, what fantastic other friend they would have found. They would have lived happily ever after. Then all the alternatives are ready for them, but it's too late. They do have to come back to learn their lesson. You cannot return to the life that you borrowed, or whatever you call it, with dirty hands, with a nag that destroys your physical body, which is kind of a sacred shell. Then you die of natural causes, you don't need it anymore. It is discarded like a winter coat when spring comes. [Coughs]. Stages After Death Let me ask you a little bit about your conception of what happens on the other side of death. I have done research on that for 15 years. To me, it is a very simple process. I have interviewed and talked to people from every conceivable religion and religious background with a special emphasis on Aboriginal, American Indians, Eskimos-all the old wise people who we call "primitive" because we are so primitive. We are deep down envious of them because they know so much-they do. All the human beings that I have interviewed have a common denominator: they leave the physical body at the moment of death. It's like a cocoon, then a butterfly comes out. They lose their consciousness. Consciousness is dependent upon a functioning brain. And you lose your consciousness and become a vegetable-you're in a coma state. You are not alive, you have no consciousness, you can't talk, you may have no blood pressure or respiration, but you're not dead yet. Your butterfly is still connected to the cocoon. And as long as that connection is intact, resuscitation makes sense. But there is a point where that long cord is severed. Rick Dr. Rick Froman [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
