It is my understanding that her position in this interview was one she
developed later in life after some religious experiences. I could not
find her obituary in the NY Times but Wikipedia, for what it's worth,
confirms that she did change over time and that initially she was upset
at how the dying were treated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_K%C3%BCbler-Ross
Sandra Price
who finds this thread particularly interesting after reading "Darwin's
God" in last Sunday's NY Times magazine.
Rick Froman wrote:
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] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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