No Christian, surely, can fail to sympathize with the cause which Dr. Kubler-Ross has chosen to champion: a humane and helpful attitude towards the dying, in contrast with the cold, helpless, and often fearful attitude which has often prevailed not only among doctors and nurses in hospitals, but even among clergymen who are supposed to have the “answer” to the questions raised by the fact of death. Since the publication of her book On Death and Dying (Macmillan Publishing Co., New York) in 1969, the whole subject of death has become much less a “taboo” one among medical professionals, helping also to create an intellectual atmosphere favorable to the discussion of what happens after death — a discussion which was set off in turn by the publication of Dr. Moody’s first book in 1975. It is no accident that so many of the present books on life after death are accompanied by prefaces or at least brief comments by Dr. Kubler- Ross.
To be sure, anyone who accepts the traditional Christian view of life as a testing-ground for eternity, and death as the entrance into eternal blessedness or eternal misery, according to one’s faith and life on earth — will find her book discouraging. To have a humane attitude toward a dying person, to help him “prepare” for death, without placing faith in Christ and hope of salvation in the first place — is, when all is said and done, to remain in the same dreary realm of “humanism” to which mankind has been reduced by modern unbelief. The experience of dying can be made more pleasant than it usually is in today’s hospitals; but if there is no knowledge of what comes after death, or that there is anything after death, the work of people like Kubler-Ross is reduced to the level of giving harmless colored pills to the incurably ill to make them at least feel that “something is being done.”
In the course of her research, however (although she did not mention it in her first book), Dr. Kubler-Ross has indeed come across evidence that there is something after death. Although she has not yet published her own book of “after-death” experiences, she has made clear in her frequent lectures and interviews that she has seen enough to know for certain that there is life after death.
The chief source of her “knowledge” of this is, however, not the “after-death” experiences of others, but her own rather startling experiences with “spirits.” Her first such experience occurred in her office at the University of Chicago in 1967, when she was discouraged and thinking of giving up her newly begun research in death and dying. A woman came to her office and introduced herself as a patient who had died ten months before; Kubler-Ross was skeptical, but relates how she was finally persuaded by the “ghost”: “She said she knew I was considering giving up my work with dying patients and that she came to tell me not to give it up.... I reached out to touch her. I was reality-testing. I was a scientist, a psychiatrist, and I didn’t believe in such things.” She finally persuaded the “ghost” to write a note, and a later handwriting analysis confirmed that it was the handwriting of the deceased patient. Dr. Kubler-Ross states that this incident “came at a cross-roads where I would have made the wrong decision if I hadn’t listened to her.”47 The dead never appear thus so matter-of- factly among the living; this “other-worldly” visitation, if genuine, could only have been that of a fallen spirit out to deceive his victim. For such a spirit, the perfect imitation of human handwriting is an easy thing.
Later, Dr. Kubler-Ross’ contacts with the “spirit-world” became much more intimate. In 1978, before an enthralled audience of 2200 in Ashland, Oregon, she related how she was first brought into contact with her “spirit guides.” A spiritistic-type assembly was rather mysteriously arranged for her, evidently in southern California, with 75 people singing together in order to “raise the necessary energy to create this event. I was moved and touched that they would do that for me. Not more than two minutes later, I saw huge feet in front of me. There was an immense man standing in front of me.” This “man” told her that she was to be a teacher and needed this firsthand experience to give her strength and courage for her work. “About a half-minute later, another person literally materialized about 1/2 inch from my feet.... I understood that he was my guardian angel.... He called me Isabelle, and he asked me if I remembered how, 2000 years ago, we both had worked with the Christ.” Later a third “angel” appeared in order to teach her more about “joy.” “My experience of these guides has been one of the greatest kind, of totally unconditional love. And I just want to tell you that we are never alone. Each of us has a guardian angel who is never more than two feet away from us at any time. And we can call on these beings. They will help us.”48
At a holistic health conference in San Francisco in September, 1976, Dr. Kubler-Ross shared with an audience of 2300 physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals a “profound mystical experience” that had occurred to her only the night before. (This experience is apparently the same one she described in Ashland.) “Last night, I was visited by Salem, my spirit guide, and two of his companions, Anka and Willie. They were with us until three o’clock in the morning. We talked, laughed and sang together. They spoke and touched me with the most incredible love and tenderness imaginable. This was the highlight of my life.” In the audience, “as she concluded, there was a momentary silence and then the mass of people rose as one in tribute. Most of the audience, largely physicians and other health care professionals, was seemingly moved to tears.”49
It is well known in occult circles that “spirit guides” (who, of course, are the fallen spirits of the aerial realm) do not manifest themselves so readily unless a person is rather advanced in mediumistic receptivity. But perhaps even more striking than Dr. Kubler-Ross’ involvement with “familiar spirits” is the enthusiastic response her accounts of this involvement produce on audiences composed, not of occultists and mediums, but of ordinary middle-class and professional people. Surely this is one of the religious “signs of the times”: men have become receptive to contacts with the “spirit world” and are ready to accept the occult explanation of these contacts which contradict Christian truth.
Quite recently, extensive publicity has been given to scandals at Dr. Kubler- Ross’ newly established retreat in southern California, “Shanti Nilaya.” According to these accounts, many of the “workshops” at Shanti Nilaya are centered on old-fashioned mediumistic seances, and a number of former participants have declared that the seances are fraudulent.50 It may be that there is more wishful thinking than reality in Dr. Kubler-Ross’ “spirit contacts”; but this does not affect the teaching which she and others are giving about life after death.
3. The Occult Teaching of Today’s Investigators
The teaching on life after death of Dr. Kubler-Ross and other investigators of “after-death” experiences today may be summarized in a few points. Dr. Kubler-Ross, it should be noted, expresses these points with the certainty of someone who thinks she has had immediate experience of the “other world”; but scientists like Dr. Moody, while much more cautious and tentative in tone, cannot help but promote the same teaching. This is the teaching on life after death that has entered the air of the late 20th century and seems unaccountably “natural” to all students of it who do not have a firm grasp on any other teaching.
47
Interview by James Pearre of the Chicago Tribune, printed in the San Francisco