| Title | : | On Life After Death |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0890876533 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780890876534 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 82 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1984 |
On Life After Death Reviews
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5 stars because this book helped me more than any other book to wrap my head around my 28 year old son's sudden, unexpected death. There are no easy answers but the information imparted in this book helps me to re-establish my belief that good begets good. I was privileged to see my son grow into a man I will ALWAYS love, respect, admire and honor. I lost more than a son. He was a best friend. This book helps me to accept why he left when he did, where he is now and confirms that I WILL see him again and be reunited with him. And that means everything to me!
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This is a brilliant book, in my opinion, all the more so because it's poorly written. Kubler-Ross is not a writer, she's more of a qualitative researcher, which is my favorite kind. She's in the trenches, recording what she knows to be true. And her insights are inspiring and amazing. The book is disjointed and poorly edited, but it's exactly how it needs to be.
Personally, I'm scared of death. To combat this, I went thru the (rightly so) arduous trenches of interviewing for Hospise Care volunteer work, only to pusillanially back out. It was too much for me, even as a therapist well acquainted with whatever horrific trauma you could imagine. The slowness and relationship scared me. Obviously, this would still be an attainment for me.
Anyhow, back to the book. It was incredibly reassuring and validating. Reassuring to me that my step-father's passing was a beautiful event. This gave me peace. It was further reassuring that our lives have meaning and death has meaning despite it's often random persistance in our lives. The book is a lovely companion to Denial of Death, which describes the Freudian fear of death that manages our lives. This book sets you free from that fear and inspires living in a meaningful way.
As most books on death, it's a book about life; letting go and accepting other's in their own journies and encouraging you to focus on your own. The research presented is undeniable and, for me, rang so true to my own instincts and sense of what life and death means.
To end, probably anti-climatically, Kubler-Ross is just a straight up bad-ass. You really get the sense that she is beyond people pleasing and is genuinely trying to communicate the tiny miracles and realities that she has witnessed in her 20 years sitting with the dying. Unto herself, she is an inspiring figure of bravery, in that she faces that which we all innately fear, but is also so lucid and observant. But also that she is compelled to share her wisdom, granted her by the souls she has sat with as they pass. I am so grateful for her and this book. -
I would highly recommend this book for everyone, and only gave three stars because it is not very polished or well written. I also have a nagging question about what changed for mankind seven million years ago? There is no footnote to reference this extraordinary shift in human consciousness and evolution. Still, I think that the author is "on to something".... And I find her anecdotes and theories very comforting.
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When I began reading, I felt that this book had a lot more potential than it turned out to have. I realize that it is a collection of four essays, which explains the short length and the lack of coherence, but even so. While I enjoyed it, here are my reasons for not giving it 3, 4 or 5 stars:
* Dr. Ross should have given more examples of out-of-body and afterlife experiences than she did. She gave a few, but the back cover said she had had thousands in her work with dying patients. That would have convinced me of what she said much more and I was interested to hear such stories.
* I would love to believe her idea of the afterlife. It's a bit Judeo-Christian with some Hinduism thrown in ("God" created us, loves us infinitely, put us here to learn some lessons and if we don't learn them, we come back until we do.) It just seemed unrealistic to me. That might just be the point where I'm at right now, but the fact that we are all super-loved and will return to the light to meet loved ones and be deliriously happy forever... I'd love to believe it but really couldn't.
I will probably read some of her other works because I'm not ready to chuck her just yet, but I wish this book had been more than it was. -
Among the things I took from Mom's house was this book. Checking out the titles, a couple jumped out at me but this one really jumped out because of what we'd just gone through. It's a title I might have come across several times but never picked up... until now.
The book is actually a collection of four essays:
1. Living and Dying
2. There is no Death
3. Life, Death, & Life After Death
4. Death of a Parent
You'd think the last one would be the one that hit deepest and hardest, but the fact was that the first two, and particularly the second one struck the deeper chords. Grief is something we all manage in different ways and I heartily encourage people to look for as many resources as possible to find peace. For me, I've been at peace since she passed, though every bit helps. It's easy to miss her and it happens daily and on several occasions, though it isn't a crippling longing even if it is intense.
This book offers some insight but also a kind perspective of what death is and what it isn't. It's meant to give us food for thought and equip us with tools to face the inevitable. It talks about death in a way to give us peace and try to soothe the natural fear we have of it and I think most people will get something different from it. The language is simple, the message is deep and kind, and on occasion some perspectives might be skewed to the eyes of some, but I like the food for thought she offered. I liked how it made me think about Mom's passing and the relationship we continue to share even though she has "shed her cocoon." It might be a book that changes someone's life for the better or it might be a light read. For me, it didn't change what I believe, but to a certain degree it validated things I feel and believe... and that to me is a lovely surprise. I won't say it's invaluable or something remotely pretentious, I'll just say that I'd never picked up the book until a couple of months back... until it was the right time... and in life (and death), timing is definitely something that impacts how we negotiate the waters of the river of life. -
Read following the passing of my grandfather on February 6th. I am a natural skeptic, but I want very much to believe that I will see him again some day and I have also found great physical sensations of peace in talking to him after death. This book gives me some comfort but it is also very anecdotal, and heavy on New Age-speak. Yet no one has spent more time probing the experiences of dying people than the psychiatrist who studies death, so I'm inclined to say that that means something.
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Four lectures that summarize Kubler-Ross' studies on death. Of most interest to me was her "metaphysical cosmic-consciousness" near-death experience.
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On Life After Death beautifully illustrates, through examples of her work with dying patients, strong evidence of the possibility of an afterlife through her patients' near death experiences. The descriptions of what her patients experienced are very reaffirming. Although the book is short, it would have been better to have quotes direct from the patients about their experiences. Kubler-Ross, toward the end of the book, goes into the grieving process for those dealing with the loss of a loved one which, to me, got a bit off topic. Nevertheless, this shirt book left me with a good feeling, and wanting me to read more about her work.
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Published posthumously, these are some of Kübler-Ross's last essays and lectures. Her strongest emphasis was on her scientific belief that we are met and ushered through death by our deceased loved ones. She points out that when dying children are asked who they want with them in death they always answer mommy or daddy, yet when children return from near-death experiences that's never who they've seen, unless that parent was deceased. Pretty interesting.
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Divorato. Questo libro è il frutto di uno studio su oltre 20.000 casi di pazienti clinicamente morti e poi tornati in vita. L'autrice è una psichiatra che ha lavorato da una vita con malati terminali, specialmente bambini. Lei stessa ha provato delle esperienze extra corporee. Bisogna leggerlo solo quando si è veramente pronti a sapere cosa c'è dall'altra parte. Io l'ho trovato illuminante.
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This was a comforting book. This book brought me comfort due to the authors extensive research on those persons near death and their reactions and comments on their impending death. It was interesting how she studied so many people near death which gave her insight as to what life after death may be like.
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I was really hopeful that this was going to be an excellent book, but, sadly it was far from it. I was looking for a little something less "preachy". Most of it was long and drawn out and I had a hard time getting passed the first chapter.
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Read this book , really... we are all dying at some point... more than that this book has helped me in a very different way to understand death and dying... at a time in my life when I really needed that help. Kublor -Ross is the source for fact based information on this hard to broach subject .
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Read this book as my father was dyeing.. It helped allow me to sit calmly with him
while he suffered and to remain calm upon his passing. -
Waste of time
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This book is about near-death experiences by one of the pioneers on the subject.
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Oh boy this is gonna be a difficult review. Here we go!
So reading the first few pages, I screamed inside myself: “I refuse!” Yes I refuse, to believe in such none-sense as out-of-body experiences. It’s not true that the soul comes out and start observing the medical operation from the air. It’s just that the patient is half-awakened, his sense are still sensing, yes his conscience is not that coherent, but that is not stopping him from registration what’s happening. But then, if I continued the book with such mind state, why don’t I just put down the book now? So ok then, keep an open mind, or better yet, keep an open ear.
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Is she afraid of death? Is this why she’s convincing herself that death doesn’t exist and that we just transition to a body-less state of living? Caroline Myss, on her Forward of the book, mentioned that the author suffered painfully at the end of her life and was also wheelchaired. She was saying that she was ready for Death, and that she wanted to take her life by herself, because she wanted to decide when she’s going to die. This reminds me when a bandage need to be taken off, oh how painful and scary that is, especially when the area is hairy. I don’t like it, that waiting moment, for the train of pain to arrive at the station. I rather jump and starting running towards the wall. That’s why, I prefer to take off the bondages myself. But I’m not gonna lie, I can’t see that I would ever say to death “come already”. Does that make me a coward? Or does that make me laidback? Either way, I’m not obsessed about death, and I don’t mind talking about it when it comes to the conversation, though most people get discomforted when Death is mentioned, I dunno why..
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I studied abroad for a semester in USA and a long weekend came so my friend and I decided to visit the nearby Orlando. We went to the water park and I saw a big slider called Tornado or something. It’s basically a half big ball (you can consider it as a plate) and they drop you inside it from the middle.
I am enjoying myself turning around the inside of it. But my body slowing, more and more, the circumference getting smaller and lower. Then it suddenly hit me.. I’m slowing into what? I see it, this hole, this vortex, leading into the abyss, and I don’t know how to swim.. and that was the day I died.
At least for an instance I thought I’m going to die, drowning in a dark sunken cave. It felt like a timeless moment, it was 1000 years long and a millisecond at the same time.. I tried to use my nails, to hold into the floor to avoid falling into the hole, but that didn’t work. And of course, I’m not gonna say what happened after that :P
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DMT, the spirit molecule. Some say it’s released in big portions when we are starving (hence Nirvana from starvation experiences) and when we’re about to die. Does that explain why near death experience are so, spiritual? Or is it the other way around, where some scientist tried to explain the phenomenon mechanically (biologically on this context) so he linked near death experience with the cool compound so call DMT?
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The book is full of mysticism. The author takes seriously events where when thinking of someone then suddenly we find him by coincidence in front of us. To me it’s a mathematical non-zero chance of occurrence, especially since we only notice such ones only when they work (we have multiple false hunches throughout the day, but we register only the ones that score, which leads to us thinking we have precise hunches). To her (and to many females I know, and a male poet), it’s Destiny trying to tell us something.
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We can’t tell what death is all about, because no one comes back after he dies. Actually, one did it. His name was Er (this is taken from Wikipedia):
With many other souls as his companions, Er had come across an awe-inspiring place with four openings – two into and out of the sky and two into and out of the ground. Judges sat between these openings and ordered the souls which path to follow: the good were guided into the path into the sky, the immoral were directed below. But when Er approached the judges, he was told to remain, listening and observing in order to report his experience to humankind.
Meanwhile from the other opening in the sky, clean souls floated down, recounting beautiful sights and wondrous feelings. Those returning from underground appeared dirty, haggard, and tired, crying in despair when recounting their awful experiences, as each was required to pay a tenfold penalty for all the wicked deeds committed when alive. There were some, however, who could not be released from underground. Murderers, tyrants and other non-political criminals were doomed to remain by the exit of the underground, unable to escape.
After seven days in the meadow, the souls and Er were required to travel farther. After four days they reached a place where they could see a shaft of rainbow light brighter than any they had seen before. After another day's travel they reached it. This was the Spindle of Necessity. Several women, including Lady Necessity, her daughters, and the Sirens were present. The souls – except for Er – were then organized into rows and were each given a lottery token.
Then, in the order in which their lottery tokens were chosen, each soul was required to come forward to choose his or her next life. Er recalled the first one to choose a new life: a man who had not known the terrors of the underground but had been rewarded in the sky, hastily chose a powerful dictatorship. Upon further inspection he realized that, among other atrocities, he was destined to eat his own children. Er observed that this was often the case of those who had been through the path in the sky, whereas those who had been punished often chose a better life. Many preferred a life different from their previous experience. Animals chose human lives while humans often chose the apparently easier lives of animals.
After this, each soul was assigned a guardian spirit to help him or her through their life. They passed under the throne of Lady Necessity, then traveled to the Plane of Oblivion, where the River of Forgetfulness (River Lethe) flowed. Each soul was required to drink some of the water, in varying quantities; again, Er only watched. As they drank, each soul forgot everything. As they lay down at night to sleep each soul was lifted up into the night in various directions for rebirth, completing their journey. Er remembered nothing of the journey back to his body. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on the funeral pyre early in the morning, able to recall his journey through the afterlife.
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This is a lovely warm-hearted book. It’s not a scientific book, it’s a poem.
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After you read this book, go watch Wonder Park (2019). Here comes spoilers for the rest of the review: You will find how children act after a parent dies just like the book. Also cocoons are there. So, what if the protagonist was dead and not the parent?
Dark clouds is Anxiety, and the zombie monkeys is Sarcasm when it turns into Cynicism.
And of course, Alice in Wonderland is the inspiration. But it’s commenting on it. The apple that the monkey was tied to, it’s saying that our imagination is the creator of worlds, and not hallucination mushrooms.
“We are the wonder is wonderland” -
Dr. Kübler-Ross has given us a lot to muse over here -- commonalities (universalities?) in near-death and death experiences; a framework for rethinking death from the ending of a state of being to the transitioning of a state of being; a plea for us to consider death without fear, taboo, shame, guilt, etc. I'm wrestling with some of the ideas she's shared, but what's resonating with me is her message of love, of being present and patient, of staying wide-eyed with wonder and curiosity. Her cocoon and butterfly metaphors are peace-inducing, and her insistence that we are truly not alone in any of this is reassuring, even if I'm having trouble believing. I might come back and revisit this again, maybe after putting some love into practice.
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A very short book that tries to unravel one of humankind's most pressing topics: death. To go along the author's arguments you need spiritual faith—which I'm kind of grey on. Besides this requirement I think the book is enjoyable and personally it gave me peace of mind. I'm not sure if I go along with what's laid out, but I certainly wish the afterlife—if it exists at all—works like Elisabeth says it does.
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No matter one's spiritual views, this is as close to a scientific look at what happens when the body dies as you'll likely ever encounter. Her work with the dying was deeply moving, and also invaluable to our understanding of a process we all will undergo. A truly compelling little book, and for this reader, deeply inspiring.
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It's a quick and comforting read for those who wonder about life after death. I felt a sense of calmness when I finished this book. I recently lost my father and often think about his spiritual being and where he is at now, who greeted him when he passed, and how we will communicate moving forward. Kübler discusses this in her essays through stories of those who have had "near-death" experiences, including herself.
My favorite takeaway from this book is "Death is but a transition from life to another existence where there is no more pain and anguish. All the bitterness and disagreements will vanish, and the only thing that lives forever is LOVE."
I will be reading more of Kübler's work. -
Well, I certainly hope Dr. Kübler-Ross is correct in her beliefs about the afterlife. She certainly has devoted her life to learning about death through her work with dying children and their grieving families, which makes it easier to accept some of her ideas. These essays present a hopeful, spiritual approach to death, dying and the after-life, supported by arguments that seem to support her incredible conclusions. If you are convinced by her beliefs you will no longer fear death, but instead fear only leaving unfinished business and resentments behind for others to deal with when you're gone.
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READ AUG 2016
This is a small but powerful book. Anyone who has read Kubler-Ross' classic "On Death and Dying" needs to add this to the read list.
Basically a collection of four essays, Kubler-Ross explores the idea that "we are created for a very simple, beautiful and wonderful life" but we somehow manage to complicate it with the passing of time. Kubler-Ross also does a convincing job of drawing the similarities between birth and death, describing how unconditional love is the goal we each should strive and unconditional love is what is drawing us to the other side. -
This book is a comfort. Sure hope Kubler-Ross is right about all this
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Спестих една звездичка само заради това, че съм чела текстовете и преди в други нейни книги. Иначе чудесно представяне на невероятната личност на Елизабет Кюблер Рос дори в този малък обем.
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I didn't mean to start reading this little gem, as I'm already reading two other books, but I was in a bookless bind, so I grabbed it on my way out the door. I'm so happy I tossed it into my backpack! It's an amazing booklet containing 4 essays on death, dying, life after death, and near death experiences.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross!! Oh my gosh!! You wouldn't believe what she did! She doesn't go into any depth on it, barely mentions any particulars, only one or two sentences of a bombshell drop. Oh yeah, and by the way, while experimenting with another scientist (or two? She doesn't mention how many were involved), they played around with giving each other near death experiences. She doesn't say how they took each other to the brink, or was it just her? A la Flatliners I suppose? One does not simply mess around with the afterlife, as Kubler-Ross discovered, as she had to pay the piper during her night of 1,000 deaths. I had to reread the entire essay due to this shock!
Gradually, and not without trepidation, the awareness came to me that I had gone too far and that I now had to accept the consequences of my own choices. I tried to fight sleep during that night, having a vague, inner-knowledge that "it" would happen, but not knowing what "it" would mean. And the moment I let go I had probably the most painful, most agonizing experience any human being has ever lived through. I literally experienced the thousand deaths of my thousand patients. It was a total physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual agony causing the inability to breath, a doubling up of my body, an agonizing physical pain and a total knowledge and awareness that I was out of reach of any human being. And I had to somehow make it through that night. 66
Interestingly, I've recently been reading books on NICUS and premature infants. Kubler-Ross was born one of a set of triplets. She weighed only two pounds at birth, and it's amazing she survived at all, especially with no disabilities, as she was born in 1926. Apparently, she's a natural at breaking the laws of nature.
Closing with Kubler-Ross wisdom nuggets:
In general, the people who are waiting for us on the other side are the ones who loved us the most. You always meet those people first. 15
I want to assure you that it is a blessing to sit at the bedside of a dying patient. Dying doesn't have to be a sad and horrible matter. Instead, you can experience many wonderful and loving things. What you learn from dying patients you can pass on to your children and to your neighbors, and maybe our world would become a paradise again. 20
I personally saw the concentration camps. I personally saw trainloads of baby shoes, trainloads of human hair from the victims of the concentration camps being taken to Germany to make pillows. When you smell the concentration camps with your own nose when you see the crematoriums when you are very young like I was, when you are really an adolescent in a way, you will never ever be the same again. What you see is the inhumanity of man, and you realize that each one of us is capable of becoming a Nazi monster. That part of you you have to acknowledge. But each one of us also has the ability to become a Mother Teresa. She is one of my saints --a woman in India who picks up dying children, starving, dying people, and believes very strongly that even if they are dying in her arms, that if she has been able to love them for five minutes, that this makes it worthwhile that they have lived. 24-25 -
Four inspirational essays on death and dying by Dr. Ross who was considered a pioneer of the hospice movement. Dr. Ross studied over 20,000 cases of people who faced near-death experiences and came back to tell, participating in as witness, and in these stories she shares her discoveries. She describes the stages of a person’s passing as they walk through the light and the deceased begins to play a whole movie reel of their entire life as they transcend.
Ross says, ‘It’s a blessing to be able to sit at the bedside of a dying person.” Personally, I’m no amateur at this as I’ve been to my share of beloved bedsides, including, recently, my own husband’s. I’m not sure if the blessing is for the one leaving our world because the only blessing I felt was that he was no longer suffering, but the aftermath of me and my loss certainly doesn’t feel like a blessing.
We are told that when the person is passing on their guardian angels, guides and past love ones are greeting them to help with the transition. Dr. Ross said these events have been verified by her as a scientist. “There will always be someone there to guide the leaving soul to transcend.”
One example of watching a near death event, Dr. Ross watched a blind girl slip away. She came back to the land of the living and explained that she watched from above the doctors bringing her back to life. She explained that she saw everything from above, told Dr. Ross of the colors of clothing people were wearing in the room. She was spot on. When she returned to the land of living, so did her blindness.
I think we are all curious to know what really goes on in the other side after life on earth, and we have much to learn from those who’ve been to the precipice between two worlds, yet somehow made it back to the land of the living. This is a short book with stories of people Dr. Ross has witnessed their near death experiences, which she shares openly. There are no big jargony medical words or terms to navigate, merely stories of survivors who came back to tell.
Poignant Quotes:
“Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding the cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh and to grow.”
“Everything can be bearable when there was LOVE.”
“…dying is only a transition to a different form of life.” -
Some extremely comforting thoughts on death and dying:
"As soon as you have finished this school and mastered your lessons, you are allowed to go home, to graduate!"
This is why even little children die--they mastered the lessons they needed to learn in this life, sooner than others might.
If you have learned and practiced unconditional love, you have mastered the greatest lesson of all. (11)
"If your dying ones can be kept without pain, dry and nursed with care and if you have the courage to take them all into your homes...then none of them will ask you for an overdose" "No dying patient is going to ask for an overdose if he is cared for with love and helped to finish his unfinished business." (15)
"In the same way it is a blessing to have cancer. I don't want to minimize the bad parts that go along with cancer, but I want you to know that there are thousands of things that are worse than cancer"
(like complete paralysis.) (15)
In life, symbolically speaking, we are thrown into a tumbler like a stone and it is up to us if we come out polished or crushed.
The points about how we all have a spirit guide/guardian angel with us at all times and when we die, at a minimum that entity will help us to cross-over. Also, we will meet those we loved who have gone before--and the dying children of the author's experience never met anyone who had not died before them (ruling, out for her, wishful thinking because that would have met they saw there still living parents.)
Also she explains that we will face a life review, that will cover EVERYTHING that we did and we will know how we felt about it--but also how our actions impacted others! (This makes so much sense. As I've realized when going through old journals and talking to my daughter about her childhood, we often go through life blithely unaware of the meaning and impact of what we are doing.)
Oh and that you can still talk to the dead and complete unfinished business, say the things you forget to say--they can hear you.
And, of course, her wonderful and oft repeated metaphor of the body as a cocoon that is left behind, because no longer needed, at death--allowing the butterfly that is our spirit and true essence to fly free. -
I have great respect for Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and purchased this book a couple years ago, put it on my bookshelf and promptly forgot about it. Last night, I was looking for something that might put me in a better headspace and plucked this one off the shelf and read it in about an hour this afternoon.
I'm a skeptic and consider myself rooted in science. I'm not overly spiritual and not religious - yet I've struggled with letting go of spirituality completely, as that never made much sense to me given how many things in this universe we do not understand. These essays started off great for me, hearing Kübler-Ross' thoughts on "the source" of our energy and her observations on death and dying. The woman is a literal pioneer in the field and I trust her opinions.
But... three of the four essays she mentioned had "true stories" she related about children, death and dying. Three of the stories, all different stories, featured a girl named "Susy." I was puzzled by the second reference and rolled my eyes by the third. Is she just lumping all kids together and using a collective "girl name" of Susy for all of them? Or are the stories completely made up and that was the first name she thought of?
And though I have mad respect for her, I found some of the stories too odd and unrelatable - primarily regarding "out of body" experiences (including her own) and I guess her own near-death experience? I think that is what she described...? Again, the language was way too out there for me to take seriously and though she implores us to keep an open mind and not be cynical or overly critical, I guess I am not there yet. When someone explains leaving their physical body at the speed of light and traveling around, and then later experiencing the pain of a thousands deaths from a thousand dying patients - well, I just can't. I don't believe it and even if I am able to better tap into whatever spirituality may exist within me, I highly doubt I ever will. To me, that's magic (and maybe shrooms?) - not spirituality.
That said, I still adore Kübler-Ross and deeply respect her - this just wasn't a work that made a lot of sense to me or moved me deeply.
