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done by smart people. That

2:33

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2:33

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2:35

down probably on one of my top five. Hey,

2:37

I like nutrition. I like to eat food. This is the coolest

2:40

thing ever. We're going to do this forever. I

2:42

wish I paid more attention

2:45

in that class. You know, I'm going to be honest, I don't

2:47

understand that. As a man, I don't

2:49

get it.

2:51

Welcome to SmartPeoplePodcast.com.

2:55

Hello and welcome to SmartPeoplePodcast,

2:57

conversations for the smartest person

3:00

in the friend group. I'm trying that

3:02

one out. What do you think of it?

3:04

I'm pretty sure if you're listening, you're the

3:06

smartest one in your friend group. If you

3:08

like that new tagline, Chris, it's SmartPeoplePodcast.com,

3:12

tell me what you think. In

3:14

all seriousness, I can probably count

3:16

on one hand the amount of times

3:19

I have said the following sentence. This

3:22

episode can genuinely

3:24

change your life. I'm not trying

3:26

to be hyperbolic. In fact, when

3:29

I have conversations like this, one of the

3:31

things that's hardest about introducing them

3:34

is not overselling it,

3:36

but I get so

3:38

passionate about what is covered

3:40

and so amazed by the insights

3:43

that

3:44

I try my best to impress upon you how

3:46

important I think it is.

3:48

So, I think it's time to do that. I picked

3:50

out a 10-second clip.

3:52

Here it is. People

3:54

who die or who

3:57

are close to dying come back

3:59

and they say, say, or at least many of them

4:01

say, look, we've

4:03

been living in fear for a long

4:06

time and it turns out the

4:08

fear was not justified.

4:11

Okay. So, what might prompt

4:13

somebody who was on the brink of death

4:16

to say that? We're going to find

4:18

out in this episode. This

4:20

week we are talking to Dr. Alexander

4:23

Batyany. He is the director

4:25

of the Research Institute for Theoretical

4:27

Psychology and Personalist Studies at

4:29

Pazmani Peter University in Budapest. He's

4:31

a professor for existential psychotherapy

4:34

at the Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis.

4:37

He is the director of the Viktor Frankl Institute

4:39

in Vienna, author or editor of more

4:41

than 15 books. He lectures

4:43

around the world and he is

4:45

also the author of the new book, which we are

4:48

discussing called

4:49

Threshold,

4:50

Terminal Lucidity and the Border

4:53

of Life and Death. I'm going to

4:55

let this conversation do the talking.

4:57

Share it, share it with the world. It

4:59

needs these messages. Tell us what you think.

5:01

Smartpeoplepodcast

5:02

at gmail.com

5:05

and thanks for tuning in. Here

5:07

it is, our conversation with Dr.

5:09

Alexander Batyany about his brand new book,

5:12

Threshold,

5:13

Terminal Lucidity and the Border of

5:15

Life and Death.

5:17

Enjoy.

5:25

Alex, I noticed that you're

5:27

the director of the Viktor Frankl Institute

5:30

and Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor

5:32

Frankl's book, is something that I

5:35

have long referenced. It has taught

5:37

me a lot. I have used it in my career. So

5:39

first, tell me a little bit about what

5:42

the institute is and what your role

5:44

is there and how you came across

5:46

that.

5:47

Well, I mean, Viktor Frankl was

5:49

a Viennese psychiatrist, as you know, and

5:51

he was world famous and he

5:54

was very active until his very last month,

5:56

actually. He was teaching until

5:59

he was, I think, ninety. I listened

6:01

to his last lectures and there was

6:03

this old Jewish gentleman, very

6:05

much almost an incarnation of old

6:07

Europe and

6:11

he received letters from all

6:13

around the world. I mean, Mansa Tromini has been

6:15

translated into, I don't know how many

6:17

languages, some of them I didn't

6:19

even know before I looked where

6:22

this translation comes from. And

6:26

given that there were so many requests

6:28

and so on, the family and

6:30

a few of his colleagues said, let's, you know, we should

6:33

get it off your shoulders and found something

6:36

like an institute where, you know, letters can

6:38

be answered, lectures be organized

6:40

and so on. And this is what then became

6:42

the Viktor Frankl Institute, which

6:45

was then after Frankl died,

6:49

directed by his daughter

6:51

and his son-in-law. And I'm actually the

6:53

very first non-family member who

6:56

was asked, it's an enormous honor

6:58

and pleasure, to be institute

7:00

director. And what do we do? I

7:02

mean, the interest in logotherapy

7:04

in Frankl's school of psychotherapy and his

7:07

thinking and his approach to what it

7:09

means to be human, to become

7:11

human or to remain human, also in the face

7:13

of suffering and in

7:16

the world which is very much in need of a message

7:18

of hope, of meaning, of consolation. This

7:21

work goes on all around

7:24

the world. I mean, there are about 140 or 150

7:28

institutes worldwide in

7:31

almost every country. And they

7:33

do offer training in logotherapy

7:35

or they do actually help people, you

7:37

know, in the slums or, I mean, there's need

7:40

everywhere, even in the very wealthy nations

7:42

you have and that's even more astonishing, a

7:44

certain inner emptiness and loneliness

7:47

and people are suffering.

7:49

And the institute is there or our work is

7:52

there actually to

7:54

be at least try to be a positive

7:57

influence on the world which is very, very

7:59

much in need. need of a positive message. How

8:02

does his book and his message and his life

8:04

translate into the

8:06

therapy that you do at

8:08

the institute? Well,

8:11

let me first, Chris, add something which

8:14

readers and maybe even you don't know. The

8:16

very first edition of this book was

8:19

published without a name on the cover.

8:22

Oh, wow. So, Franklin

8:24

wrote, when he returned from the camps,

8:27

he wrote two books in the very first year

8:30

and he urged to write them because he

8:32

had the feeling of being next

8:35

to his sister, the only surviving family member.

8:39

All others were killed during the Holocaust, murdered

8:41

during the Holocaust. He

8:43

felt that I must

8:45

prove worthy to be alive. And

8:48

so he had this mission to publish

8:50

these two books. One was on

8:52

the psychotherapy. In English,

8:55

the edition is called The Doctor and the Soul.

8:58

And the other one he wrote, and

9:01

the original German title was a

9:04

psychologist in

9:06

Jürzt concentration camp. And

9:10

later in his lectures, he told our students

9:14

that he didn't want to put himself in the center

9:19

of this. He wanted to be a witness to

9:21

what many, many millions had

9:23

to go through. And

9:25

then he wanted to add the perspective

9:28

that even in the

9:30

most dark situation, there is a light

9:33

which is burning in us. But

9:35

not only is there a light, there's also an

9:37

obligation, a responsibility to

9:40

remain human and to share even

9:42

in the most, especially in the most

9:45

adverse circumstances, to

9:47

live up to what humans can be. And

9:52

I think the book is very, I

9:54

mean, it's an excellent testimony and

9:56

we hear from so many people who are in very

9:59

dark situations. situations, incomparable,

10:02

but each suffering is incomparable. And

10:04

then they read this book and they see, well,

10:07

it is possible. But

10:09

once again, Frankly didn't want to have this,

10:11

didn't want to turn this

10:13

into an ego story. This

10:16

is me suffering and so on. He just

10:18

wanted to be a witness. This happened

10:21

and this can happen. So this is possible.

10:24

You can't take dignity away from a

10:27

human being. You can deny it, but you

10:29

can't take it away. It's really our essence.

10:32

And this is, I think, the message among any others

10:34

he wanted to convey. The psychotherapy

10:36

as such is not

10:39

only concerned, is

10:42

much broader, so to speak, and does

10:44

what nowadays is an evidence-based

10:47

psychotherapy, meaning-oriented.

10:50

But I think there's a very strong overlap between

10:53

the main message of man's

10:55

search for meaning and what

10:57

luotherapists or, you know, Frankly

10:59

therapists are trying to achieve, namely

11:03

to tell the person

11:05

you are worthy, you are free, not

11:08

from conditions, but even if you have

11:10

these conditions, you're still free to

11:12

be someone, to do something, and to

11:16

live, I mean, to live meaningfully, to live with

11:19

purpose, yeah, and so on.

11:21

And I can see how it translates

11:24

so well into all the work

11:26

you do. It translates into this book, which

11:28

we're going to talk about. And I

11:30

know one of the things that you

11:33

speak on and you're interested in is

11:35

this idea of

11:36

living a meaningful life, finding a meaningful

11:39

life.

11:39

How does that relate to the

11:42

book, which is kind

11:44

of about the end of life?

11:46

Yeah, I mean, the subtitle of the book is, It's the

11:48

Border of Life and Death

11:50

and on purpose, because

11:53

whatever we learn about death and dying has

11:56

very strongly precautions on how we live, or

11:58

maybe, you know, maybe maybe they can even

12:00

teach us there's a certain wisdom. I mean,

12:04

from the field of near death studies, there's

12:06

this idea, and it seems truly

12:09

to happen, that some people experience a light

12:11

at the end of life. And my

12:13

hope, in a way, is that this light shines

12:17

into our everyday life. So

12:19

if you talk to people, and let's talk

12:22

about the time before they're actually dying.

12:25

So if you take time and listen to someone

12:27

who's, let's say, having

12:30

a few weeks or even a few days to live,

12:33

then you encounter a person who

12:36

is no longer under social pressure,

12:38

because nobody expects anything from

12:40

you. Finally, you can

12:42

be you. It doesn't matter

12:45

in the hospice how you're dressed up,

12:47

or how you look, or how you just can be

12:49

yourself. And when people

12:52

encounter themselves

12:55

in such an honesty, they understand

12:57

suddenly a lot about life.

13:01

And I often wondered, even before I came

13:03

to write this book, I often wondered, why

13:05

so late? I mean, maybe we can take some

13:07

of these lessons and translate

13:09

them into everyday life, because sometimes people

13:11

say, had I only known what I

13:13

know now? But it's not that

13:16

they learned more at the end of life. On

13:18

the contrary, they unlearned a few things

13:21

which they believed are really important, like impressing

13:23

other people and so on. Which

13:25

is fine, I mean, we all like

13:28

to impress friends and family and so

13:30

on, girlfriends. But I

13:33

mean, when it comes to being human, it means

13:35

having a beginning, having an end, and

13:37

then we don't know, and that's fine. But

13:40

at least we know that we have this lifespan,

13:42

and we have a certain

13:45

amount of freedom, responsibility,

13:47

a thirst for life. Usually

13:51

we are benevolent, but sometimes our

13:53

benevolence is hidden because everyday life,

13:55

everyday social life can be very harsh,

13:57

very unfriendly. And then of course,

14:00

Because benevolence isn't the first thing in our

14:02

priority list, but it could be. And

14:05

this is basically what people are telling us

14:07

at the end of life. They

14:10

seem to understand that life in the

14:12

end could be fairly easy,

14:14

because we all want the same. We want

14:16

to be accepted and accepting. We want to

14:19

share our joy or share our suffering

14:22

and do something, create

14:24

something, experience something and so on.

14:28

This is, I think, a strong overlap

14:31

between the work of Victor

14:33

Franklin and where we learn. I mean, if

14:36

it's wisdom, it doesn't have attack. There's

14:39

no, I mean, if it's wisdom, it's wisdom,

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14:43

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slash SPP. You

17:14

covered a lot there. I think you basically just

17:16

gave us a cliff's note of what

17:18

I think I want to talk about for the rest of this interview. One

17:21

of the things you mentioned is kind of

17:24

at the end of life, people see

17:26

themselves in their honesty, I think

17:28

is the word used, which is so

17:30

incredible to think

17:32

about. I often struggle with

17:36

utilizing the idea of death to

17:38

live a better life because in those

17:40

moments

17:40

before death, or even when you have

17:42

a terminal diagnosis, you

17:45

now know so much certainty.

17:48

You know how much time you

17:50

know what your responsibilities

17:53

are for the rest of the time you have. You know

17:55

a lot of this, whereas for those of us living, we

17:57

don't know. And so I find that it's hard.

18:00

because although I want to live life

18:02

to have

18:05

to work hard and do things I don't

18:07

want to and plan and be responsible.

18:10

So how do we balance

18:12

the idea of thinking

18:14

about

18:15

the finite nature of life but also recognizing

18:18

it is, it can be, long?

18:21

Yes, I see your point. I

18:23

don't see a contradiction because I

18:26

think the most important thing is to tell

18:30

listeners and I also try to tell

18:32

it to my students that accepting,

18:35

acknowledging that we are mortal, that we are going to

18:37

die is not necessarily

18:40

something very depressing. Sometimes

18:45

when you read existential philosophy

18:48

you think about people who have this grave look

18:51

and they think everything is in vain and so

18:54

on and it seems to

18:56

be a bit different but

18:59

only or maybe it's easier to

19:01

see how beautiful it can be when

19:03

we understand, I mean the fact that we are mortal

19:06

is a fact and it's, you know, that's

19:08

how it is. The question is what does

19:10

it mean and the question is how does

19:13

it affect my life and there

19:16

seems to be, I mean at least over here in

19:18

Europe and in the certain tradition there has been

19:20

a long psychological

19:22

and philosophical and social, let's

19:25

say discourse on what is more

19:27

important to be or

19:29

to have. I don't know whether the fact

19:31

is the state as well, we do know

19:34

that everything which we have can be lost

19:37

but what we be or what we become

19:40

remains true. So

19:42

if I, let's say, make it very simple,

19:44

if I steal let's say a hundred dollars

19:47

from someone, what do I have,

19:49

a little money and how long will I

19:51

have it nowadays not very long.

19:54

So the having is lost but what

19:57

will I have become a thief?

19:59

And that will be true of me even after my death,

20:02

even if nobody remembers, but it will be true that

20:04

I was the person who stole. And

20:08

in this sense, if you

20:10

look at this from this perspective, then

20:13

death or mortality gives

20:15

a certain duration

20:18

to things which having wouldn't have.

20:21

I hope that's not too abstract, but

20:23

I remember… No, no, Alex, it's fantastic.

20:27

I wrote it down, to be or to have.

20:29

To your point, it's one example

20:32

of the lessons you probably learn

20:35

towards the end of your life, which is I spent

20:37

so much time trying to have

20:39

and not enough time trying to be.

20:41

Exactly. And then comes another

20:43

point, and now I would like to go back

20:46

to Victor Franckley. I remember

20:48

in one of the very last lectures, a

20:51

friend of mine actually asked a question,

20:54

and he asked Franckley, what

20:56

do you think about the concept of self-realization

20:59

or self-actualization? And

21:02

Franckley, now 91, paused

21:05

for a moment, and then he said a beautiful

21:07

answer, and I think that counts a lot. He said,

21:10

it's a great concept, but please

21:12

do not realize everything which

21:14

lies dormant in you.

21:16

Only realize that which is valuable

21:19

and worthwhile to be realized. And

21:22

this,

21:23

he was an allergic gentleman when he said

21:25

this, but this we hear so often from

21:28

those who don't have

21:30

so much time. They say, I'm so

21:32

grateful to myself that I realized

21:35

this, I'm a bit sorry for not having

21:38

realized that, and so on. So

21:41

the point is that it depends

21:43

on us

21:45

to a certain extent what

21:47

we are becoming. So if

21:50

being is more important than having, then becoming

21:52

is even more important, because that means it's

21:55

us who have a choice

21:57

between being that or this person.

22:00

And that's

22:01

the idea of both Frankel's and those

22:03

that you've you know understood towards

22:05

the end of life It's this idea that although

22:08

to be is the ultimate Really

22:11

life is about becoming and you get to choose

22:13

that be we have a lot of things

22:15

within us and some are worthy

22:18

of Understanding and some perhaps we're

22:20

glad we don't is that fair exactly I mean

22:22

every day we are confronted with possibilities

22:25

so that which has not yet become Yeah,

22:28

and then it depends on us. What do we do?

22:30

I mean there are many

22:31

possibilities which better never become

22:33

because it wouldn't be good for us or for the world

22:35

or for others And then we don't do

22:38

it. Yeah, but there are many many

22:40

possibilities which should become

22:42

and When we

22:44

realize them when we when we when

22:46

we take them from possible into

22:49

real so if we do them Then

22:52

nobody can undo them and

22:54

nobody can undo the fact that they have been

22:57

done. Yeah, so and

23:00

If there wasn't any death

23:03

We would have time infinite time

23:05

to do and undo and you know That

23:08

would be ways to counterbalance things and so

23:10

on so to a certain degree. I think

23:12

responsibility and death

23:15

Or you know finiteness do

23:18

relate in a very strong way. Yeah.

23:20

Yes Yeah, I have actually often

23:23

thought about this and which is weird to say But

23:25

I have gone even through the thought exercise,

23:27

right? And I think at least

23:29

for the most part you don't have any drive

23:32

You don't have any need to become

23:34

because there's always time left to

23:37

become and therefore I think it would lead to

23:39

complete apathy complete Boredom

23:42

it's a weird thing to think about but there's

23:44

some literature on it I think wasn't it borders

23:46

who wrote a short story about

23:49

the immortals and they are so utterly

23:51

unhappy because nothing makes sense And there's

23:53

no meaning So

23:56

yeah, this I mean now we're really far off but

23:58

I would just like to say For the

24:00

little footnote,

24:05

in my book I report a little bit on near-death

24:07

experiences. I

24:09

have at least two or three in

24:11

my database who told me I'm

24:13

homesick for heaven. Actually, I really

24:15

look forward to. And

24:18

then they say, but I know

24:20

that I wouldn't be entitled

24:22

to take a shortcut, so to speak, because

24:25

I've got something to do here and it wouldn't

24:27

be nice after if I didn't do what

24:30

I have to do here. So

24:32

there are a few cases, or cases,

24:34

persons

24:34

who say that they're

24:37

looking forward to it.

24:39

I remember seeing an interview with somebody

24:41

who had a near-death experience and they

24:44

said that when they came back

24:46

to life and when they started to live again,

24:49

they had to learn how to

24:51

want to be here. Yes.

24:54

I mean, it's also, yes. We live

24:56

in a very secular age. And

24:58

of course, if you refuse or

25:01

if you're tempted to reduce what

25:03

you see

25:05

and say this is everything there

25:07

is, which is a very

25:09

bold assertion, then

25:12

of course everything which is unknown is dark. And

25:15

if it's dark, we can project all our fears,

25:17

which perhaps belong more

25:20

to this world, because it's a very harsh world, or

25:23

social world also,

25:27

to the unknown and to the transcendent,

25:31

transcendent in the sense of being beyond

25:34

that which we currently know and understand. And

25:37

therefore the witnesses, I think, are important.

25:40

I mean, the witnesses who have come near death

25:43

and who are the only

25:45

witnesses one could ever ask. And

25:47

rather than what would perhaps materialism

25:50

or a simple reduction of man,

25:52

view of personhood would predict, when

25:55

they come back and when they are resuscitated,

25:58

they don't talk about nothingness,

26:02

which swallowed them up, but

26:04

most of them have very ordered,

26:06

very complex, very

26:10

insightful experiences, which

26:14

is remarkable in itself, and importantly,

26:17

no matter what the explanation

26:20

is, it is a genuine

26:22

experience. And

26:25

they come back with wisdom which without

26:27

this experience they in all likelihood wouldn't

26:30

have with them and be able to share. And that

26:33

alone is a good reason to listen. And then there

26:36

are a number of phenomena which are difficult

26:38

to understand if you

26:42

say this is merely an illusion or a trick

26:44

of the brain or whatever, a confabulation.

26:47

And so, and I

26:49

think it's good to know, but let's separate

26:52

the things. The fact that what we said so

26:54

far is life can be enormously

26:56

meaningful, but it also depends on us. It

26:59

depends on us and

27:01

it depends not on what we receive in life

27:03

but on what we send out. And

27:06

this is also related actually

27:08

to both fields. So many

27:10

people at the end of life understand and

27:12

they say and they tell us and they

27:15

tell me as a younger person, please

27:17

learn this from me.

27:20

What I send out belongs to

27:22

me

27:23

and what I receive belongs to the person

27:25

who sent it out. And now this sounds

27:27

a bit paradoxical, but if somebody is

27:30

unfriendly to you,

27:31

then you might suffer from this, but

27:33

it's their unfriendliness. It belongs to

27:36

them. And if I'm

27:38

friendly to someone, if I'm benevolent, if I

27:40

sit a few hours longer at the bed of

27:42

a patient

27:44

long before I could go home to my family,

27:46

then I give this and

27:49

the person relishes my presence

27:51

hopefully, but still

27:53

it belongs to me because without me it wouldn't

27:55

have become a fact, so to speak. And

28:00

this is very important to know. And then comes

28:02

the second step, so to speak, and

28:05

that is that people

28:09

who die, or who are close to

28:11

dying, come back and they

28:13

say, or at least many of them say, look,

28:16

we've been living in fear for

28:19

a long time, and it turns out their

28:21

fear was not justified.

28:24

And whatever we

28:26

longed for, and

28:27

I mean, look at this world today.

28:30

We all long for healing. This world screams

28:33

for healing, actually,

28:35

collectively and the

28:37

person alone. In poor countries,

28:40

but also in the industrial

28:42

nations, I mean, look at the empty faces. People

28:46

are longing for something which would be

28:48

there.

28:49

And

28:51

what I try to show in the book, and therefore

28:53

once again, it's called threshold, and it means there are

28:55

two sides, where

28:57

you are and where you could be. And

29:02

this would and is available to us. It's

29:04

not that we have to die in order to experience

29:08

some of the peace we are looking, or healing,

29:10

or benevolence we are looking for. It

29:13

is possible to bring it

29:16

over, so to speak, to live

29:18

it in everyday life. We won't

29:20

succeed all the time, and we're not

29:22

heroes. We are just normal human beings, but

29:24

at least we can try. And the trying alone

29:27

is enormously valuable.

29:29

You said, one of the things those

29:32

on the threshold might mention when

29:34

they come back is, we've been living in fear and

29:37

it is not justified. Could

29:39

you go into that a little deeper,

29:41

and I realize this is based on your observations

29:44

with those at this moment, but

29:46

tell us why they come to that

29:48

conclusion, or what they say about

29:51

it. Yes, so I mean, yeah, we

29:55

opened a lot of doors, and

29:57

now let's see which room we can enter.

29:59

That's fine. Life is exactly like

30:02

that. Now,

30:05

in my book I do two things. I

30:07

talk to people who were unexpected to lose it,

30:10

which we might come back to later. And

30:13

then there's another whole huge

30:16

field, and many more people,

30:18

millions by now, who have been resuscitated

30:22

and entered a space

30:24

or a state and leave

30:27

that open because we don't know, entered

30:32

something which tells them in

30:34

no uncertain terms that

30:38

all of us are sheltered,

30:40

that

30:42

we are growing even

30:44

by our own. And it's not that

30:46

it is fine to make mistakes, because

30:50

it's a mistake, and yet that it's

30:53

okay to grow, that we are here to grow. But

30:56

even more importantly, that we are somehow

30:59

sheltered, and

31:01

now I use words which I borrow from

31:03

those who told me, sheltered

31:06

in a light or in a warmth or

31:09

in a certain... I

31:12

mean, the word love is overused,

31:14

but they say it's pure

31:17

love, actually. And how

31:19

do they know? And that's really interesting, especially

31:22

for someone with a science background. They

31:25

don't learn it in words. They

31:27

learn it in understanding.

31:29

In other words, they come back, and

31:32

if you ask them, how do

31:35

you know?

31:36

They say, well, I do, and that's it. I

31:38

do know. It's not that they can come back with a book

31:41

or a revelation

31:43

of words, but they come back with

31:45

a revelation of knowing. And

31:48

I should say not only knowing, but also glowing, because

31:51

when they talk like that, it's

31:53

one thing to read this. It's

31:55

another to look at somebody who's maybe in

31:57

the hospital. little

32:00

bed, really, really tired and

32:03

maybe dizzy and so on. And the

32:05

machines are beeping. And still,

32:07

when they talk about it, you

32:10

look at pure life and

32:13

joy and an

32:15

urge

32:17

to talk about something

32:19

for which they say there are no words

32:21

because this is not of this world. And

32:24

all the vocabulary we learned is for this world.

32:27

So there are no words for this. It

32:30

goes even further. I mean, a few of them, at least

32:32

three or four, told

32:34

me about colors, which

32:37

we don't know here. And

32:39

ever since, I tried to

32:41

imagine what these colors might look

32:43

like. But so, yeah.

32:45

Yeah. Well, my first thought

32:48

was, hey, isn't there data

32:50

or research or at least theories that this

32:52

is caused by chemical releases and blah, blah,

32:55

blah? But then they realized,

32:57

does that even matter?

32:58

As I talk to you, I'm taking such a

33:01

logical

33:02

life experience approach

33:05

to a potentially, not

33:07

just illogical experience, but an unknowable.

33:10

And that's why I like the way you say it, right? They didn't go

33:12

read a book on Feeling Love. They just say, because

33:14

I know. And how often

33:17

do we refute the

33:19

feeling and say we need to

33:21

back it up instead with knowledge?

33:24

Yeah, good point. But look, for example,

33:26

the topic I find enormously interesting

33:28

is the neuroscience of music, of

33:31

the experience of music. One

33:34

thing is for sure, everyone knows how it

33:36

is like to bath in the symphony

33:39

orchestra when you get

33:41

lost in the sound, drowned in the sound. And

33:45

even if you knew what's happening in your brain,

33:47

what would it

33:50

matter? And

33:54

it is unimportant, so to

33:56

speak. Of

33:58

course, the question...

33:59

what's happening in our

34:02

brains during a near-death experience is

34:06

less innocent, so to speak. Because

34:09

of course, people who are having

34:12

had a near-death experience, they

34:14

also say, I don't fear death anymore.

34:17

And if you ask them, if you probe

34:19

a little further, many

34:22

of them will not say because it was so

34:24

nice, but they will also

34:26

say because I know that death is not the end

34:28

of it.

34:29

And then we

34:32

talk business because now it's

34:34

an interesting question because then of course it's

34:37

very, very important and

34:40

it's the old question of humanity. Is

34:43

this all there is or is there more to

34:46

it? And then it becomes,

34:48

and of course, that's an ongoing debate

34:52

and there are points to be made on

34:55

both sides and I think and I even

34:57

perhaps hope it's going to remain

34:59

like that. Because I often wonder what would

35:01

happen if we knew, and

35:03

that wouldn't be very easy, but at least

35:05

what I can say is for those who had this experience

35:08

and they say they do know that it continues,

35:11

it doesn't seem to hurt their life

35:13

conduct. On the contrary, they fare

35:16

very well because maybe they have a little less anxiety

35:19

and so on.

35:21

There's one thing you mentioned

35:23

and when you were talking about the

35:25

what you do is up to you,

35:28

if you do something, you own it, but if somebody

35:30

does something to you, they own it.

35:32

And

35:32

I think that's a message that

35:37

doesn't get

35:39

perpetrated, doesn't get said enough

35:41

because

35:42

you also added

35:44

if somebody does something to you, you might

35:47

suffer, but they still

35:49

own it.

35:50

I think that's a really critical distinction

35:53

because oftentimes I

35:55

believe we will,

35:57

when we experience suffering at the hands of all.

36:00

others, we take

36:02

it so personally and we put

36:04

so much meaning behind it. But the way you

36:06

put it is more in

36:09

the, well, that was them, you're

36:12

choosing to internalize it this way. What

36:14

are you going to do with it? Much more empowering.

36:17

Yes. On

36:20

the other hand, I mean,

36:22

thank you for saying this might be especially

36:25

for psychological suffering. That's

36:28

true. But unfortunately, unfortunately

36:30

at the same time, we are bestowed

36:32

with an enormous amount of freedom. And

36:34

that means that we can do enormous harm to other

36:36

people or to nature or to ourselves.

36:40

And some of this harm is not mental,

36:43

but physical. Speaking

36:45

about the concentration and so on, I

36:47

mean, we do enough to each other that we don't

36:49

even.

36:52

And I mean this in a very, I didn't

36:56

say this in order to, or not so much

36:58

as a coping mechanism, but

37:00

rather as a mechanism or in

37:03

order to further an understanding of

37:06

our responsibility. So

37:10

what I would, I mean Socrates

37:12

when he died, and he died in the most elegant

37:14

way, a quote from in my book, like

37:16

saying farewell. And then he says something

37:19

along the lines of, so if

37:21

the soul is immortal, which he

37:23

seemed to have thought all

37:25

along, but it was a very strong impression

37:27

when he died on him, then the

37:31

only thing which counts is how, what

37:33

did I become? Because this I will

37:36

take with me. And again,

37:38

speaking about our near death experiences,

37:41

they have something which I call compassionate

37:44

memory, which otherwise doesn't exist anywhere

37:46

in the text books. I mean, if not

37:49

during the near death experience. And

37:51

that is, they not only remember almost,

37:54

at least they say so, each and every

37:56

single word and deed they did to other

37:58

people or to nature. but

38:01

they also seem to understand the

38:04

impact of their words and deeds.

38:06

So what they get is not only the

38:09

fact that I did this and that, but also its

38:12

impact.

38:14

And so when

38:16

I said

38:20

what we send out belongs to us and what

38:22

the other sends to us belongs to them, it's

38:27

fine for coping, but

38:30

it also means a lot more. It means if

38:32

we lament how cold

38:34

this world and other people and whatever, it

38:38

means, well,

38:39

instead of complaining or only

38:42

complaining, why not start

38:44

sending out the warmth, love and light

38:47

you miss in this world? I mean,

38:49

why wait for others? And I know

38:52

this sounds a bit lofty,

38:53

but it is possible. And

38:56

people

38:57

tell us that after they came back

38:59

and then they were able to

39:02

enter normal everyday life again, that

39:04

they try and it works. And

39:07

once again, there's some

39:08

caveat also, we will always fail, and

39:11

that's very fine, but that's to

39:13

a certain extent what makes humans such

39:16

a lovely species. Everything

39:19

but perfect and that's totally fine. And if

39:21

we accept this from ourselves, but also in

39:23

other people, accept our vulnerability,

39:26

our error-proneness, also

39:29

then it's much easier to live, because

39:31

we know we try our best, but it doesn't

39:33

always work.

39:34

But why does it matter?

39:36

Why do these people on their deathbed

39:38

or when they're lucid at the end or when they

39:40

come back, why do they care

39:43

about any of this knowing the end is near? And

39:46

I can't but help wonder if my question

39:48

got answered with Socrates' quote.

39:51

Do you think that they

39:53

care about this because they realize

39:55

this is not the end?

39:57

We're taking this with us.

39:59

view this as everything that's happened

40:03

is because

40:06

it is over, but instead

40:08

perhaps it's the beginning it's,

40:11

I don't want to say a scorecard, but you know there's

40:14

memory there. Do you think that's why

40:16

all of our, quote unquote, actions

40:19

and responses matter now?

40:21

Do I think that they matter

40:23

because, what I do know

40:25

is that many of those

40:27

who return tell us that

40:30

they do know and once again they know it in

40:32

a way like you and I know that we

40:34

are alive right now. I mean how put that into

40:36

words you can know. So it's

40:39

something which is stronger than words. And

40:42

I wouldn't say all of them because it would be,

40:45

you know, it's a huge group now. I

40:47

don't know how many millions of people, 8

40:50

to 18% of those who have been resuscitated,

40:52

do remember in their death experience. A

40:56

couple of hundred thousands remember a bit later and so

40:59

we don't know, but it's millions.

41:02

And of course depending on where they

41:04

come from, I mean, ideologically or

41:06

maybe they have a certain faith and so on, some

41:09

of them change their faith. I

41:11

think not everyone will

41:14

say the same thing when it comes

41:16

to interpreting it, but

41:19

many, many, if not the vast majority will

41:21

tell us that

41:24

where they just know

41:26

it's not the end. What do you call

41:28

a person who speaks three languages?

41:30

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41:31

Someone who speaks two?

41:33

Bilingual. What

41:34

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44:45

Let's imagine this. Okay, let's imagine you

44:48

have life and you go on thinking

44:50

life's all that matters. So if I steal from you,

44:52

if I do some really bad stuff, it doesn't

44:55

matter because eventually it ends and it's an abyss.

44:57

Let's just say that's your perspective. And

45:00

then you come to the end and you learn,

45:02

oh wait, there's more beyond

45:04

this. It also must

45:06

mean that it's not just that there's

45:09

more beyond this, but that your time

45:11

here mattered. So again,

45:14

that's why I like Socrates' quote because

45:16

if the soul is immortal, which insinuates

45:20

who I have become thus far

45:22

continues, then

45:24

the

45:25

time we spent and the person we become

45:28

and the things we have accrued, then

45:30

they actually

45:32

matter because there's more to it. That's what

45:35

I'm getting at. And I'm just curious, do you think

45:37

based on your opinions

45:39

and research and all that, there is truth to that?

45:42

Thank you for saying no. Yeah, not only is there

45:45

truth to it, I'm really grateful that you mentioned

45:47

this, because sometimes when

45:50

you talk about the

45:51

afterlife or whatever, and then

45:54

you think, why go through all of

45:56

this? Is there such beauty

45:58

lurking beyond this? beyond.

46:03

And then it's easy and I think

46:05

easy and very wrong and false

46:08

to say, okay, so let's do a shortcut.

46:10

No, I mean why hang around here? It's

46:13

a place of pain and not only

46:16

of joy but also of pain.

46:20

And now again, I

46:23

can only urge listeners to

46:26

believe because I'm only a witness.

46:29

People told me I didn't have a near-death

46:31

experience. But people

46:33

told me that

46:37

this life matters enormously.

46:40

And in other words, what

46:43

we do count, it

46:46

makes a difference. And

46:48

we don't over, of course, how could we? We

46:50

are a tiny part of a huge universe, I mean physically

46:52

speaking, how could we know

46:55

the whole meaning of the history of

46:57

mankind, of Earth, of nature and so

46:59

on. But each of

47:01

us is a chapter in this unwritten chronicles

47:04

of humanity. And if you

47:06

take one chapter away prematurely,

47:09

it would be missing. It would be empty pages where

47:11

something should be written. And therefore,

47:13

I totally agree and

47:16

it's very important. And even

47:18

more importantly, people

47:20

told me more than once because

47:23

of course the implicit question is okay,

47:25

so why if you're homesick

47:27

for heaven, why don't you go home? And they say

47:30

because I'm not supposed to, because

47:33

this is too important. And another

47:35

one elderly gentleman who was

47:37

resuscitated, he

47:39

said something even more beautiful

47:42

and mind-blowing in it because I'm in it right

47:44

now.

47:46

It's not that life begins in the afterlife.

47:49

In other words, I

47:51

mean if we are, let's say if,

47:54

I don't know, if we are eternal, then this

47:56

eternity is happening.

47:59

at this very moment, not tomorrow.

48:02

That's

48:05

trippy. And the reason I say

48:07

that, I feel like many people have

48:09

had this experience. I'll be sitting around a fire

48:12

or I'll be looking out over an ocean or

48:15

I'll be staring at my newborn and

48:18

I will have this feeling of this is

48:21

perfection.

48:22

You couldn't imagine a

48:24

beauty like that

48:26

unless you were given it. That

48:29

is where oftentimes the

48:31

following moment will be for me, a

48:34

fear of death.

48:36

Because thinking about this

48:39

no longer being.

48:41

And I think just what this discussion

48:43

is opening up the opportunity for is what

48:45

if this is one

48:47

iteration, one chapter,

48:49

one element of eternity, but

48:52

there are different types of beauty

48:55

with

48:55

the same or perhaps

48:57

even more impact just

48:59

in a different way beyond. And

49:02

you carry yourself who you are

49:04

through all of these. It's

49:06

such a

49:08

beautiful and absolutely magnificent

49:10

way

49:11

of viewing experience, of viewing

49:13

our current reality. And I'll tell

49:15

you, there is a chance

49:18

that this is what the idea of heaven

49:20

and hell is. What if the idea

49:23

is more when you die,

49:26

you still know everything you did,

49:28

every person you impacted, every

49:30

pain, pleasure you caused, all of these

49:32

things. And if

49:34

you did good, that will feel

49:36

like a heaven.

49:38

And if you didn't, if you wasted it, if

49:40

you did all those things, that will feel like

49:43

a hell.

49:44

That seems like plausible.

49:47

That's a beautiful totally,

49:49

but you know, I think it wasn't St.

49:52

Theresa of Lisieux. She had

49:54

this idea of a purgatory of love.

49:57

In other words, nobody is punishing you.

49:59

But here you stand in the presence of truth

50:02

or beauty or what could be the

50:04

good and then you compare this to

50:06

what you did and that

50:09

offers a lot of pain. Wow. One

50:13

of the things I don't think

50:15

we have touched on enough is

50:18

we mentioned it but your

50:20

book is really focused on a different

50:23

end of life phenomenon which is terminal

50:25

lucidity

50:26

which is not

50:27

coming back from death. It's not a near

50:29

death experience.

50:30

Can you explain to us what terminal lucidity is

50:33

and specifically what interested you

50:35

in this idea? Terminal

50:37

lucidity or TL for short is a phenomenon

50:40

which is I think related to

50:42

the near death experience and Kubler

50:46

Ross who was I think the pioneer of near death

50:48

studies along with Raymond Moody sometimes

50:51

mentioned that the following happens. People

50:55

who have been suffering from dementia

50:57

who forgot that they

51:00

have family members,

51:02

didn't recognize them anymore so they severely

51:04

demented. On

51:06

the very last day or let's

51:08

say shortly before that two

51:11

to three days or hours maybe sometimes

51:13

minutes suddenly reemerge

51:17

as the full person they have always

51:19

been before they have been hit by a disease,

51:21

by brain disorder. They

51:25

are suddenly able to have

51:28

coherent verbal interaction. They talk

51:30

and they very often seem to know which

51:33

is unusual that they're going to die. It's

51:35

not going to last for long and

51:37

then

51:38

they say farewell, they share memories,

51:40

relish, make peace whatever

51:43

and then they die.

51:45

The phenomenon has been reported ever

51:50

since doctors became chroniclers

51:52

of the disease and also

51:54

death process of the patients for thousands of

51:56

years but only recently

51:59

and let's say in 20 years. 2009, I think

52:02

the time had come to look

52:04

at this from a scientific viewpoint and

52:06

there were three papers published

52:09

in scientific

52:11

journals on what now

52:13

is called terminal lucidity.

52:16

Why did you decide

52:18

that this is an area you wanted to focus

52:20

on? Yeah, for a reason which we briefly

52:23

touched upon and then I said it's not,

52:27

what's happening basically is

52:29

you have someone who has

52:31

a severely disordered brain and

52:34

a brain with, let's say struck by advanced

52:36

Alzheimer's

52:38

doesn't heal and

52:41

doesn't heal in such a short time. That would

52:44

be a bit like unboiling a boiled egg. I mean

52:46

we talk about real severe tissue

52:48

damage or change and

52:51

I've always been, I mean almost always been

52:54

interested in the question of human personhood

52:58

and of course this also touches upon what's

53:00

happening really during the death experience

53:02

but also during TL namely

53:05

are we more than biological function and

53:07

a hard

53:14

core materialist or reductionism would tell

53:16

us our mind does what our brain does and

53:22

it's easy to see in everyday life that

53:25

there's a ring of truth to it because if

53:27

we get very drunk or if we smoke,

53:29

then

53:30

we are high or we are drunk.

53:32

So it's possible to physiologically

53:36

affect

53:38

our minds and

53:40

that speaks a bit in favor of a dependency

53:42

of mind on brain

53:45

and yet you have these very unusual cases

53:47

towards the end of life when materialism and

53:50

its counter

53:53

model which would be let's say dualism in other

53:55

words dual meets two and the idea is that we consist of a brain and

53:58

we have a brain that is not a human being of two

54:00

essences, namely a body and a soul

54:02

or a mind or a conscious mind, however you call

54:05

that, they make

54:07

very different predictions. Materialism

54:10

will tell us that when the body dies there

54:12

is decay also of the mind and then finally

54:15

that's the end of it. And

54:18

dualism or other such models

54:20

which are not reductionist

54:22

will tell us, well,

54:25

at death

54:26

it's the best test case to

54:28

see whether mind and body

54:31

go one way or two different ways.

54:34

I'm very intuitively here. I'm

54:36

making this simpler than it is but that's

54:39

basically the thinking behind that. And

54:43

then I should say, I won't

54:45

go into it in detail, but I

54:48

witnessed terminal hostility in my own grandmother

54:51

who had a couple of strokes but

54:53

it sat there in my mind as a

54:56

beautiful story and I never read, I

54:58

always relished it and it was very moving,

55:01

very beautiful but

55:03

somehow I

55:04

didn't catch the

55:06

implications. And then

55:09

in 2009 these three papers were published

55:11

in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease and

55:13

two other near-death studies and

55:17

I thought, well, I mean I know this phenomenon

55:20

but even if I didn't know it, I

55:22

mean, one has been. This is enormous,

55:24

yeah, on so many layers because think

55:27

of it, Alzheimer's, dementia, irreversible,

55:31

this is what the textbooks are teaching us, yeah,

55:34

and there's no therapy. I mean you can slow

55:37

it down but I mean it's

55:40

not very impressive what we have at the moment,

55:43

yeah. So, and if there's a possibility that these

55:45

people come back, yeah, and

55:47

it somehow relates to something which is happening

55:50

at or near death, maybe it's possible

55:53

to therapeutically use,

55:55

utilize this trigger, whatever it is,

55:58

without actually endangering the life of the patients. So

56:01

that would bring hope to millions

56:03

who are suffering or who know that they have genetic

56:06

predisposition towards it and so on. Yeah,

56:09

absolutely. Well, and given, you know, you're

56:11

probably the person I will, the only person

56:13

I will talk to in my entire life who knows this

56:15

much about it. I have to ask

56:17

and I realize we are asking you to kind of boil

56:19

the ocean and that's why we talk

56:21

about your book and we will link to it because

56:24

if any of this conversation interests you by

56:26

the book, it's much more in depth.

56:28

What have you learned most by

56:31

studying and observing TL? I'm

56:33

very often asked by colleagues because

56:36

I tend to be very cautious in what I say because

56:39

I think there's a huge responsibility, especially

56:41

when you talk about such topics and people expect

56:44

to know something or learn something as

56:46

if I knew so much. I learned a

56:48

lot and I must say

56:50

that towards the end of

56:53

the book, I talk about our

56:55

light being protected

56:57

by larger light and so on. I

57:00

think I went really far in

57:02

saying what I learned. I

57:05

mean, what I believe I know

57:07

is that there's a dignity in us

57:10

which perhaps we can't even dream

57:13

of how big we are. And

57:15

big, I mean, the significance

57:18

of each of us. And

57:21

even when outside of service only see

57:24

dementia, death, decay and so

57:26

on, there's so much more happening

57:29

in us. We are sheltered. And

57:33

this I really learned, we are sheltered. Now

57:35

combine this with what near

57:38

death experiences which I also look

57:41

at in this book, there are about 600,000, no, I don't

57:44

know, 600,000 somebody

57:47

in the years whose interview I analyzed

57:51

and so on and TL and

57:53

the NDE point very much

57:55

in the same direction and

57:58

the direction would be something like a rehabilitation

58:03

of

58:04

the soul. I think

58:08

all my colleagues are going to be at

58:10

my throat at this, but it's true. I've sometimes been

58:12

asked, yes, but you are at university

58:15

and don't you think that you are?

58:18

And I can only answer,

58:20

perhaps, but how could I

58:23

not say what I

58:25

think my book makes the case for.

58:28

And it reminds me of William James, who

58:31

found a psychology, so to speak, in the American

58:34

Harvard author of the large textbook

58:36

called James and a small one called The Jimmy

58:39

in the short version. And he

58:41

also, I mean, he encountered, he looked

58:43

and he encountered too much. And then he said,

58:45

I mean,

58:46

basically, what can I do? I mean,

58:49

I'm not a scientist to

58:51

only repeat what we already learned,

58:53

because that's not the point I

58:55

have to report. And if I'm in them, and

58:58

it's really welcome, and I'm sure there's

59:00

going to be a criticism

59:02

argument, put it, but

59:05

the only thing I can say is that look

59:08

at the data I'm presenting

59:12

and look at the stories I'm

59:15

retelling. And many of them

59:18

from the witnesses themselves, because

59:20

I think I owed it to them to give

59:22

them the space. And these are very

59:25

moving stories. But next

59:27

to all that is moving, there lurks behind

59:30

an insight on

59:32

who we are.

59:33

And it is much, much, much more

59:36

than we are aware of in everyday life.

59:38

But it is there. And it

59:40

doesn't

59:43

take long and it doesn't need much

59:46

to reconnect to what

59:48

we are. So in this book, I'm not trying

59:50

to convince anyone about anything,

59:53

but just to relish,

59:56

sit down and feel

59:58

your personhood. I think that

1:00:01

at least what I didn't do sometimes after

1:00:04

one of them told me to do that, and it

1:00:06

has experienced

1:00:07

to remember who we

1:00:09

are. I can sense your hesitation

1:00:11

due to the gravity of this

1:00:14

topic, but I also think, and I want

1:00:16

to say for the purposes of this show,

1:00:19

for the purposes of what we're discussing,

1:00:21

I appreciate your opinion

1:00:23

and perspective with the understanding, like

1:00:26

you said, at a university, maybe you can't prove

1:00:28

it, because the way I view this entire

1:00:31

discussion is this caveat of

1:00:33

we are talking

1:00:35

about something that is potentially unknowable,

1:00:38

and at least at the moment is unknowable. To

1:00:41

use it more as a discussion about

1:00:44

possibilities, some philosophy

1:00:46

on how to live your life, if this is potential,

1:00:50

and based on the best information, which you

1:00:52

are presenting us with, there is a

1:00:54

likelihood that this is the truth.

1:00:57

Other than think

1:00:58

about this later or

1:01:00

never, at least it forces us to

1:01:03

think about it now. The other thing,

1:01:05

you said it so eloquently and

1:01:08

matter-of-factly almost that I have to reiterate,

1:01:12

you said terminal lucidity

1:01:14

could be rehabilitation

1:01:16

of the soul, and I just have

1:01:18

to make sure everybody hears that, because

1:01:22

what it insinuates is the

1:01:24

possibility that if

1:01:27

Socrates is right and the soul is immortal, and

1:01:29

it's what we carry with us, then

1:01:31

terminal lucidity is the moment

1:01:34

that we recover from the

1:01:36

physical limitations and

1:01:39

problems that we encounter throughout life, we

1:01:41

recover so that we can go into the next

1:01:44

phase a whole person. That

1:01:48

is, like you want to have your mind blown?

1:01:50

Come on, come on, Alex. That is absolutely

1:01:53

insane that you're just carrying that

1:01:56

around in your brain. You get that, right? And

1:02:00

there's, I mean, in the book I even tried to, you

1:02:03

know, there are two findings, and

1:02:06

you can edit that out if you, but there are two

1:02:08

findings which we need to reconcile, yeah?

1:02:11

And that is

1:02:12

very strong dependence of our

1:02:14

minds and our brains during everyday

1:02:16

life. And that's why

1:02:19

psycho, you know, why psychiatric

1:02:21

medication works, because it affects the mind

1:02:23

via the brain. And then at the same

1:02:26

time, you have what seems to be utter

1:02:28

independence towards the

1:02:30

end of life. Let's say the near-death

1:02:32

experience happens during a time

1:02:34

when physiologically the body should

1:02:37

be busy with everything but generating

1:02:39

complex, insightful experience, because

1:02:41

you need to survive, yeah?

1:02:44

It's not that you need to have a nice, I mean, if

1:02:46

you're eaten by a lion, it's not the time,

1:02:48

or if you're threatened to be eaten by a lion, evolutionary

1:02:51

speaking, it's not the ideal time to

1:02:53

be spaced out in utter beauty,

1:02:55

but you should run, you should fight, no? And,

1:02:59

or be unconscious so it's not so painful. So

1:03:02

evolutionary speaking, it doesn't make overly

1:03:04

much sense. Neither does turn lucidity,

1:03:06

by the way, because why only at

1:03:08

the end of life? If the body's able

1:03:11

to heal Alzheimer's, then

1:03:14

do it the many years before and not on the

1:03:16

very last day, and you're going to die anyway.

1:03:20

So we have to reconcile these two findings,

1:03:23

yeah? And my colleague, Bruce Grayson,

1:03:25

who was the author of this wonderful book,

1:03:28

After, in which he recounts

1:03:31

his 30-something

1:03:33

years work as a near-death researcher

1:03:35

and psychiatrist, Bruce

1:03:38

came up with this wonderful model,

1:03:41

no, observation, not idea,

1:03:44

it's an observation, that

1:03:46

many things and many laws

1:03:48

in nature, which we believe are set in stone

1:03:50

and they can't be changed, change

1:03:54

suddenly and very strongly as

1:03:56

soon as we go to the outer limits. Let's

1:03:59

say,

1:03:59

Newton,

1:04:02

classical physics, governs our everyday life.

1:04:04

This is why the fridge works and the light bulb goes

1:04:06

on. And when I throw

1:04:08

something on the ground, it falls down. Everything

1:04:11

is normal. But if you

1:04:13

become very, very, very small,

1:04:15

quantum physics, none

1:04:18

of this is true anymore. And

1:04:20

if you become very, very, very fast,

1:04:23

relativity, none of what

1:04:25

is our everyday life and we believe it will never

1:04:27

change, suddenly not

1:04:29

changes just a bit, but utterly and totally.

1:04:33

So as soon as we go to the outer limits,

1:04:35

to the extremes, nature

1:04:38

changes

1:04:39

the rules. And

1:04:42

maybe it's the same with us and death. So

1:04:44

in everyday life, our minds are

1:04:46

very dependent on our brain.

1:04:51

At the beginning, we don't know much about death.

1:04:53

You know, by now a little, the

1:04:56

near-death experience takes place when

1:04:58

materialism wouldn't predict it to take place.

1:05:01

You know, there's little oxygen after cardiac arrest

1:05:03

and so on. And in

1:05:06

TL it takes place. Once again, at a

1:05:09

biologically very, very unlikely time.

1:05:13

And so I think that's a way of being a scientifically

1:05:16

informed dualist. In other words, a dualist

1:05:19

is the cautious word for believing

1:05:21

that we are a soul and

1:05:24

have a body and not the other way around. Yeah.

1:05:27

Okay. A couple of things. If you

1:05:29

love this conversation, when you said that about Bruce,

1:05:31

I just wanted to let listeners know, do you know we

1:05:33

interviewed Bruce a while ago? Yeah,

1:05:36

I didn't even put the link together. So those

1:05:38

interested, soon as you finish with this

1:05:40

one, episode 372 with Dr. Bruce Grayson about

1:05:44

life after death. I might want to have him back on because

1:05:46

this is, I mean, a fascinating

1:05:49

subject and I appreciate everything you said. I

1:05:51

also want to float this idea and then I promise

1:05:53

we'll wrap up, which is, what about this

1:05:55

thought that I had that terminal

1:05:58

lucidity could be an evolution? evolutionary

1:06:00

feature that allows

1:06:02

people to pass on the wisdom

1:06:04

they've learned even if

1:06:07

they are technically physically

1:06:10

uncapable of doing that but Evolution

1:06:14

doesn't work by someone striving it

1:06:16

down but by having an evolutionary

1:06:20

Advantage with which you can pass on. Yeah

1:06:24

You know, there should be a feature which

1:06:26

is Well two things Very

1:06:30

frankly, I think this is not overly likely

1:06:32

because if they had more time They would have

1:06:34

been able to pass on more wisdom. Yeah,

1:06:37

so if nature would be so generous to

1:06:39

say, okay here you have you know Then

1:06:42

then why only a few let's say

1:06:45

hours or so There's been so much which

1:06:47

needs to be said in these few hours and the

1:06:50

next point is

1:06:51

TL is beautiful because it is

1:06:54

as weird as human beings usually are

1:06:57

some of them Give wisdom

1:06:59

some of them say, you know But many

1:07:01

others do say I love you or I

1:07:04

forgive you or they do Remember

1:07:06

things which even the witnesses have to

1:07:08

look later on in the in the in the family

1:07:11

album to remember. Oh, yeah This is true

1:07:13

and given that these are ultimate patience

1:07:16

this very remarkable in its own, right? But

1:07:19

others are just relishing. I have at

1:07:21

least five or six or maybe even

1:07:23

more in my day I mean one of them was beautiful

1:07:26

and So

1:07:28

she was an elderly lady She had to come back

1:07:31

and they were engaging the family, you know

1:07:33

there was lots of tears and lots of laughter

1:07:35

and the nurse came every hour and she wanted

1:07:37

have they gone mad because they're crying

1:07:40

and They're laughing and finally

1:07:42

the daughter asked the mother who was

1:07:45

Supposedly having dementia, but

1:07:47

now I was back said is there anything

1:07:50

I can do for you now? And

1:07:52

and the mother said yes, please go down the

1:07:55

the go to the hospital store and

1:07:57

buy me some chocolate

1:08:00

And then she ate this chocolate and

1:08:02

the daughter says, I never ever

1:08:04

in my life saw someone celebrating,

1:08:06

relishing, barthing so much

1:08:09

in the joy of eating chocolate as my mother did

1:08:11

when she was dying. So

1:08:14

evolutionary speaking, I don't know what's,

1:08:19

but experientially and extensively

1:08:21

speaking,

1:08:23

it's an important lesson. I mean, how much could

1:08:25

we enjoy? I mean, how many things we just

1:08:28

take for granted. But when

1:08:30

you know you're here for only a few hours,

1:08:33

then of course the piece of chocolate suddenly is, much

1:08:36

more than just a chocolate, but it is chocolate.

1:08:39

Yeah, now if there's another one, right? Maybe

1:08:42

it's just

1:08:43

the world's way that,

1:08:45

the universe's way of saying, hey, take a couple

1:08:47

more minutes and bath in this, this

1:08:50

chapter of your life. And whatever

1:08:53

it is, and I'm gonna choose to believe it's what you

1:08:55

mentioned earlier, it's kind of the rehabilitation

1:08:58

of the soul. I'm just gonna choose that for now, and I'm gonna

1:09:00

kick it around for a while, but whatever it

1:09:02

is, everything we've discussed

1:09:04

speaks to the significance

1:09:08

of our life. It's also,

1:09:10

I don't find it to be ironic

1:09:13

or happenstance that I

1:09:15

just interviewed recently a astrophysicist

1:09:19

who talked about how we need to focus

1:09:22

on our time on this planet and the impact and

1:09:24

all of that. And he said, our significance

1:09:27

lies in our ability to question

1:09:30

our significance. I

1:09:32

take what he said in that interview and what

1:09:34

you said in this one, and it just

1:09:37

reinvigorates, as you mentioned, life

1:09:39

can be hard, there are things that can happen, we

1:09:42

get stuck in our head, we think about all

1:09:44

of the fears, as you mentioned, or anxieties,

1:09:47

or what we need to have,

1:09:49

and there is an alternative

1:09:52

perspective that was presented. Now,

1:09:54

if we choose to

1:09:56

accept it,

1:09:57

that's up to us, but that's what this

1:09:59

show is about. presenting alternatives and

1:10:01

letting you think through them. So Alex,

1:10:03

I'm truly grateful for this conversation,

1:10:06

for the work you do. The book, as we

1:10:08

mentioned, is called Threshold, Terminal

1:10:10

Lucidity and the Border of Life and

1:10:13

Death. Highly recommend, it

1:10:15

just came out as of this airing.

1:10:17

It'll be just about a month old. So

1:10:20

Alex, before we let you go, anywhere

1:10:23

else you would like to point people or

1:10:25

where they can continue learning about this

1:10:28

idea or your work? First

1:10:30

of all, thanks for having a really, really nice conversation.

1:10:32

I was utterly enjoying this. Yes.

1:10:37

Well, I mean, currently I'm working on another

1:10:39

book, and I'm

1:10:42

more interested in learning what people

1:10:44

have to say when

1:10:47

they have been gone because

1:10:49

they had this, let's say, dementia and so on. Then

1:10:52

they come back. And what

1:10:54

I found so astonishing is that, I mean, these

1:10:57

were people who didn't even know that they're

1:10:59

in the hospital because they forgot everything, or

1:11:01

in the hospital, or nursing home. Now

1:11:03

they are back, and not only do they recognise

1:11:06

and know and so on and so forth, they

1:11:08

also know that they are going to die. So they not

1:11:10

only have some idea, no,

1:11:13

not only have their memories back, they

1:11:15

also seem to have a very clear idea of what

1:11:17

is ahead of them, which is not true

1:11:19

for most of us. We don't know when we are going to die.

1:11:22

And so there is a certain, I

1:11:25

wouldn't even call this wisdom,

1:11:26

but a certain knowledge, which

1:11:29

I think needs to be

1:11:32

looked at. And

1:11:34

I wrote many books, scientific books. And

1:11:37

in these books, one is in the driver's

1:11:40

seat, because you have the facts,

1:11:43

and then you do in fairness,

1:11:45

and you say questions and so on. In

1:11:47

this book, I was much more like,

1:11:51

I mean, much in this book, I

1:11:53

received from these people, from

1:11:56

the trust of the relatives of the

1:11:58

witnesses.

1:11:59

And it's a very nice experience, a very humbling,

1:12:02

but you know, humbling at the same

1:12:04

time, a very wonderful experience.

1:12:08

And in this sense, I think

1:12:10

my next book is going to be, or my

1:12:12

next work, and I will publish some of

1:12:14

it also online, on

1:12:17

the stories people tell and

1:12:20

on the experiences they have. If

1:12:22

we have a minute more, I'd just like

1:12:24

to, because it's also important

1:12:27

for those who are listening, and maybe there are relatives

1:12:29

in their own environment who are suffering from,

1:12:32

you know, who are close to death and

1:12:34

you are there. Yeah? And that's

1:12:36

the story of Sergei Rachmaninov, the composer.

1:12:39

Yeah? So he had to leave Russia

1:12:41

because of Stalin and so on, and he moved to Beverly

1:12:44

Hills. And when he moved into this house, he

1:12:47

almost clairvoyantly said, this is the play,

1:12:49

this is my last home on

1:12:51

earth. This is where I'm going to die. Yeah?

1:12:54

And people wondered why would he say this? And okay,

1:12:57

he was a composer and an artist. Then

1:12:59

he went on the concert tour

1:13:01

through the States. And in the middle

1:13:03

of it, he felt gravely ill, and

1:13:06

in what turned out to be lung cancer,

1:13:09

and end stage lung cancer. So

1:13:11

he had to be brought back to Beverly Hills, and

1:13:13

there he was on his death bed, and in a

1:13:16

very silent room, very

1:13:18

peaceful everything, people standing around

1:13:21

him, and his heartbeat

1:13:23

is getting irregular and breathing. So

1:13:25

all the usual signs of death is coming

1:13:27

soon. And suddenly, he

1:13:30

opens his eyes, and

1:13:33

he looks positively elated, and he

1:13:35

says,

1:13:36

can you hear the music? Can

1:13:39

you hear this beautiful music? Nobody

1:13:41

heard anything. And people

1:13:44

looked at each other, and no. And

1:13:47

he said, yes, but can't you hear the beautiful melody?

1:13:50

And then

1:13:51

everybody says, insisted, no, there's

1:13:53

silence in this room. And then he

1:13:55

said, okay, so then the music is only

1:13:58

in my head. And he lay down and died.

1:14:02

It's a beautiful story, but it also has

1:14:04

a lesson. I mean, why did

1:14:07

nobody ask him, what kind

1:14:09

of music are you hearing? I mean, why

1:14:11

waste the time and the energy to insist

1:14:14

that there is no music? Rather than, I mean, he

1:14:16

is one of the greatest Russian composers of the century.

1:14:20

And even if not, he is a person who is dying

1:14:22

and he's telling us something. And

1:14:24

instead of insisting, in

1:14:27

my reality, there's no music, why

1:14:29

not open up? And

1:14:32

I hope that this lesson, maybe it's because

1:14:34

it's a story and stories stick much better than

1:14:36

data. Remember,

1:14:39

I try to remember this. And

1:14:41

it need not be a dying person. Anyone

1:14:44

can hear a certain type of

1:14:47

something. And then rather

1:14:49

than insisting, no, it's

1:14:52

only in your head, whatever, be there.

1:14:54

Yeah.

1:14:55

And that's also a gift for everyone,

1:14:58

including ourselves. I love

1:15:01

that. Be there, right? Be curious.

1:15:03

I mean, it's what we're doing here. Be helpful,

1:15:06

loving, kind. I mean, we all

1:15:08

long for this. So why are we so

1:15:10

miserly? I mean, yeah. I

1:15:13

love it. Alex, I have a feeling

1:15:15

there's a part two in our future. And you better, when

1:15:17

you know, look, when you write that new book, you better

1:15:19

reach out because you're definitely coming back for

1:15:21

that one. Thanks so

1:15:23

much for being on the show, Alex. Thank you for

1:15:25

having me. Thank you. All the best. A

1:15:30

thank you to this week's guest, Dr.

1:15:33

Alexander Batiani. The

1:15:35

episode was hosted, as always, by

1:15:37

Chris Stemp and produced by yours

1:15:40

truly, John Rojas. Dr.

1:15:42

Batiani's book, Threshold, Terminal

1:15:45

Lucidity and the Border of Life

1:15:47

and Death can be found wherever

1:15:49

books are sold. We want to hear

1:15:51

from you. If you want to reach out to us, you

1:15:54

can email us at smartpeoplepodcasts

1:15:56

at gmail.com or message

1:15:58

us on Twitter at

1:15:59

Smart People Pod. And

1:16:02

of course, if you want to stay up to date with all things Smart

1:16:04

People Podcast, head over to the website,

1:16:07

smartpeoplepodcast.com, and

1:16:09

sign up for the newsletter. All right,

1:16:11

that's it for us this week.

1:16:13

Make sure you stay tuned because we've got a lot of

1:16:15

great interviews coming up, and

1:16:16

we'll see you all

1:16:18

next episode.

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