Dhru Purohit Show - Exploring the Scientific Mysteries Between the Border of Life and Death with Dr. Alexander Batthyány, Ph.D.

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, BiOptimizers, and Calm.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Dr. Alexander Batthyány to discuss terminal lucidity, a phenomenon that happens to some people at the end of their life, and how we can apply the experience to topics that hug the border of life and death.  Dr. Batthyány shares stories of family members who have suffered from dementia, stroke, or serious injury entering a lucid state preceding death where their memory returns. Dhru and Dr. Batthyány share what we can learn from these mystical experiences, how we can apply them to our lives, take better care of our loved ones, and have more open conversations about life and death.  Dr. Alexander Batthyány is an Austrian philosopher, cognitive scientist, and psychotherapy researcher. He’s the Director of the Research Institute for Theoretical Psychology and Personalist Studies at Pázmány Péter University, Budapest, a faculty Professor for Existential Psychotherapy at the Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis, and the Director of the Viktor Frankl Institute in Vienna. He is the author or editor of more than 15 books, including his latest book, Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border of Life and Death, which is set to be released on September 12, 2023. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Batthyány dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -Terminal lucidity: what it is and how it defies what we know about the brain (2:11 / 2:11) -Stories of people experiencing terminal lucidity (5:00 / 5:00) -Top questions around terminal lucidity (10:42 / 8:31) -The earliest documented history of terminal lucidity (17:59 / 15:35) -Practical implications of terminal lucidity and how it can help people become better caregivers (44:00 / 40:51) -Embracing mercy and grace in the last moments of life (54:22 / 51:05) -Having conversations about death and caretaking before reaching old age (1:06:20 / 1:02:02) -Life lessons we can learn about death and terminal lucidity (1:19:28 / 1:17:14) -The parallels between terminal lucidity and psilocybin (1:24:27 / 1:20:00 ) Also mentioned in this episode: -Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border of Life and Death -What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond with Dr. Bruce Greyson For more on Dr. Batthyány, follow him on Facebook @alexander.batthyany. Rupa Health is a place where Functional Medicine practitioners can access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests from over 35 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, and Great Plains. You can check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com. BiOptimizers is offering 10% off plus a special gift with purchase, just head over to magbreakthrough.com/dhru with code DHRU10. Calm is offering an exclusive offer of 40% off a Calm Premium Subscription. Head over to CALM.COM/DHRU today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Victor Frankel always said the best preparation for death does not begin at the end. As soon as death awareness sets in, which is about teenage years, it becomes really clear. It's an irreversible event, which will affect everyone. Then it's the time to start, because it's how we live our lives. This is the best preparation. And I think the better prepared we are, the better prepared we are to talk about it. Because then it comes fluent, it's normal. It's not a foreign topic.

You're curious about all the important topics and big questions we have around the border between life and death. Today's episode is definitely for you. Welcome to the Drew Perot podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Dr. Alexander Baciani. And he's here to talk about a phenomenon called terminal lucidity, an experience that happens to some patients at the end of their life, and the important implications that this experience has on topics around the border between life and death. Now, a little bit more about Alexander.

Dr. Birkiani is an Austrian philosopher, cognitive scientist, and psychotherapy researcher. He's the director of the Research Institute for Theoretical Psychology and Personalist Studies at Pazmany, Peter University, in Budapest. And he's the faculty professor for ex-tebrose. existential psychotherapy at the Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis and the director of the Victor Frankel Institute in Vienna. Alexander is the author and editor of more than 15 books, including his latest book, Threshold, Terminal Lucidity and the Border of Life and Death, which will be the focus and topic for today's conversation.

Alexander, welcome to the podcast. Today we're talking about your book. the subject of terminal lucidity, which is all about the border between life and death. I'd love to start there at the basics. What is terminal lucidity? And why is it upending a little bit about what we thought we knew about the brain, certain diseases, and even death itself? Yeah. First of all, Drew, thank you for having me.

And it's a pleasure to be in the show. Well, the question, what is term lucidity or TL for short? It's an open question. The phenomenon has been described for centuries, if not longer, in every culture and everywhere. And it refers to the phenomenon that doctors, nurses, caregivers observe that patients who have been severely cognitively impaired. In other words, they do have dementia or brain tumors or strokes. So the whole variety of brain damage, and along with that cognitive impairment, they are mute, they can't talk or they don't talk.

And if they do, it's rarely or barely coherent. And they've been basically given up, I mean, as far as the mental capacities are concerned. And then something happens frequently, we have to see how frequently happens, namely that such patients, suddenly return. And by return, I mean they have full command of the memories. Let's say a relative is visiting because the doctors in the hospital or nursing home are saying, you should come if you want to say farewell to this person in body and life. And family comes to the hospital room or nursing home and they don't expect much.

And what they get is that somebody is looking at them again, recognizing, calling them by name, often say very moving things. This is an area which we still have to go into, and we are currently looking. What are people saying who have been gone for such a long time? Come back, but it's only for brief. It might be a few hours. The longest case I have my database, I think, is almost 24 hours. But briefly afterwards, they have a severe decline in their physical setup, physiologically,

and shortly later they're going to die. So this is terminal near the end of life, and lucidity, suddenly it's a wonderful comeback of the pre-morbid person, premorbid being before the illness stuck. You know, you have so many beautiful stories in your book, both throughout history of different things you've gathered and some more recent stories. Can you share a story with us to take this idea of TL, Terminal Lucidity, and personalize it based on a story that you've collected? Oh my God, there are so many beautiful stories. Let's say, I think one case I found especially moving, namely it was about, an elderly lady in Switzerland.

So our first sample came from Europe, mainly, German-speaking countries, from Switzerland. So there was this lady in Switzerland and she had dementia. And her husband of many, many years, many decades, visited her, I think almost daily. And the family gathered every Sunday in the nursing home. not rather to see the lady who was having severe dementia, but to meet the grandfather and be with him and support him. And he was sitting there. And one day, on one Sunday, the family came,

and the grandfather was already in the room. And when they entered the door, they saw that the two were talking, and they just didn't believe their eyes, no? And when they came closer, they saw it. that I think tears were running down his face, yeah, and he was holding her hand saying, I love you, and she said, I love you. And then she turned to the family and gave, you know, called them by name, yeah, to her grandchildren, her daughter, and so on. And she gave some

advice on what to do when she is gone. So there was not even, not only awareness of being back again, but also awareness of being not there for very long perhaps, no? And well, but the family didn't know what to do. So they stayed there because such a, you know, it's hard to describe, but perhaps you can touch the density of such a moment, no? And then she grew tired and she fed asleep. And they stayed around for longer, not saying much,

just being utterly bewildered after 24 months of being really gone, somebody's coming back, you know. And when they are about to leave, they go down the nursing home floor. And the husband, her husband, yeah, was holding hands with his daughters, and then he wanted to return, return, and kills his wife once again, yeah? And it turned out to be the last time because the very night. the lady died. And you find such stories

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bioptimizers is offering my community 10% off and a special bonus gift with your purchase. Just head over to mag breakthrough.com slash drew and use the code Drew 10 at checkout. That's MAG, M-A-G, breakthrough, B-R-E-A-K-T-R-O-U-G-H-D-H-R-U-G-H-D-R-U-S-D-R-U with the code, D-H-R-U-10. Now back to today's episode. It's so powerful, and I'm so thankful that you wrote this book. We have the link to it in the show notes. I highly recommend everyone to check it out. Thank you.

And the book is really bringing up in your work and your research, which as a summary of is really bringing up some important questions. And those questions really stack on top of something you shared earlier. You said, you know, we are still learning a lot about terminal lucidity and what TL is and what it isn't. But at least right now, these questions are giving us some glimmers of hope. As you started to go down this pathway and you have some of your own experiences in this space too, what do you think some of the important questions are? that the average person who's watching here today, the people that are interested in dying better,

being there for their loved ones towards the end, and also questions that it brings up about potentially afterlife, mysticism, spiritual beliefs maybe that people have, what do you think are some of the most important questions that the work around T.L. is bringing up? Well, you named some of these questions. I must say yesterday night, I flew from London to back to Vienna to my home, where my family we are living.

And when I saw the many shops which are there to make traveling pleasant, I wondered how much energy and we invest into things which are very, very short, when a flight is gone and then it will feel its function and that's it, you know. And how little we invest in thinking about what does it mean to die or what does it mean to care for those who are dying. and this would happen, hopefully happen. It's a great honor, and it can be very beautiful, yeah, sad but beautiful, no, to care, to be there for people who are dying.

So this is one aspect of it. I think the other is that, as I said, we don't really know what it means because it's such a, you know, T.L. confronts us with two findings which are very strong and which need to be reconciled. The one is that dementia, but not only demand, Getting drunk or being very tired or having a fever tells us that much of our mental lives depends on physiological factors on our brain. Yeah. So, and this is so clear.

I mean, you find this in the lab and there are many studies, but basically everyday life informs us that if we are very tired, it's perhaps not the best time to do an investment or to write your book or to do, you know, scientific research and so on and so forth. So this is one set of data. The other set of data is that dementia is irreversible. There's not one single case in the textbook where Alzheimer reversed into normality. This would be a bit like an arrhytes in the book like uncooking a boiled egg. In other words, the tissue is so changed. If you look at pictures of advanced Alzheimer's or other dementias,

there's no way this will we grow all these nerve neurons in such a short time and so briefly before death when evolutionary speaking it makes the least sense because this person is going to die anyway so why yeah so these are some of the questions which are coming up and to these two findings we need to reconcile so dependence of mind on body and what appears to be a relative indifes dependence of cognition or, you know, lucid functioning towards the end of life, also has parallels to the near-death experience, which also takes place in a physiologically unlikely states.

You know, there's little oxygen, there's hypofunction, basically. In other words, there's low, if at all, function in the brain. And we talk about the brain, it's not one brain, it is one system. but there are many, many subsystems. And if you look at what people are experiencing during a near-death experience, it's very complex, it's very ordered,

often very insightful, and this is not what you would expect evolution to serve us when we rather defend our lives, for example, because we are, you know, after an accident or out in the wilderness, as we are attacked by an animal, it's not that we should see all these beautiful landscapes and meats, you know, have great insights into life and the nature of nature and our nature and so on and so forth. So there are, as you see, there are more questions and I'm very content

with the fact that at the moment there are many, but you know what, these are very beautiful questions. And the fact that we are asking these questions already leads us to a door and whether you believe or not, but behind this door, there's even more beauty. At least that's also, and I say this with a certain authority, not because I want to push my belief systems and they are totally irrelevant, but I'm just echoing what our informants, our study participants, are telling us. So I'm merely a, in this regard, I'm merely a postcard, but the nice thing about this is it's a postcard written with very beautiful text on it, yeah?

That's well said. You know, to kind of summarize a little bit of what we've talked about so far to set up the next question is that you have patients, often patients with severe cognitive impairment, advanced dementia, something going on where they are no longer themselves. You know, and dementia is actually one of the scariest diseases on different polls and surveys that has done because anybody who is aging, which is all, right, but you start to really think about age, especially. you know, 40, 50, 60 and beyond, you start to pay attention and say that, wow, it would be very scary to forget who I am, to forget who my loved ones are, to forget who the people are around me and not have a sense of self, not have a sense of control or that sort of thing. So already, you know, that's scary. So now you have patients that are towards the end of life that are suffering from some

deep cognitive impairment like dementia and then have lost themselves. you know, for layman's terms, and for a brief moment, appear back almost as if they are them old self or as if they are their old self, engaging with loved ones, talking, memories coming up, hearing music, some beautiful stories there that I'll ask you about later on, and having such clarity of mind. And that brings up the topic that in traditional medicine, they would look at that and say, that's not possible or that's a fluke. Maybe the family didn't remember it well. Maybe the incident, maybe the person just had some

moment of psychosis or something like that. And yet, you've assembled so many instances of this, not just recent, but throughout history, that it begs the question that actually something bigger is going on. And maybe we don't fully understand it, but there are parts that we understand. So tell us, you said that there's a lot of, beautiful questions that these experiences of TL can make us ask.

People have been asking these questions for a long time. Talk to us about some of the earliest documented written history of people encountering individuals that have gone through TL. Yeah, but may I just add to another thing? Please. The question of memory, we now surveys, we only accepted cases which took place within 12 months. upon completion of the questionnaire because memory, if families are telling stories,

the stories usually get beautiful with every telling and that, you know, we all know this how it happens, and that's fine, it's good to tell a good story. And our culture is so very little to say about death and dying, which is encouraging or hopeful. So therefore,

all these embellishments, we try to middle away, so to speak. You corrected for it in the survey, and your research. Yeah, and another thing, a few of my correspondents. You know, we did the surveys, and the surveys in the beginning, they were only about numbers, and then the daughter of the case cited, quoted earlier on,

wrote to me and said, you know, I have to tell you what happens, and it's behind and beyond the numbers. And then she told me the story I just told you. Yeah. And so therefore, I began to, if they allowed it and if they wanted to, it's not typically in research, but we are humans next to being researchers. So I said, you know, and whatever you want to ask me, even though I don't have the questions, at least you will know that I at least try to understand what you're talking about.

And so many of these, some of these people send me videos. You know, they had the iPhone next to the patient, yeah. And it was a certified, you know, Alzheimer's diagnosis. and in Switzerland, which is very high-tech when it comes to medicine or Germany or Austria, and then around the world. So these were proper diagnosis. And we do have, so to speak, real-time evidence because we don't only have to rely on the words or the witnesses, and we know witnessing can be a tricky business.

Our memory is not far from perfect. But the iPhone, I mean, at least, you know, we have some, and I have some. And I have some videos where one dementia patient is quoting. So these were two writers. And as if to console his wife and future widow. He quoted poetry they both shared when they were younger and then freshly in love and so on. And not only was it like, you know, rehearsing verbal memory from, early on and he said, and they're dedicated this to you today because do you remember,

do you remember? Can you imagine a dementia patient asking this wife? Do you remember something? Yeah. So do you remember? And yeah, so it's not only that we have, we not only have to rely on the witnesses. Yeah. And even if we've got, I've got, I don't know how many cases now because it's growing every day or almost every week, but maybe 300.

or so. Yeah. It's a bit like, you know, the near-death experience in the beginning in the 1970s, when Raymond Moody came up with it, with the term, not with the experience. Because suddenly never have so many people been resuscitated than with the advance of medicine in mid-70s. And of course, therefore, more returned and therefore more had to say something about what it is like to return.

And they, in the beginning, you have to read the scientific journals. And there to be forgiven. I'm not blaming anyone, yeah. It's a very unlikely, as T.L is very unlikely, yeah. It's a very unlikely occurrence, but it does occur. Now we know better, yeah. And I think the same will be true for TL, though I must say that there has been very little skepticism within our, scientific community. On the contrary, I've been invited to Washington to Bethesda, to the

NIA, the National Institute on Aging, where we have a special research, work, expert workshop, on TEL, and so on. So it's been taking up fairly quickly, I must say. Now I forgot your question, but this I want to do some footnotes. That's a great footnote to add that these are not just memories of families. We have documented evidence. You have iPhone footage. You have clinicians giving their own testimony of things that they've experienced. So the proof is in the pudding, as we say here in America. If you compare this to the near death experience, for the near death experience, it's a first person perspective. In other words, I experience. Sure. And you have to return and then you have to remember correctly and you have to be truthful and

honest and then so the evidence on the face of it is slightly weaker because with TL you have third person witnesses it only functions if there's somebody around witnessing or maybe even filming that the patient makes a return you get the point here so at this too much like like from the viewpoint of of theory of science if you want it's much more reliable if you're you have many witnesses rather than one person claiming I saw or experienced this and that. Yeah. So what I was asking you is that this is all possible regarding terminal lucidity. Because of our modern day and age, we have all this documented evidence, as you've highlighted

and your team have gathered. And this isn't a new phenomenon. People have been talking about this for quite some time. What are some of the earliest citations around TL that you've come across? Yeah, I've been sent, some researchers sent me, but don't ask me to pronounce the name. There was a Persian doctor in, you know, somewhat BC who wrote it on the phenomenon, yeah. But this was about a soldier who had a severe head, you know, brain damage during war. he had some head injuries and I think for three years was, you know,

incoherence. And then briefly before death, he returned to normality if you want. Same goes to India. So there are many, many cases. I mean, the earlier the reports, the more there are embedded in a certain spiritual culture, which immediately can make sense of it. And it's interesting to see how in a secular age, at least in the West, we will cope with the fact that there are phenomena, which are perhaps better accommodated within a spiritual tradition. So our informants tell us very bluntly what I don't write in the book because I'm not here to do interpretation work.

but of course, I mean, to be honest, as I said, you are never only a research. You're always a human being. You want to be there for your patient. You want to be there with and for others. And if they trust in you, it's mutual. It's not a one-way street. So I must say, after reading so many reports, you, of course, sit there and wonder, what does it mean? And I think it's very, I mean, if you take a very hard materialistic, physicalist,

biologic reductionist stance, I believe it would be difficult to reconcile T.L. With such a view of human personhood. You know, in your book, you write about a colleague of yours, who is somebody that joined us on our podcast previously, Bruce Grayson, and his great work around. near-death experiences and really what near-death experiences can tell us about this life and beyond, which is very adjacent to the work that you are doing with T.L. And inside of Bruce's book and also as he shares about his message and his work, he had mentioned that he had had an early experience with the patient that had a sort of out-of-body

near-death experience that was so. so influential on his career and yet so, he didn't know how to explain it. So he never really brought it up too much. He didn't talk about it. He just went about his business and just kind of it was always sitting in the background of his head until later on the world's collided. And for anybody who wants to know what that story is, it involves a patient who was basically dead and then kind of saw him from a distance, saw that there was like a stain

on his, on his clothing. It's a very elaborate. We can link to the interview that we've done before. You've also, in the space of T.L, have had your own experiences. And I believe you wrote about your grandmother inside of the book. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because you've shared that, you know, as a researcher, you're also a human being who's going through and navigating this.

So tell us about your grandmother. And our audience would love to hear about that story. This episode is brought to you by Com. You know, if you're a regular listener to this podcast, you know how passionate I am about the topic of mental health. That's why when my friends and family reach out to me and ask me, what can they do to reduce stress levels, increase their mindfulness, or just even relax after a long day, I recommend and use calm. Calm is a meditation, sleep, and relaxation app dedicated to the amazing benefits of mindfulness. Their unique audio content strengthens your mental fitness and helps you tackle mental health challenges like stress,

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Com is offering an exclusive offer of 40% off Com's premium subscription. Just go to com.com slash D-H-R-U. That's com, C-A-L-M dot com slash D-H-R-U for 40% off unlimited access to KOM's entire library. Just go to com.com slash D-H-R-U for 40% off. All right. So my grandmother was living in Geneva, where my parents, my grandparents moved away from Germany because, as you know, Germany, Hitler was. So anyway, they fled the madness and went to Switzerland.

And I think she had a few strokes and therefore her verbal ability was almost in existence. And I think so was her memory. And we visited her sometime. I was a student in Vienna. at that time studying philosophy of mind and cognitive science and so on, so I did what I did. And one day my mother calls me, oh yeah, but I should tell you, my grandmother was a wonderful person, very eloquent usually, yeah. But after the strokes, a language was in existence. And it wasn't sure whether she recognized us.

I think she was severely cognitively impaired to put a blunt layer. So in one day my mother calls me and said quickly, call Geneva. She was in a nursing home, my grandmother, call her. She seems to be back. And that was a few years before the first studies. In 2009, there were three important studies. on TL being published in the scientific journals. And so I called my grandmother,

and I will never forget. It was a very gentle voice once again. I knew from my adolescent years, a very careful way of expressing herself, and we shared memories, and I thanked her for being such a really wonderful grandmother, and she was really a wonderful grandmother. And she thanked me for being such a great, great franchise.

I don't think I was, but anyway, she thanked me. And it was a very loving exchange. Very simple, very true, very existential. And as I say in the book, we did not, at least not explicitly knew then. But I believe implicitly, on a certain level, we knew it was to be our last conversation. And it was. Yeah. Yeah, and that was that. As you've continued to work in the space and, of course, made a name for yourself in this topic and you and your team of T.L.

When you think about those, that moment with your grandmother on a personal level, what kind of questions did that leave you with? And what were you asking yourself? I'm not sharing for you to have to introduce your beliefs into the context. here, but what kind of questions did it leave you with? Yet, I had the great fortune of choosing three mentors in my academic life, which, and then it over left, so to speak, into my everyday belief and thinking about human personhood. The first is John C. Eccles, who was in, I don't know how well he's known today. He was a Nobel laureate in Neuropsychology who dedicated much of his later work. to the question of the soul, a neuroscientist, and a very accomplished one.

The second was Victor Frankl, very important for me, who is the author of Man's Search for for Meaning, who is fairly well known, I think also in the States, and now I work in this archives and then happened to be, by accident, the director of the Victor Frankel Institute, and so on and so forth. And Frankl always believed and told, said this is part of our training, yeah. That there's something about human personhood, about being someone, which is not reducible to our brain, front, to our body, to social, to whatever. It is genuinely irreducible. It is as such, yeah.

You can't, you can disturb it and see dementia, see getting drunk, see getting stoned, see having fever, you can disturb it, yeah, it can be affected, but it can't be destroyed. And why did Frankl say this? They're often wondered. Perhaps, I think one important aspect was that he saw what happens when people give up the belief in human personhood. I'm here in Vienna. 80 years ago, hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, so-called euthanasia,

because they were no longer functional, because the Nazis, were pure materialists. They believed that all you are is your body. Not only that, it needs to be the right race, so to speak. But you basically are only a machine. Wonderful machine. Great. You know, there was a French author, La Métrie, and his book was Lom Machine, Man as Machine.

And basically, there was the forerunner of art materialism if you want. But what do you do with a machine when it's really beyond, repair. You don't keep it because it's so beautiful. You take it out of traffic. You put it away. Yeah. And that is what the so-called euthanasia movement was all about. It only costs money. There's nobody there anyway. So why keep it? Yeah. So very carefully. I'm not saying, and I'm really not saying, that materialism leads to euthanasia. Yeah. I've got many wonderful colleagues who are great humanists, and they would never go this way. But I'm just saying it's not far away if you are non-sentimentally looking at mere functionality that you say

if that's all there is, then why keep it alive? I hope you understand what I mean. So there are many questions and there's a sphere of dignity and of value and of beauty, which we are. So if people are looking for, you know, the metaphysical, the transcendental, I think the best way is to look, and I know it is to look in the eyes of another human being. And what you find for actually almost every living entity. And if you look and if you connect, you see that there's more to it than mere biology, mere physiology and so on. And I think that was true forever, and always true, but TL underscores this, underlines this, and tells us, look.

And not only do you see it when you look into another person's eye, because perhaps we need your caritas, your love, your kindness, your benevolence, to see the enormous fact that there's an eye and there's a Tao, so to speak. But in T.L. it comes forth, not through love, but the other great moment in life is death and dying. And it suddenly confounds us with this. And I mentioned two teachers. Now I should mention the third. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was, of course, the mother of death studies. So colleague of Raymond Moody, who wrote the book on Life After Life, Then the Death Experience, she was a psychiatrist and I think she's also fairly well known all over the place.

You know, I love the point that you made that when we simply step out of the idea that, especially other living beings are just a material, ourselves included, we start to see the potential for something else. You're not telling everybody what to think, but you see the potential. This just goes back to the deeper understanding, I would argue, of the law of conservation of energy. Energy is never created nor destroyed. It's just simply transferred, right? And only converted from one energy source to another energy source. So the materialist view on that would be, okay, great.

A person was alive. It's a combination of cells, neurons, a beating heart, this, that atoms that are moving, in a particular way. And then once those internal organ systems and the brain, etc., cannot function at their capacity or are over and taken by disease or illness and cease to function, then that system is no longer whole. And all of a sudden, you know, that body will return to the earth, you know, will become ashes, will be consumed by worms, whatever. And the deeper meaning of it is that, hey, there's some spark that's. there, that even if temporarily seems that it's gone and is also so much bigger than the brain,

which you kind of talked about before. Our brain is so much bigger than just the idea of our brain. There's our mind that's kind of all our entire body. And we may not know what that spark is, but if we thought that that spark had disappeared and all of a sudden makes a last glimpse back, then maybe there's something much more that we don't see. And that that's. And that, that's what I was feeling when I read your book. I've shared my beliefs about spirituality on this podcast previously, or at least some of the questions that I tend to lean towards. But there's some aspect of even stepping into the possibility, not even saying that that's 100% true, where I find that when I talk about it, and I shared a few friends that I was

gearing up to interview you last week. And I noticed that there was a sense of comfort that that left them with because there was some feeling of maybe life is much bigger than what we know and also a little glimmer of hope, which is a term that you like to talk about a lot, that that maybe there's the hope that that even if we don't understand it, the energy inside us lives on in some capacity. Those were just some of the conversations that I had. So that's not exactly a question for you. That was more just a statement that I was saying based off of me sharing with folks. But do you have any comment on it?

Yeah, perhaps the following. The fact that we are conscious that we are, you know, we are, I mean, we are made of the same matter, which has been around before there was even life. And the idea of the complex reshuffling of that many molecules, would give rise to life, is beautiful, that it would give rise to something utterly different like consciousness, is even within the scientific community, an unsolved riddle.

We just don't know. How do you get mind out of matter? Now, skip the how. Just ask a question, do we get mind out of matter? How likely is it? And just for the record, it needs to be told again it again. If people tell us or themselves that there's something called or to be called scientific materialism, it is not because it's in ism, it's in ideology, it's a philosophy.

Yeah. And philosophy is that the structure, the nature of nature has to be material. But who said, I mean, that's pure philosophy because the idealist, like Berkeley, will tell you, well, look at what you believe is matter, is what you perceive of matter. So perception comes first, then you have idealism, everything is mine. So it's a decision you make, but I think the decision comes with some costs. In other words, you have to ignore quite a number of phenomena, such as consciousness, such as TL or the NDE, and, you know, many others, or at least a couple of others, in order to uphold a blunt materialism. But it's a philosophy as much as anything else. The question, what the universe and what we consist of altogether, how can you answer this?

You have to step outside of the universe and then have a look, but good luck with stepping outside of the universe. It just doesn't work, yeah? And another point is more methodological, but I think important, and maybe. it's easy to grasp. What do we do in science? We measure. And if you want to measure something, you need material measurement devices.

And of course, with such a device, you only capture material properties and material things. But it doesn't mean that there are only material things because you're only looking for them. You see? Absolutely. If I describe my room and only say I look at the tables and the books, it will be a description. but it will be fairly incomplete, and that's the point like the dualist, who believes that there's a soul and the body, and both are, you know, you can't reduce one to the other, or the idealist who tells the materialist,

basically you have it backwards, it's all upside down, in the mind, is everything, and within the mind you believe that there's matter, because it feels tangible, but the feeling is in your mind and not out there, so to speak. So I think the question about the nature of everything is by definition an open question. And I'm sorry to say it's going to remain an open question forever because we don't have to, you know, perhaps we need to die. But how can you share it then? But it's not so easy otherwise. Yeah, that's well said.

You know, a big part of why you are passionate about this work, Besides just the core sense of how can we better describe TL and what exactly is going on the brain is that there are practical implications when it comes to helping our loved ones that are the near end of life that are extrapolations of that time. There are many situations that somebody might have. Of course, the hope is that most people that are listening today have a will. and Last Testament. And inside of there, we might tell people how we want to be treated, kept alive, not kept alive, resuscitated, et cetera. But most of us in our lifetime will find ourselves at a place where we are engaging

with somebody before our own death who is very close to moving on from, you know, this life and passing on. So can you talk about some of the practical implications of this work around TL and how It's inspired you around helping people be better caregivers to those that are around them. Well, that's a very nice question. Thank you. And I think it's a very crucial question. And I've got very good news.

There's little you have to do. We don't have to talk. When I had my training in psychotherapy and we looked also at the field of death and dying, I believe, my God, what I'm going to say. And then the teacher told us, you know, don't say anything. listen. And not only with your head, but not only with your gut feeling, but with your heart, which means more than gut feeling and more than rationality, you know, to be there. And I'd like to invite you or listeners and viewers to, not meditate, but think upon a little bit

about what it means to be there. I'm not talking about mere mindfulness. Mindfulness means very detached. I mean, what I believe in general is the necessary other side of it, and that's benevolence, attention, and not cold attention, warm attention, loving attention, be there. And, you know, and that's the best which can happen to us when once is our time to leave, yeah, that somebody is there who hopefully won't talk too much, but just be ready to listen

and also listen to the silence between the words, or maybe there are no words, maybe you just want to have in the hand, yeah, who won't argue or, you know, discuss with you. You know, sometimes people, when they're close to death, and the research tells us that this happens not too infrequently, encounter things, or not things, but somebody's persons, yeah, who others don't see. And so, and this has been observed for, as you, Every spook stories about similar things, but nowadays, you know, contemporary psychology and psychiatry looks at this. And the funny or intriguing thing, people who do have such experiences are otherwise. I'm not talking about TL and dimension now, yeah, are otherwise completely lucid.

And they will tell the nurse, thank you very much for the dinner. This looks really, so they are responsive. if they are here in the here now, but they will also say, you know what, my mother just visited. And you won't see her, but she's over there in the corner.

But they're totally clear, and they know that the other person isn't seeing them. Yeah. So it's, you know, and to then say, well, you know, nowadays you see things I don't see, but would you like to talk about?

this? What is she telling you? Is there something she wants me to do? And so on, yeah. So you, you, you, uh, I think there's only one word which describes it and it's a very old fashioned word, mercy. You are attentive, you know, because mercy includes mindfulness, because you need to be very mindful to be kind, yeah, but even more than that. And it's not an everyday occurrence because not every day will people tell you that their mother sitting in the corner when she's dead for long, yeah. But there's a moment when you say, okay, I don't know anything. But I do know that I want to be here because I'm needed.

Yeah, you see what I'm saying. And then things occur. So you don't, so to come back to a question, and that's the mindset one we can cultivate. It doesn't need training. It only needs, you know, a few hours per, not hours, minutes per day when you remind yourself. And it need not be, actually should not be, only around those who are dying. Wouldn't be much better off?

I mean, we as givers and we as receivers, if we brought such a mindset more into everyday life, yeah, you can still be competitive in your job and, you know, we all have our normal lives to do in the world but not of the world. but at least of a few items of the knot of the world part, mercy and so on, we could try to drag into this very harsh social world of today. And that's perhaps the best training to be there. You know, there's a beautiful story that you share in the book, and I'm forgetting of the gentleman's name, but he was, I think, a Russian composer. Dachmaninov.

Yes. Beautiful. But there you have to listen. Yeah, can you talk about that story? Yeah, please. Yeah, sure. I mean, Sergei Rahmaninov was one of Russia's greatest composers, but had to leave Russia because Stalin, I don't need to tell more,

millions were murdered. So many of the musician Rubinstein and Raghmaninov and amongst them went and moved to Beverly Hills. And when it so happened that when Aramon, Maninov moved into his house in Beverly Hills. He, and we know this in writing from witnesses, he said, this is my last home on earth. This is how I put it.

Here I will die. And then, and he wasn't very old. So people are, okay, good. And then he went on his concert tour. He was also a very accomplished piano player, pianist. But on his last tour, he suddenly, I think, this was 840s, he fell gravely ill. And it turned out that he had lung cancer.

So he had to be brought back to his home. And the very same house of which he said, this is going where I'm going to die. And now it was time to die. And a few people were around him. It was very silent. It's a nice place to die when there's some silence. As I said, listening means silent.

And everything was silent. And his breathing grows slower, heartbeat becomes irregular. But suddenly, Raghmaninov, rather than dying, gets up again. And he says, can you hear the beautiful music? And the others look at each other. Nobody hears anything. And they say, no, no, there's no music. And he says, but can't you hear this is so beautiful, so moving.

And they look and they say, no, there's no music. And then Rachmaninov says, okay, but then the music is only in my head and he lays down and dies. Now I tell this story because it's beautiful on the one hand, but as a lesson, what would it have cost those around him? Rather than insisting that there's no music there to ask him, what kind of music are you hearing? He is one of the Russia's greatest composers dying. And on his deathbed, he's saying, I'm hearing a beautiful melody. And he was very harsh critic of bad melody. So it must have been something.

I'm hearing a beautiful. And he's moved and he's bathing in it, so to speak. And nobody asks him, what are you hearing? Whizzled to us because maybe it would have been the last great piece. So this is a very important lesson, I think. It's such a reminder of also going back to the story. that word mercy having been around multiple people at the moment of their passing, both fortunately and unfortunately, close family members, individuals diagnosed with, you know, cancer, terminal

cancer being by their bedside, my beautiful aunt who worked with me, but also having the ability to be there with my grandparents on my... my mom's side. There are so many moments where I've noticed also in the instance of my grandfather, that he didn't even really fully speak French, but towards his last sort of 24 hours was speaking French and just talking, like not fluently. I mean, he just knew a few words and he's always known those words.

I'm not saying that all of a sudden he learned French. He was just saying French and it was like he was pointing and he was talking to somebody and was, and somebody from the outside would say, okay, it's very clear. This gentleman who had Alzheimer's, who was very close to the end of his life, he is hallucinating or he's having some sort of hallucination. And in that moment, I didn't do anything because I wasn't sure what to do. I was there with my grandmother and I was there with my younger sister. But we just went by his side and we just sat next to him. We were just pet his arm to let him know that we were here, right? Not interrupting, not saying like, you know, what are you doing? And just that

reminder that we were there. And when he was kind of done, he kind of looked in our direction and had a little moment, but then kind of went back. And there are also other moments where somebody who is very, you know, in a terminal state I've seen might be a little fearful, aggressive, worrisome. I've had moments where friends have talked about being nearby their grandparents who were sort of accusing family members of stealing something from them or taking or somebody's going to take something from them. Any suggestions of even in that moment, what's the best way to comfort people? Does it just go back to the core aspect? It's not like he's having some moment of lucid, you know, of terminal lucidity. Somebody might be. Somebody might

might even be aggrative or regretive or they might be accusatory or other things. I guess this all just calls for just more mercy in these moments. That is so beautiful. Thank you very much for saying this. Well, there are a few things I need to say. Number one, it does happen. There's something called the other side of terminal lucidity is terminate delirium. And it's not nice.

Yeah? and it does happen. And I would also need to tell you that even in TL cases, I mean, look, to be there and to be, oh, let's put it differently. I don't know. If anyone, you or anyone else listening and seeing this, has ever watched how his or her daughters or sons were born, you see that's something extra,

what do I need to say? It's a mystery. to become, to become a person. So somebody's occurring, somebody's emerging, something enormously beautiful is happening.

But look at the biology of it. It's not, they're not bathing in light and beauty, but something is happening within nature. And if all was so easy, then we wouldn't even need mercy, we only would need gratitude. So mercy means that nature is offering something remarkable, maybe even remarkably beautiful.

But you have to open not only these eyes, but you have to open the eyes of your heart or however you call it. Yeah, Atman, whatever you call it, yeah. You have to open these eyes to see it. But once you see it, you cannot undo seeing it. It is there and it stares you in the face. And I think, so this is number one. one, let's compare birth and death, they are fairly similar, yeah. Even in the TL cases, if there might be beautiful words, and still there might be blood,

they might be vomiting, there might be so many other things which are not beautiful, yeah. But each of it would be incomplete if we didn't tell the other side of it, yeah? Mind and body, brain and so, I mean, there's a lot of duality in this universe, at least in this universe, how we see it. And this is the first thing. The second thing is, if it happens, it happens. And I know this sounds a bit too simplistic, but it's very complex and beautiful at the same time. If it happens, it happens. Be there.

Your role, our role, remains exactly the same. It's how we respond. But what is in front of our eyes is in front of our eyes. But then we perhaps add another tone or another. glance or another love which is unspoken or spoken into it. And I'm not saying that we transform the situation, but our presence there and our love is also part of the story. Now move one step further and another observer seeing you and the patient who is, let's say,

very angry or paranoid, accusing, not in peace with life and death. But you are there adding your unspoken or spoken mercy and kindness and you see the situation is much bigger than what you see because you're part of it. Once again, we would need to step outside of the universe to understand everything and forget it. So we are in it and let's do the best with it. So this is, I think, important that we don't forget if we bring love to a very bad situation, the situation is not only bad because if it was only bad, there would be no love in it. But I'm not saying that it's going to be easy.

It's not easy, but it's the same with life. I mean, life can be so beautiful that you want to kneel down and sink. And it can be so ugly and painful and there's hunger while we're talking. People die of hunger. So it's always both, yeah. And when there's need, we are needed. And the more we can address the need, the more are we needed. And since I also study philosophy,

I digress, but I think it all comes to a unified picture, if we allow me. In Western philosophy, especially during a time when Christianity was still very prevalent in philosophy, people wondered how do we reconcile an omnipotent and omnipresent and all loving God with so much suffering in this world. And the answer has been tried and there will never be a good answer. But I remember my professor telling us that there's a second question lurking behind the one. And this one is we can answer. Not only can we answer, we need to answer it. So there is suffering.

Rather than asking why it is there, ask what you can do. And thereby slightly transform it, at least a bit. at least you tried, and it's a different world. If we all tried, it would be a very, very, very different world. That's well said. In the secular world, people go to, and now I'm very biased, to slightly oversimplistic new age concepts. And one of them is that it's so very important and so much pressure is put on those who are dying,

that they have to display a certain kind of peacefulness, whatever, because it's so decisive the last moment. But I already told my wife, please, look if I should die before you. Let's say I'm under deathbed. Don't judge me by what I do when I die. Judge me by how I lived, please. Because it might happen that you're sitting there all is peaceful. You said your last prayers.

You said farewell. You know whatever. And then suddenly your cup falls down and you're burning yourself. and you curse because it's just too hot for the moment. You're burning, yeah, and then you die. It can't be it, you know. So what counts is in many, hopefully, many, many years before, yeah, and not that one second.

Any, you know, in life you can plan around that, you know, not everything. And, you know, perhaps a fly is sitting here and you scratch you. So many things could happen, which are not you, but they happen to you, yeah? And the same, I think, to a certain degree, is true for dementia or disease or paranoia at the end of life or delirium at the end of life. It happens to you. It is not you.

And the eyes of love of relating, they know this. If you look at, I mean, but if you look at it's another very problematic issue. If you look, you know, there are also children who are severely sick sometimes. with brain tumors and so on. And their mothers recognize their children, even if the behavior that is played is no longer them. So the eyes of love or connecting, they go much deeper, they go past behavior to the person.

And perhaps we can bring this also to the, I'm sorry for everyone who has to watch a relative family member, friends dying, not with lucidity, but with other states it does happen. But then all the more are you needed to say, perhaps even say, I know who you are, I know you, I know you, I know you, yeah. Beyond your behavior. Yeah, beautiful reminder.

You know, as a society generally today, we don't talk about death that much as what typically, even my grandparents remember because part of that is that there was no running from death. People died in the village. They were right there with you. You know, they weren't dying in hospitals. They weren't sort of fully separated. Obviously, I'm so thankful for the modern medical system, but it creates a sense of separation that's there, especially when it comes towards the end. People are growing older. They're aging in old folks homes. Again, I'm so thankful for the infrastructure of all that, but again, there's a separation that happens between the people

that are alive and the people that are aging and nearing death. And as part of that, some of the unintended consequences is that a lot of young people, naturally, because we're not seeing death, we're not thinking about death as much as maybe our ancestors were, there's a feeling that it's so far in the distance. And yet there's a realization that we will all die at some point in time. It's whether or not we're having the beautiful conversations or the needed conversations around it that are important to be had. Because unfortunately, and this podcast is mostly a health podcast because of how much chronic disease is continuing to expand in this world and how much of that is lifestyle oriented in this world, we end up in a situation where more people than ever have chronic disease. and more people are not having what was once considered, you know, a normal death, which is you go to sleep or maybe, you know, take a nap, and then you don't wake up anymore

at a ripe old age. We now have people in the hospital for months, if not years, sometimes, and a lot of ups and downs on the way. So you helped us think about the concept of mercy and how important it is to practice mercy around those that we are caretakers for, especially at the end. and especially when death doesn't feel or look peaceful and not to take that one situation or moment or a loved one's behavior as the end all be all, but rather a moment for you to practice mercy, gratitude, patience. Now, let's talk about individuals themselves who are watching today,

regardless of what age they are, but especially for folks who are thinking about at some point in time, I might die. What are the things that you would encourage them and the conversation that you would have them have with their loved ones around them when it comes to how they want to be taken care of when it comes closer to that time period. So it's almost like expanding on the ideas of the basics that we talk about in our will and testament, hopefully everybody has a will put together, will and last testament. Are there any conversations that you encourage people to have with their loved ones who are living? We're all healthy. We're awake right now. We're lucid. We're having great conversations, but we just do not end up talking about death because somehow it feels scary

for a lot of people. So are there questions that people and dialogue can engage in today to not make death feel so sudden and unprepared for later on in life, which you will always be unprepared for. Nobody wants to die early. Well, that's a very nice question. I sometimes wonder, I mean, we repressed death. And that's, Yeah, we outsourced it, that's right. And I appreciate you saying that thanks to the medical system, they're doing wonders, literally wonders sometimes. It's good that it is there.

I wouldn't, there are some things which happen on their own. So I wouldn't enforce anyone or encourage anyone to, you know, sit down today and let's talk about death and dying or even about my or your death and dying. But if you feel, you know, you know, if we reconnect, to our heart. And why do I say heart? Because, you know, between heads and guts is a certain source of wisdom. And in almost every tradition, from Greece to the Hebrew Bible, to the New Testament, to anywhere, everywhere the heart is known to be the source of conscience, or however you call it. So from time to time, it will perhaps nudge you, prime you, call you to talk

about this. And if we then don't do it, it's not a good idea. But it's also not a good idea to do it because I heard on this podcast, we should talk about that. So if time is coming, if it's the right time, it might be after a beautiful concert or if you're reading a book with your spouse, my wife and me sometimes read together. Maybe the topic comes up and then, you know, make a brief step back from the book and into our life again and say what I told you about the cup when it's my time to go yeah I needed to find a good place in time to say this without sounding very awkward and and then yeah or I must say you know this is very personal and and I think a podcast is the least place to hide something very personal but nonetheless I will

say it my will is 50% no 60% is on you know practice issues, but the other half is who I need to ask for forgiveness, who I need to ask to say thank you. I try to do this very often in everyday life to say thank you to my teachers because you never know. But, or to others. But, you know, speaking of teachers, Viktor Frankl always said the best preparation for death does not begin at the end. It begins, perhaps not when we are born, but as soon as death awareness sets in, which is about teenage years, it becomes really clear, it's an irreversible event, which will affect everyone.

Then it's the time to start, because it's how we live our lives. This is the best preparation. And I think the better prepared we are, the better prepared we are to talk about it, because then it comes fluent, it's normal. not a foreign topic. I mean, you talk about health, which is great. It's a great service. It's so important. But all of us carry the seed of death in us, and it's not a threat. It shouldn't sound as frightening as it does. And part, at least, you know, a few chapters of my book are about the fact why it is, the seed of death is not something which we need to fear. Many beautiful things happen. Once you look, if we look away, then it's dark.

And then, of course, we project, you know, the worst things, from nothingness to demons into the darkness. But if we look there, suddenly we see it's not darkness at all. It's a very, very lightful place. Very beautiful, very warm, very loving. There's compassion. There's kindness. And perhaps there's even much more than that. At least, I mean, as I said, our research carries us to the door.

But it seems a lot of nice music is behind the door. to the speak, yeah. And, but then the conversation comes more natural. Then if it occurs, if it's the right time, there's a time to speak about it and there's a time not to speak about it or many such times. Our parents, our grandparents, might depend also on which tradition they grew up, they feel familiar in the tomb. They might sometimes shy away from.

this and I can only urge anyone to respect this. If people do not want to talk about it, they still talk about it, but they just don't use words for it. And maybe at the end it will be one glance with a parent, which will say it all. So no pressure. When it comes to death and dying, we can't do, especially if we are the ones who are dying, We can't do anything wrong. It's fine.

It's the one place in this world where you don't need to pretend. There's no impression management. There's no pressure. That's why I said, don't listen to the books, betray you. The very moment of death is so extremely important.

It is important because something is happening to you, but not because what you are doing. Whether you do it or not, we don't do dying, so to speak. We are carried away. It's not our, yeah. Whether you're scared. scream or whether you smile, it's your journey and it's fine. There's no pressure. It's very,

very important. Beautifully said. I want to go to the practical for a moment here. A lot of people, I don't know how it is in Switzerland, but over here, one of the things that regularly comes up in conversation, and of course there are different religious groups that have different belief systems around it is the conversation around being resuscitated, staying on life support, and people navigating that. And there's a lot of, it's a deeply personal thing. And obviously, every family individual has to come up with the right components himself. But are there any clues of not necessarily whether we should resuscitate, whether people should

be on life support? I've found that in the last especially 10 years here in the United States, it's much more common that people are like, look, I've taken care of a loved one in the hospital. I've seen them on a ventilator. I feel like that's not any way that I would want to be. If I cannot sort of stay alive myself in my own body, it just would feel very painful. It feels to me that it would feel painful to be in that situation. And I wouldn't want to be through that. I don't want people worrying and I'm trying to, you know, be courageous and say that if it's

my body's time to go, then it's my body's time to go. Are there any clues around terminal lucidity and near-death experiences because you're also very aware of that data that guides us around some of these important decisions at end of life? Yeah, that's a good question. So you talk about not resuscitating, which is letting nature run its course, which is one thing. And another thing is assisted suicide or, I don't know what the legal term is in the States. We still call it euthanasia for, at all worse, but it's different from what it used to be. In other words, mainly you're helping death along, so to speak, to come quicker. And these are two very different things, yeah.

To be, it's such a difficult question. that I will rather cop out and tell you that I believe that, or let me say that much, if the idea behind it all is that there is no hope for this one patient, I must say that my work taught me better. I mean, hope is always needed when everything looks very bleak. otherwise you wouldn't need to hope, you would just expect something good to happen. So this is one answer. The second answer is, once again, I speak from a European perspective.

What we observed here is mass killing of those who were sometimes not very ill, but just out of the norm, so to speak. And they cost society a lot. So, I mean, that happens. And, you know, I, it's very hard to answer this. What I can say is that I don't think that any legal body or state should compel anyone to do more than he or she can bear. In other words, even though I personally don't think, even what I seem to know about, what it means to be a human person, what it means to be a life, what it means that suffering is part of being human. that's life.

I personally have certain beliefs, but I would never in my dreams, therefore, legislate in such a way that those people who don't have these beliefs also have to deter them because that would be just cruel torture. So if somebody really sees nothing in it and the pain is overwhelming, compassion may speak different languages. Compassion might speak the language of saying, okay, if you want to go, I let you go.

You see? Yeah, we cannot project our beliefs on other people and that if we recognize an individual if we recognize an individual as a human being who might be in the case of euthanasia and assisted suicide, this might be somebody who typically, it's a patient who's under such extreme distress that they feel personally that being alive is so, so difficult for them.

Again, these are hotly debated areas and I by no means is the person to hold the conversation, but largely I think as people start to realize that these individuals are not just, these are, these cases are not extremely prevalent, but they do exist, right? And so if an individual is saying that they can no longer bear the pain of something and want some medical assistance to go to that process, which of course, for those that are in the U.S., where most of my audience is, that is largely illegal to assist somebody in the process of it, I think Oregon state is the only state that's here. And then a lot of people end up going to who are in extreme distress and fit the situation, they end up going to Europe to certain clobes. Linux that specialize in this whole topic. But what I'm hearing from you is that if that person who is in extreme distress and truly feels that their day-to-day is so difficult that, you know, if they decide that they

want to go, then we have to honor that right as that individual. Is that what I'm hearing from you? Yes. I mean, that's clear because how, I mean, who am I to decide about the life of others? But, look, the point is that here in Switzerland, here, by the way, I'm in Austria, Switzerland. Sorry, sorry. But no, no, no, no, no. I made it because I talk to a lot of Swiss cases.

I'm also Swiss, but I'm also Swiss. But there's a sort of death tourism to Switzerland because it's legal there. My point is different. If people are truly suffering, then, you know, they are suffering, and they are suffering. they need help. But nowadays, I mean, I would say 90 to 95 or maybe even more percent of the severe pain can be taken away. There's another pain, and there are some studies, I'm not an expert on this, yeah, and I'm not very, it's not a topic I'm overly, I'm not making a cause because I'm so biased, but I just want to tell you, there are some studies. People have another pain. It's the pain of

the soul to have the idea that I'm a burden to my family. I only cost money. It's not worthwhile. Maybe I have six months. So why have these six months if we can take a short cut? Yeah, understood. No, that is that. Then I must say, oh no, please not. Please not let money decide or the idea to feel unwanted. And this is why earlier, not why, but this is another aspect. We are thirsty for mercy. We really need, and it's not theory, it's not philosophy. You're said, let's move to practical issues. It's a very extremely practical everyday issue that we cultivate our mercy. And you know what?

And if you want to have it, there's no course, no seminar, no workshop, you just open, it's not something we have to learn. It's in our personal, it's in involvement into our being. It often lies a bit dormant because we don't live in times of overflowing mercy, but why not? I mean, I'm trying each drop of it more is consolation to the soul. And seriously, I mean it, I mean,

I know it sounds a bit kitschy and a bit lofty, but it's true nonetheless. What can I do? No, it's truth. And just because it's not talked about all the time doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about it here while we have everybody's attention, especially in the context of there's nothing like the vulnerability of thinking about death that really starts to

put into perspective, as you shared earlier, how are we living? So even today, that might mean that somebody who's listening to this conversation is deciding, I'm going to be a little kinder. I'm going to provide a little bit more grace to the people around me. Even if somebody messes up, something small, they cut me off in traffic. Okay, I'm just going to give a little bit of grace, right? I'm just going to be, okay, I don't know what their day was like. I get it.

Okay, if somebody's about to crash. to me, sure, I'm going to honk, I'm going to let them know, but I'm going to do it with a smile and just like, whoa, hey, pay attention. I'm over here just in case you didn't see me. But the rest of the road rage and aggressiveness that a lot of people carry on a day-to-day basis in my experience typically comes from somebody treating that person unkindly. And then the cycle continues. I was in kind to you. You become unkind to somebody else.

Some situation happens and so on and so forth. Not that we all have to walk around like boot. that are out there, but just a little bit of grace and a little bit of understanding for those around us. And I think that that is probably the most important message that anybody could be talking about. So thank you for reminding. Thank you. No, thank you very much for putting it this way. And that's a very good point. When I had my psychotherapy training, as if, you know, in your training, in the beginning you get cases and they behave and you think, my God, is it possible? And then you listen to that day or what the burden on their soul.

And you think, my God, are they behaving well given what they have been through? So let's not forget that whoever we encounter is a book and we maybe enter chapter 6, but we don't know what happened before, the pain, the disappointment, the need for somebody at least being kind. Thank you very much for pointing this out. Well, as we wind down here, just a few more questions. and some hot topics that I would love to get your perspective on. In the last few years,

the work and the research around psilocybin, other plant medicines, also adjacent to that, MDMA, these different therapeutics. The research has exploded, the opening, the awareness, the legislation around it, especially talking about in the U.S., there's a lot more openness. that's there in terms of, hey, there's something that's here. We should not restrict it in the U.S.

We should not call these things a class three drug. And we need to have more research to see if there's some benefits. Now, I want to just move from all the different therapeutics that might be out there to the topic of psilocybin. And I'm just talking about personal experience for a moment. Last year, I set the intention that I wanted to go through an assisted. psilocybin, for those that are not familiar, that's the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, assisted. It was an assisted.

I wasn't taking it at a party or a rave or anything like that. It was a very intentional setting. And I found a group that had done, you know, 100 plus trainings. And I was talking about it with my family, with my wife. And my parents, my wife, my brother-in-law, they all said that they were quite interested in it too. And, you know, we had not really had any experience with it. before, none of us smoke marijuana, anything else like that, not putting them in the same category,

but there's not a lot of experience with those drugs as some people might see them or medicine as other people might see them. So we had early in this year, we had our assisted experience. It was in Hawaii. It was a four-day retreat. There was a lot of support. It was a group that was well trained in this process. And one of the things that I personally felt, which mirrors a lot of the work around Dr. Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins, who's been on this podcast before and discussed it and the surveys that they've done, is I had a reconnection and feeling to this deeper one source that connects us all. That's not too uncommon. Many people have talked about having that experience and I had in my own unique way. Maybe I'll talk about that in the podcast in the future.

I felt in that moment this sense of being reminded. And I say reminded because I grew up a very spiritual tradition, being reminded of just how interconnected we all are, and also this recognition and this sense of at least a little bit of a glimpse of death is not something to be so afraid of. And that was an experience that was there that I had. How do you feel about the role and do you have any opinion about the use of some of these therapeutics in in particular psilocybin, when done in the right sort of context and setting, that it could expand or be adjacent to some of this work that you're doing on TL? Well, good question.

I mean, it's an interesting, I think it's very important if one wants to do it, as you say, to do it in a proper setting and not just pop it and take it. And then be surprised utterly unprepared. But once again, as I told you, I think the airport yesterday night and even how much people take care of, you know, having enough food on their airplane, whatever, and then some people take such psychoactive substances as if it was nothing and they are really going deep inside or deep outside, or maybe it's all the same and all one, as you say. I would say that I can see a clear parallel between sometimes people when they take such substances seem to open up and they sometimes seem to enter a space which is more than just pure subjective. In other words, it seems to be there. I'm not saying out there, I'm not saying in there because once you're in such a state, there's no in and out anyway. And it reminds me, in a quote in the book, I quote William James, father of modern psychology,

writer of author of the textbook, the large textbook called the James and the smaller version called the Jimmy by the students. And he took a laughing gas, so I say, nitrous oxide, and had these deep, deep insights, which I also quote this in the book. Then he thought, and this is so an understanding. then Hegel, the philosopher, saying that everything is guised, mine, and he said, I have to write it down when it happens. So he wrote down and the text, I quote a poem in my book, it's beautiful nonsense in a certain way. But, he says, so maybe I was not only intoxicated,

but maybe I was in such a wonderful state that even this strange poem made sense. In other words, it's not that I wrote nonsense, it's only that now in an everyday mindset, I can't decipher the beauty of, you know, even a letter like I or A or R, whatever. So you see, I mean, there's a, I mean, we do have microscopes to see the small things, but where's the obscenes the scope to see the things which are between the lines, the silence between the words, the space between two breathing, breathing and breathing out, yeah, and that all of it is part of one wonderful artwork, however you call it, yeah? And so, and this is, the, the interesting thing is that those near-death experiences, who had both a psychedelic experience and an NDE, say,

it seems to me I was entering the same space, but with very different vehicles. So I could go a bit further, at least I know specifically, because we did a study, I also quote this in book with about 657, I believe, near-death experiences, to see how this connects to TL. Another topic, but to come to this one now, at least five or so had both, and they said once again, it seemed to me that I could go farther, further away, further, not a way, that There's no space in no space, but I could go deeper, once again, a spatial metaphor, when near death. But nonetheless, it seems to be a similar space or state people are entering.

And those who have three experience, namely meditation, psychedelics, and the NDE say it's not even a space somewhere else. is a state in which you can tune in if you meditate or pray or contemplate or if you're really into music and especially some types of classical musicals, especially or maybe Indian other music, you can enter into this. And there's so much about this space, state, whatever it is, that there's even a theory which might be able to accommodate the paradox between brain, mind, during life and what seems to be very independence near death. And that is that if we enter very extreme states, like extreme silence or extreme love or extreme connection

or a chemical substance doing extreme things to help certain parts of our brains, that we enter into a space which is always available. It's not very adaptive in everyday life to be so spaced out. Therefore, we don't survive. It's not very good to feel the oneness. If there's a lion eating you, you shouldn't feel very one. You should run away, or defend at least. But on certain days, you know, every spiritual, every wisdom tradition has the idea of or prayer at labor, pray and work.

Or, you know, be in the world, but not off the world. In Sanskrit, it's karma yoga, which means that you do work, but actually it's. it's bagti it's dedicated not to you and to the fruits of your work but to the highest one it comes up everywhere and the idea is that we can transform or at least maybe should cultivate the idea of transforming our our lives by adding a certain amount of this into a that we have these experiences maybe not a full-blown near-death experience it's quite a lot or the full-blown peak experience, like in meditation, and not everyone will be capable of taking psychoactive substances, and sometimes it's dangerous if people have a certain vulnerability to psychosis,

they shouldn't take it, yeah? So, but the space is there, and it's the same space, at least as I believe, where our mercy comes from and goes to. Yeah? And now that we entered a totally uncharted territory, let me tell you that when I talked, we briefly talked about mindfulness earlier on. And it's a beautiful thing. And we know also for cancer patients, for pain, it's a great tool. Is it a tool to enter the, you know, universal mind or mind at large?

I don't think so. Why? Because what you get is, and it's one. If you're standing in the queue at the airport, you're just breathing, you watch your breath, and everything is, you know, you're very detached. But what do people, or what was your experience during your psychedelic journey? It's not detachment. It's a symphony, and you're in it, you're part of it. You're one tone in this huge orchestra in the symphony, and, you know, that you're bathing in the light.

No, you actually, you become the light, and so on and so forth. This is not what mindfulness gives you. And I think mindfulness, but you needed a certain amount of trained attention to fully relish and enjoy such a oceanic experience. William James called it an oceanic experience. And then, so both is needed. But you know, if you carefully look at something and dedicate yourself fully into it, your attention is there anyway. So it speaks a bit against our extremely stressful and harsh times that mindfulness, become such a great topic when perhaps the other half of it is still a bit missing, mercy, kindness,

and being, going, diving into it. And after a certain time of diving, you become it. And voila, that's the oneness experience. Beautiful. Alexander, this has been fantastic. We have a link to the book note, book and the show notes, threshold, terminal lucidity and the border of life and death. I've been truly enjoying this work. My audience knows that I'm a big, I'm like big into this topic, near death experiences, the topic of, you know, reincarnation, the topic of exploring just even the questions of life after death. And your book really helps us look through that, through this lens of terminal lucidity.

So I want to again, thank you for your work. Any final message that you want to leave with our audience? And then, of course, I'd love to just share how our audience, in addition to, to getting their book if there's a way for them to keep in touch with you when it comes to your work if you're active on social media. So yeah, let's start off with final messages or last words for this podcast. One message, I have to say it now, a footnote. I'm a bit boring, but true and very important nonetheless. TL is a rare event. It happens as far as we know, it might be between 6 to 10% of dementia cases. And then,

Out of responsibility and honesty and also of kindness, I need to say this. I receive sometimes emails from people and they are heartbreaking. They are sitting next to the patient with their phone in their hands so they can type or record everything the patient will say when T.L. occurs and the patient dies. So what do you do? And sometimes it happens. It's a gift. And like every gift, you can't expect it.

It's not a business. You can't demand it. You can hope for it. You can pray for it if you feel like that. You can talk to the person who seemingly is not there. There's another topic. And you say, you know what, whether you come through or not, I'm here for you and I'm here with you. That never hurts saying.

You never know what we can hear. But this I want to say, it's very important. The next thing is, if it happens, the nurses tell us that sometimes, at least when the first case they encounter this, they're utterly confused, they don't know what to say. And some of the relatives then try to do psychotherapy and to do conflict resolution with your patient. You only have perhaps a few minutes. And I often tell myself and I tell those who contact me and I tell others, you know, we never. ask why somebody has been so kind to us. It's not an issue we need to resolve. It's an issue we need to gratefully accept. Wonderful. You've been kind to me. And if something went wrong,

it's very likely that where there's good, that's also bad. If something went wrong, forgive. You don't need to forget. Don't forget. You can't forget intentionally. So you remember this was really bad and there was a conflict and this person wasn't kind to me. You I decide to forgive, yeah? At least at this moment. And maybe you have years to come after this person died to make true on this promise. So at that moment it might only be a promise,

but there's not only promise. It's quite a lot to give a promise, yeah? So don't try to understand everything. Just go with the flow, just like Rachmaninov, the people around Rachmaninov. The rest of their lives, they can wonder, what should I have said, what was it, you know,

what was it, what was it really what's happened later on? For the moment you have to be there in the present. That's where the mindfulness comes in, but once a step further turns into love or connection, however you call it, benevolence, mercy. And the third message is once again, this book is called Threshold on the Borders of Life and Death,

but look at the first part of it, the life. We are all, hopefully, most of us, we live for longer than a few days, and then all of this happens in everyday life. And one way of phrasing this is, you know, there's a great debate on when death actually occurs. But for men, you know, is it in the last minute or is it when the brain is dysfunctional and we're in heart stopping? for the philosophers almost since time immemorial, from epiqoo beginning, dying is something which is happening right now. Yeah?

It's not switching on and off a light, but it's something we are moving towards this. And perhaps, perhaps hopefully, I hope when somebody is hearing this, there's not anxiety, but a certain softness. To be vulnerable is okay. It's not something you hear very often. To be not perfect, it's not only okay.

It's the most normal thing in life. Only if you're dead, you're perfect. You're complete. Otherwise, we're never complete. And that's why we can relate. Because there's so many doors in us. I need your help, you need mine. I have some abilities which might not serve me alone.

There would be very sad abilities. If they didn't come to fruition by giving them, by sharing them with us, other people. And yeah, and the last thing I would like to say, I don't know whether, I don't even know whether I put it in my book, but one of my teachers, an elderly prophet, very old then, said something to me, which I, after teaching philosophy for, you know, 50 years at university, he said, I'm a bit late, it's a bit late now, I'm a bit old for this, but I discovered something which is really important that I need to tell you.

Once again, I'm only the postcard. Of course, if somebody who's over 80 tells you that he's discovered some philosopher, discovered something which is very important, you listen. And he said, I found out that life is not a problem to be solved. It's a mystery to be lived and to be filled with meaning and kindness. And isn't that beautiful? I mean, and you don't need to become 86 or 87 to find out. Maybe a teacher can tell you or a post, you know,

but somebody can tell you, I learned this. It's a very valuable lesson, I believe. And it can such tiny, seemingly tiny things can transform a whole life. Yeah. Beautiful. Alexander, thank you for helping us weave through the zigz and that zags, the up and down, the beauty and the pain that comes with this mystery called life. and I want to honor you for your work and for coming on this podcast to tell us about your new book.

Thank you again. Thank you for having me. Thank you for wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things.

Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is, share with a friend, share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called Try This.

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