In early 1988, British neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick found himself drowning in letters from people who believed they had survived an encounter with death.
“I slowly went down the tunnel. I wasn't scared at all, but I was looking forward to something,” one man wrote to him. “When it came, I was completely at peace and moving into the most wonderful light. Believe me, it was wonderful. No worries, no problems, nothing, just wonderful.”
In another letter, a woman wrote about a time when she was walking along a country lane when she came across a golden gate.
“Inside was a very beautiful garden, with no lawns or paths, and all kinds of flowers,” she wrote. “The ones that appealed to me the most were Madonna lilies, delphiniums and roses, but there were many others.”
These letters are among more than 2,000 letters received by Dr Fenwick shortly after he appeared in the BBC documentary 'Glimpses of Death', in which Dr Fenwick apparently died in a short period of time. , or commenting on the near-death visions of people who were about to die. Then come back to life.
“These letters were written by people who had never told anyone about their experiences before,” Dr. Fenwick said in a talk at TEDxBerlin in 2012. “Why? Because they're too scared. They told their wives and husbands. They said they weren't interested. They told their friends. They said, 'You're not interested.' I'm angry.''
But Dr. Fenwick, an expert on consciousness, was keenly interested. More scientifically open-minded than many of his colleagues, he began studying near-death experiences, a controversial topic in the field of neuroscience, in the mid-1970s. He believed that consciousness existed beyond physical death, and thought the letter would help strengthen his position.
Dr. Fenwick sent the letter writers a lengthy questionnaire to categorize their experiences. He published his findings, along with excerpts from the letters, in The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of More than 300 Near-Death Experiences (1995), which he wrote with his wife Elizabeth Fenwick. This book established him as a leading expert on near-death research.
Dr. Fenwick died on November 22 at his home in London, said his daughter Annabelle Fenwick. He was 89 years old.
“Truth in the Light'' reveals striking similarities between the letter writers. More than 50% of them reported traveling through tunnels. 72% experienced bright light. Nearly 40% met acquaintances, including deceased relatives. Surprisingly, 72% said they had decided to return.
A woman who was involved in a tragic traffic accident recalled that she was driven by a strong desire to walk through the tunnel and into the light.
“I was at peace and completely content, and I understood that I was born on earth to know the answers to all the mysteries. I was not told, I just knew. “The light had all the answers,” she wrote. “Then suddenly there was chaos. I had to rush back to the tunnel. Something went wrong.”
Suddenly, she continued. “I got my body and all my emotions back. I panicked and felt severe pain all over my body. I think I died in a short period of time.”
Have you ever had a near-death experience? Share your memories.
For decades, neuroscientists have dismissed near-death experiences (NDEs) as symptoms of anoxia, a lack of oxygen flowing to the brain. Dr. Fenwick refutes that assessment by pointing to the pilot's instructions in Truth in the Light.
“Pilots-in-training are routinely subjected to acute oxygen deprivation in simulators to see if they can put on an oxygen mask in time,” Fenwick wrote. “People who don't do that don't have near-death experiences. They either lose consciousness or are so confused that they try to land the plane on a cloud.”
He also dismissed another common criticism of near-death experiences: that they are common hallucinations, like those experienced by people with high fevers.
“But explaining it as a hallucination does not explain any of the underlying mechanisms, and many of the same old questions remain unanswered,” Fenwick wrote. “Why does everyone experience more or less the same hallucinations in the same situations? And why does it seem so real?”
Peter Brooke Cadogan Fenwick was born on May 25, 1935 in Nairobi, Kenya. His father, Anthony Fenwick, had been sent by his family to work on a coffee plantation in the north of England. His mother, Betty (Darling) Fenwick, was an Australian-born physician and head of surgery at Nairobi Hospital.
Peter was a curious and mischievous boy. He liked to build things and sometimes even made small bombs. One evening, while his parents were preparing to entertain dinner guests, Peter quietly placed traces of gunpowder around the table to light a fire for entertainment. His father thwarted the plot.
“I think he was obviously one of those incredibly intelligent kids, but maybe not necessarily the best at reading the room,” his daughter Annabelle said in an interview. She added: “He did it because he could.”
Dr. Fenwick graduated from Stowe School, a prestigious boarding school in the English countryside, and then studied natural science at Cambridge University. He graduated in 1957 and continued his studies there, receiving his medical degree in 1960.
Dr. Fenwick aspired to become a neurosurgeon, but changed his mind after observing neurosurgery.
“If you were a brain surgeon, you suddenly realized that you were looking into a deep, dark hole in the brain. And it turned out there was no fun in it,” he told the British newspaper last year. told the Telegraph. “I realized that I didn't want to be a neurosurgeon, I wanted to be a neuropsychiatrist who could talk to people without them losing consciousness while looking into deep, dark holes.”
He joined the Maudsley Hospital in London, the UK's largest psychiatric teaching hospital, initially specializing in epilepsy. He also studied sleepwalking, dreams, and meditation. (One of his first research subjects in meditation was George Harrison of the Beatles.)
In 1975, American philosopher and psychiatrist Raymond A. Moody Jr. published Life After Life, one of the first books written by a physician about near-death experiences. Although the book was an international bestseller, Dr. Fenwick, like many other readers, was skeptical about the deathbed visions described in the book.
And the following year, his patient told him that he saw a bright light through the tunnel when he experienced a fatal complication during heart surgery.
“I was able to look at him and discuss it with him and find out that, in fact, this wasn't some mental chatter, it was a real experience,” Dr Fenwick told the Telegraph. “This was very important.”
Dr Fenwick was the founder of the British International Association for the Study of Near Death. He was also chairman of the Scientific and Medical Network, an organization that supports research into the connections between science, philosophy, and spirituality.
In addition to his daughter Annabelle, Dr. Fenwick is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Roberts) Fenwick; in addition to Truth in the Light, Dr. Fenwick is the author of The Art of Dying (2008); Together they wrote four books, including . About the process of death. another daughter, Natasha Lowe; son, Tristam; and nine grandchildren.
In “The Truth in Light,'' Dr. Fenwick reveals that 82 percent of people surveyed reported feeling less afraid of dying and 42 percent becoming more spiritual as a result of their near-death experience. I made it. Forty-eight percent were “convinced” there was “survival after death,” he wrote.
“Once you go through this experience, you change, whether you like it or not,” he told the Telegraph.
His belief that there is physical death but no personal death erased any fear he had about death.
“Actually,” he said, “I’m looking forward to it.”
