Denial of the Soul: Spiritual and Medical Perspectives on Euthanasia and Mortality

This book is specific to a debate of some decades ago. Still it brings an important perspectives that are not just relevant to euthanasia. Most of the book covers the process of dying and the complexity of it. Death is something that we typically start by denying.

The book On Death and Dying defines five emotional stages that patients tend to go through. (Page 161 - the start of chapter 7)
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Dr. Peck finds a beauty in those who make it to stage 4 before passing away. (Page 163) That is the main thing that I got out of the book, and it is related to his definition of spiritual and secular levels which I also found quite interesting.

The Stages of Religious or Spiritual Development (Page 124)
As described more fully in: The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace and somewhat in: Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Towards Spiritual Growth and The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety
1. Chaotic or antisocial: people may appear either religious or secular , but their belief system is profoundly superficial.
2. Formal, Institutional: the letter of the law - religious fundamentalists - where most religious people are found.
3. Skeptic, Individual: Where most secularists are situated. Typically scientific-minded, rational, moral, humane, mostly materialistic, not interested in things that can’t be proved.
4. Mystical, Communal: Rational, but do not make a fetish of rationalism. They have begun to doubt their own doubts. They feel deeply connected to an unseen order of things, although they cannot fully define it. They are comfortable with the mystery of the sacred.

Chapter 6: defines the soul and factors that influence the quality of the person; that we are not accidents; we have a purpose;

“But no one, in my opinion — not Dickens, not Shakespeare, not Dostoyevsky — has ever succeeded in capturing a soul. Great caricatures, yes … so great they don't even seem like caricatures. But scratch the pages and you still don’t come up with a real soul.” (Page 147)

But for the purpose of this book I will focus on the choice to learn. Specifically to learn wisdom.” (Page 151)

And here is an interesting sentence after a paragraph about our changing knowledge about the interior of the atom: “Atoms have begun to look very much like spirits.” (Page 156)

There is a reason to not hasten through death: ”Repeatedly I have used a phrase that is not in general parlance: ‘the work of depression.’” (Page 172)

“I believe that most successful long-term marriages go through these stages of death and dying in the same order that Kübler-Ross outlined. (Page 177)

And the rest of the book gets more into the Euthanasia debate.

Contents
Part 1: From Confusion to Definition
1. Pulling the Plug
2. Physical Pain
3. Emotional Pain
4. Murder, Suicide, and Natural Death
Part 2: An Underlying Simplicity: Spiritual Perspectives
5. Secularism
6. The Creatureliness of Humans
7. The Learning of Dying
8. Euthanasia: A Typical Case
Part 3: Into the Future: Societal Considerations
9. Assisted Suicide
10. The Hope of the Euthanasia Debate

The closing paragraph of the book includes these words:
"The truly big question is ... whether we want a society that encourages the soul and its development."

Although Peck seems to be feeling out his position as he writes about euthanasia and dying, he brings up some important points: the danger of our secular society not thinking deeply enough about euthanasia and its inevitably escaping any limitations. His experience in counseling the dying has led him to the conclusion that there is much to learn about life, self, and God through the process of coming to terms with one's death.

Scott Peck, my favorite current-day philosopher, presents and considers the medical, spiritual, and social issues of euthanasia. He doesn't offer an answer but examines the question.

Typical Peck - a little heavy going, but valuable info
Shows further the impact on our world of easrly termination of a life.
Been an opinion of mine refering to killing the pre-born for a long time.

3 Stars = I'm glad I read it.

I got this from a friend who was unloading boxes of books and probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. M. Scott Peck was well-known psychiatrist who wrote self-help books that wed psychological insight with spirituality. This book on euthanasia was written 25 years ago and reflects the debate about it from that era (think Terry Schiavo and Dr. Kavorkian).

As the title, Denial of the Soul, suggests, Peck is not pro-Euthanasia. He sees euthanasia as a denial of the soul, or a denial of the expansive, eternal part of us (in contradistinction to our ego). As such, he sees euthanasia as rooted in secular humanism (the bad boy of all theological discourse 25 years ago). This is true even when those who practice euthanasia are religious because they don't kill themselves on spiritual grounds. Furthermore, drawing on Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's Death and Dying, and her 5 stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), positing that those who undergo euthanasia fail to learn what they were supposed to learn from the process.

I'm a Christian and Peck's worldview is pretty similar to my own, but this book was a slog. I felt like Peck kept shitting on people who committed euthanasia for being egoists and control freaks. But his larger point, of giving ourselves over to the work death (rather than seeking a shortcut way out of life) is a good one.

Although I read this book more than a decade ago, it has resonates within my core beliefs in death and dying and the euthanasia debate.It offers no judgemental black-and-whites but throws a spiritual-philosphical dimension on life

After finishing this book and chewing on it, I realized that M. Scott Peck has a view similar to Emily Dickinson: He believes that death is an ideal space for encountering God. Yes, he has "euthanasia" in his title, but what he's really calling for is a rejection of secularism that has overtaken the discussion, the policies and the processes of death and dying. He's trying to reinsert God, spirituality and religiosity into what has become mainly a legal, medical and "rational" set of choices of the an individual's will.

Again, this book is not about the right to die; it's really about the need for people to relinquish control and to accept God's will in their lives--and the act of dying is a place that even the most stubborn control freak is most compelled to acquiese control if all other events in their life prior have failed to convince them of their own limits. If I have a reason for giving this only 3 stars, it's because Peck takes us around the block and over hill and dale (setting up key terms and explaining his assumptions) before getting to his major claim.

So discussing euthanasia is actually Peck's means and not his end, but he does spend some time (although maybe only 20% of the text) talking about the topic of euthanasia directly or just slightly askew. He calls for a careful balance between prolonging the dying process long enough to encounter God but keeping it free from unnecessary suffering caused either by 1) too much medical intervention when the body wants to die and 2) too little administration of drugs that can help the body and soul relinquish and accept death that is absolutely imminant.

Now to explain how he spends more than 200 pages getting to this point and why 80% of the book seems so tangential to euthanasia.

Peck's book examines the patch of real estate that at first seems to exist among these three tensions: the trajectory of the body towards decay and death; the power of the medical community to use drugs, surgery and machines to sustain life; and the individual's (or family's) will to choose how to act in response.

He then does a TON of work to establish some of his premises about the psyche before foregrounding a fourth tension: the will of God in determinine when and how we die. This I found to be the most interesting and unique aspect of the book, and I was hoping for more case studies / narrative detail of individuals wrestling between those four forces: the body, the medicine, the individual's will and God's will. However, he ends more with a call to action: "People, think about God more in the debates about end of life!" asks Peck. I agree. But I would have better enjoyed him leading by example.

Nevertheless, it asks some good questions and describes the issues in pretty good detail. I prefer some chapters over others, so let me break it down for those who are interested in how he sets up his argument (which goes on a walk around the block in the middle, IMHO).

Ch 1: Pulling the Plug: an overview of the events and challenges of end-of-life.

Ch 2: Physical Pain: This was informative to me, since I am not a medical professional, and I have not been close to anyone in the dying process.

Ch 3: Emotional Pain: Here he used many examples from his psychiatric practice, including those who suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

Ch 4: Murder, Suicide and Natural Death: A philosophical definition of terms. I see this as part of his efforts to say what he is not describing. But he has some compassionat descriptions of people dying from these causes as well as identifying some "gray areas."

Ch 5: Secularism: Here he describes various postures that people can take towards religion, God and spirituality.

Ch 6: The Creaturelinss of Humans: Here he describes his terms and formulas for describing the human mind/ego/soul. (And then emphasizes as he does throughout that these things are beyond formula and beyond description).

Ch 7: The Learning of Dying. To me this is the CORE of the book: What is God trying to teach us during the process of dying? And why is it such hard work to be a good student to these lessons?

Ch 8: Euthanasia: A Typical Case. Here he describes an end-of-life choice that he found totally devoid of God, spirituality and religiousity.

Ch 9: Assisted Suicide: Here he talks about some current publications and some case studies of people more involved in end-of-life decisions. I find that he gets a little manic and unfocused. I think he built up to a great solution to the problem, but he concedes that deciding how to act in the face of dying is really still a gray thing, a personal thing, a complex thing to discuss. He's temped by formulas and guidelines. (He's an admitted control freak.) But he always caustions against them--even when using them here and there. He doesn't want Easy Answers, but he wants 1) something different than how the medical community can sometimes prolong emotional and physical suffering that occurs in the dying process and 2) something different than the quick decision some people make to take their lives before they get a chance to encounter God and perform some soul-changing psycho-spiritual work that the dying process invites.

Ch 10: The Hope of the Euthanasia Debate: The title says it all. He really wants to see people complicate the debate on euthanasia and foreground more the psychological and spiritual growth that can come at end of life. He wants less suffering physically, emotionaly and spiritually. Exactly how this will happen and how this will look is still vague.

Here is a key quote from his conclusion:

"I believe the major underlying disease is the secularism of U.S. society as manifested in its denial of the soul. The greatest hope I can see on the horizon for the healing of this disease lies in the euthanasia debate. If many are willing to think deeply about the issues of the debate, then many will encounter their own souls, often for the first time" (232).