25AR30-06

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AR 30:6 - Near-death experience "erased any fear about dying"

In this issue:

ATHEISM - analytic philosopher / Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, finds Jesus

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES - "72 percent reported that they had made the decision to return"

TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION - "my now-teenage daughters ... tease me about having grown up in a cult"

Apologia Report 30:6 (1,695)
February 14, 2025

ATHEISM

"The Philosopher's Testimony" by Bethel McGrew (The Further Up Substack, Feb 14 '25) -- "The recent conversion of Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has been sending happy shockwaves through my corner of the Internet. Sanger has written up the story of his conversion into a careful long read <www.tinyurl.com/2j5u4y2s> that clocks in at about 45 pages.... [Video version also included.] When I say 'careful,' I mean this testimony is truly full of care. I didn't know Sanger's name at all before this news, but having gone through his story a couple of times, I'm impressed on a few different levels.

   "First of all, I'm impressed by Sanger's rigour. I'd like to expect nothing less from an analytic philosopher, although as he laments, the field is increasingly dominated by people who no longer prize the rigorous pursuit of truth. ...

   "Although my father retained the devout faith of his own childhood, he was much like Sanger in his bullish insistence on asking questions until they were satisfyingly answered. Both of them went on to discover they could be professionally good at asking questions, which you could say is what philosophy is, at its best. Dad actually chose to take it up as a career, while Sanger took his own path (lucky for those of us who use Wikipedia, which, for all its faults and the rank bias that's crept in against Sanger's wishes, remains an astonishing knowledge tool). ...

   "To Sanger's great credit, he confesses how his own pride kept him from doing a serious investigation of Christianity. In fact, he admits that for decades, he didn't even understand what theology was, because (he thought at the time) why should he bother finding out? This arrogance wasn't peeled away from him all at once, but little by little, layer by layer." <www.tinyurl.com/52bm3v6a>

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NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

"Peter Fenwick, Leading Expert on Near-Death Experiences, Dies at 89" by by Michael S. Rosenwald (New York Times, Jan 9 '25) -- "He was a neuropsychiatrist who was studying consciousness when a patient explained what had happened to him, and he realized the phenomenon was real. ...

   "Peter Brooke Cadogan Fenwick was born on May 25, 1935, in Nairobi, Kenya, where his father, Anthony Fenwick, had been sent by his family in northern England to farm coffee. His mother, Betty (Darling) Fenwick, was an Australian-born physician and director of surgery at Nairobi Hospital. ...

   "Fenwick studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge. He graduated in 1957 and then continued his studies there, receiving his medical degree in 1960. ...

   "He joined Maudsley Hospital in London, the largest psychiatric teaching hospital in Britain, where he at first specialized 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, the American philosopher and psychiatrist Raymond A. Moody Jr., published 'Life After Life,' one of the first books by a physician about near-death experiences. It was an international best seller, but Dr. Fenwick, like many other readers, was skeptical about the deathbed visions recounted in the book.

   "Then, the next year, a patient of his told him that he had seen a bright light through a tunnel while experiencing near-fatal complications during heart surgery.

"I was able to look at him, discuss it with him and see in fact that this was no psychobabble - it was a real experience," Dr. Fenwick told The Telegraph. "This was enormously important."

   Fenwick "had begun studying near-death experiences - a contentious subject in neuroscience - in the mid-1970s. He believed that consciousness existed beyond physical death, and he thought the letters would help strengthen his position. ...

    "In early 1988 ... Fenwick, an expert on consciousness, found himself drowning in letters from people who believed they had survived an encounter with death. ...

   "The letters were among more than 2,000 that Dr. Fenwick received shortly after he appeared in a BBC documentary, "Glimpses of Death," in which he commented on the near-death visions of people who had apparently briefly died, or nearly died, and then come back to life. ...

   "These letters were written by people who had never, ever before told anyone about their experiences," Dr. Fenwick said in a 2012 lecture at TEDxBerlin. "Why? Because they're too frightened. They told it to their wives or their husbands; they said they weren't interested. They told it to their friends; they said, 'You're mad.' ...

  "Fenwick sent the letter writers a lengthy questionnaire to categorize their experiences. He presented his findings, alongside excerpts from the letters, in 'The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences' (1995), which he wrote with his wife, Elizabeth Fenwick. The book <www.tinyurl.com/yzzx5ww6> established him as a leading authority in near-death studies. ...

   "'The Truth in the Light' revealed startling similarities among the letter writers. More than 50 percent of them reported traveling in a tunnel. Seventy-two percent saw a bright light. Nearly 40 percent met someone they knew, including deceased relatives. Strikingly, 72 percent reported that they had made the decision to return. ...

   "Fenwick revealed that 82 percent of the people he surveyed were less afraid of dying as a result of their near-death experiences, and that 42 percent reported being more spiritual. Forty-eight percent, he wrote, were 'convinced' there was 'survival after death.'

   "His belief that there was death of the body, but not the individual person, erased any fear he had about dying.

   "'Actually,' he said, 'I'm looking forward to it.' ...

   "Fenwick was a founder of the International Association for Near-Death Studies UK. He was also president of the Scientific and Medical Network, an organization that supports research into the connections between science, philosophy and spirituality." Adapted from <www.tinyurl.com/3pee8jnp> and <www.tinyurl.com/3a8e3ctx>

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TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

"I Argued with David Lynch about Meditation. He Was Right" (Rolling Stone, Jan 18 '25) -- "On a summer morning in 2012, I was ... interviewing Lynch for a piece in the New York Times magazine about his recent emergence as an evangelist for the practice of Transcendental Meditation."

   Lynch "had taken this late-in-life turn, after decades as a beloved and critically acclaimed filmmaker, to ... an intense focus on Transcendental Meditation. Lynch had learned T.M. in the early 1970s, part of a huge wave of Americans who adopted the technique popularized by the Beatles' Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. ...

   "Lynch saw Transcendental Meditation as fundamental to his survival as an artist in Hollywood. 'In 1984, my film Dune was released, and meditation saved my life ... I probably would've committed suicide. I didn't have final cut on Dune. It was released and it got terrible reviews and it didn't make a nickel. So I died the death twice. I didn't make the film I wanted to make, because I didn't have final cut.' ...

   "For decades, Lynch said, meditation was a private thing for him. He would leave the set and quietly excuse himself, 'diving within,' as he called it. ...

   "But something changed, he said, in 2002, when he traveled to Europe for an exclusive and expensive experience: the Enlightenment Course. Maharishi, who had barely been seen in public for years, was offering select, longtime meditators the chance to pay a million dollars to spend a month with him - with the promise of a new consciousness."

   For Lynch, "the time with Maharishi was transformative. He left with a new sense of purpose: He wanted to help the world meditate. ...

   "After the Enlightenment Course, Lynch began to spend much of his time trying to help as many people as possible learn Transcendental Meditation. To that end, in 2005, he started the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. ... Because of Lynch, celebrities such as Hugh Jackman, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, and Ellen DeGeneres all learned the technique. He also recruited back longtime meditators such as Jerry Seinfeld, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr to help raise money to teach meditation.

   "Lynch began to travel the globe, speaking out about his practice of T.M. and its positive benefits. ... Over the last 20 years, according to David Lynch Foundation CEO Bobby Roth, the organization has raised over $100 million, taught more than a million people to meditate, and instituted meditation programs in schools and hospitals around the world. ...

   "Lynch and I went back and forth about what his role had become. He said he was just a messenger, but I pushed him. 'It could be argued that you are the T.M. movement. ... 

   "We both left that car ride exhausted, not quite seeing each other's point of view. My article on Lynch came out the following spring. He hated it. Roth called me that day and said that Lynch was deeply hurt....

   "Lynch and I never spoke after that article. He went on to make Twin Peaks: The Return and to continue to work on music and art. I wrote a book about the Transcendental Meditation Movement <www.tinyurl.com/3yrwzhkc> and raised my two daughters. ... Last summer, as my family was going through a stressful transition, I took my now-teenage daughters down to the David Lynch Foundation offices near New York's Grand Central Station, where Bobby Roth taught them both their adult mantras. Neither of them are particularly regular in their practice, and they tease me about having grown up in a cult." <www.tinyurl.com/y4zf56cr>

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