Reader\'s Digest Australia & New Zealand - June 2018

June• 2018 | 59

thisinourfamily...”Thentheyof-

fered extraordinary stories – death-

bed visions, sensed presences,

near-death experiences, sudden in-

timationsofalovedoneindanger.

Afriendoncetoldmethat,asaboy,

hehadcomedowntobreakfastand

seenhisfather,asalways,atthe

kitchentable.henhismotherbroke

the news that his father had died in

thenight.Hebrieflywonderedif

she’dgoneinsane.“He’ssittingright

there,” he told her. It was the most

baff ling and unsettling moment of

his life.

Ihadnoideatherewasthis

kept-hiddenworldallaroundme.I

wanted to understand what we knew

aboutthesemysteriousmodesof

awareness.Forfouryears,asajour-

nalist, I pursued the questions.

A2014STUDYby The Palliative

CareInstituteandHospiceBuffalo

inNewYorkstatefoundthat60per

cent of their dying patients, over

an 18-month period, had comfort-
ingvisionsanddreamsoflivingor
deceased family members in the
lead-uptotheirowndeaths.
here is pain in loss, and then there
isfurtherpaininthesilenceborneby
fearofbeingdismissed.Tellsomeone
aboutitandtheexplanationscome.
Hallucination. Wishful thinking.
Coincidence.
IwenttoaChristmaspartywith
oldfriends,andcaughtupwithaman
whoworksforabank.Itoldhimsome
ofwhathadtranspiredwithKathar-
ine. He said gently: “I don’t mean to
be unkind, but it is very likely that
she was imagining these things.”
Why did he feel he could speak with
authority about what the dying see?
Spirituality used to be considered
an ordinary part of the human ex-
perience,butnowitqualifiesasan
extraordinary state requiring ex-
traordinary evidence. Why should
this be? It has to do with the rise of
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK scientism, a prejudice that believes