It
has been many years now since psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross stuck her neck
out among her peers with her ideas on death and dying, and she dedicated her
life to teaching about grief and how to handle terminal illness. What she brought to the world of medicine was
a spiritual understanding, and enforced that not only with her patients, but in
her classes, lectures, seminars, and books.
I was lucky enough to know Elisabeth personally and she was one hell of
a woman. She worked hard. She had a beautiful sense of humor, was an
intelligent, intuitive, compassionate, and spiritual person. And yes, she talked with spirits, (spooks, as
she called them). I have much respect
and admiration for her and how she stood up for what she believed in, and at a
time when her beliefs were not the norm, at least in our hospitals in this
country. She was one of a kind, a very
beautiful soul.
The
first time I saw her on television was in 1969 or so, when her now-classic book
On Death and Dying came out. I was awed by her
then and fascinated by the ideas she presented in her book. Her work, her books, and her lectures, have
touched millions and millions of people over the years. What she gave us is precious, and for many of
us, a new understanding about the process of death, about the afterlife, and
about grieving our losses, before and after a life ends in the physical
dimension.
For anyone who would like to know more abut Elisabeth's life, I would suggest her fascinating autobiography, The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and
Dying,
and, of course, any or all of her other books, including her last one, co-written with David Kessler, On Grief and
Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief
Through the Five Stages of Loss.
But
even now, a few years after her death, when I think about her, and write about her, it brings a smile to me, almost a chuckle, as I recall some humorous
comments she made on an afternoon visit I made to her home in Arizona, at a
time following her stroke.
Having
spent private time with Elisabeth and having personal conversations has been a highlight
of my life. Yes, indeed.
~Linda
Excerpt from my book, How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism by Linda Pendleton.
2 comments:
I read a book i have in my library that spoke of her first hand experiences in seances with materialized and intelligent spirits who taught her the Progressive Principles that lead her to her profound nursing theories of life and death... but apparently she desired to hide this from common knowledge and refused to acknowledge her involvement with such seance affairs... That book's author felt hurt by her stance and refusal to be honest to the public. The author was a fellow sitter in those seances...
Elisabeth did write about her contact with spirit. She also wrote of a bad experience with a "medium" who scammed her. But a few years later I was with her when she had a reading by trance-channel Thomas Jacobson--and Dr. Peebles. She often spoke of her communication with spirit, and more, and yes, did write about it and even about fairies, and had taken photos of same. She also told us of alien contact. She was an incredibly spiritual woman and a brave one to step out publicly about her beliefs, even though some peers did not like it in the beginning. I personally gave her a message from spirit. ~Linda
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