Peter Fenwick's ELE research: Cook excerpt #13

Nick Cook writes: Dr Kerr makes no judgment on whether ELEs are physically real. Dr Peter Fenwick, on the other hand, insists they are – that they are evidence of the so-called ‘non-dual state’ which we enter as we transition from what we experience as our physical bodies to what Dr Fenwick – a neuroscientist, psychiatrist and renowned expert on near-death experiences – describes as our natural state of consciousness; one that is indivisible from the universal field of consciousness – the ‘substrate’ - to which we revert when we die.

“We need to start thinking about death as a radical change in consciousness,” he told me44. “As we approach death, the data “show unequivocally that the fabric of consciousness is pulled apart in dramatic terms in three broad phases,” as documented by Swiss psychotherapist and palliative care physician, Monika Renz45:

The first, pre-transition, involves the kinds of phenomena documented by Dr Kerr in the weeks and days before death. This happens before an ‘inner transformation of perception occurs’, according to Renz. ELEs, Dr Fenwick says, which often begin during this phase, may indicate the state in which we enter death to be critical – a ‘good death’, one that is eased by the comforting appearance of ‘familiars’, as they are referred to, may be key to our initial experience of what he terms ‘an afterlife’.

The second is death itself, in which the transition is characterised by a loosening of ‘ego consciousness’ – the ‘egoic function’, as Dr Fenwick refers to it, replete with the attachments that bind us to our material existence - and the third is post-transition, when, Dr Fenwick says, we attain a ‘fully non-dual state’ – and the attachments of the egoic function dissolve completely and we become ‘one with consciousness’.

Can any of this be seen? The short answer, according to Dr Fenwick is, yes. ‘The perception of something leaving the body around the time of death is a little discussed phenomenon, reported consistently by professional carers and, most importantly, relatives, but usually only when they are directly asked about it,’ he wrote in the paper ‘End of Life Experiences and their Implications for Palliative Care’46. The accounts are varied, his report explains, but central to the experience is a form or shape that may leave the body – and, often, he reported separately, light witnessed at the precise moment of our passing by friends and relatives in the room.

44 Dr Fenwick’s remarks to me are drawn from two Zoom interviews: on 8.7.20 and 15.7.20.
45 Dr Fenwick credits the data of the phases themselves to Monika Renz. See: ‘Dying Is A Transition’ by Monika Renz PhD et al, American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 2012. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229153806_Dying_is_a_Transition

 

 

Nick Cook is an author of 20 fiction and non-fiction book titles in the US and the UK. A former technology journalist, he is well-known for his ground-breaking, best-selling non-fiction book, The Hunt for Zero Point. He has also written, produced, and presented two feature-length documentaries for the History and Discovery channels. In 2021, Cook was amongst 29 prize winners in the BICS institute’s essay competition on consciousness. His essay is available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.