The War on Death

The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and the fear of death

Introduction

Like our previous article on the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, published on 25 March 2020, this one may upset some readers. That will be very good if it leads to a reduction in the fear which has taken root in the minds of so many of our fellowmen and women; fear which is fuelled by the mass media who care not what effect their endless fountain of poisonous propaganda has on the public mind, so long as it increases their profits. The title of this article—The War on Death—has a double meaning which will not be lost on some readers. This applies equally to our afterword, which has been taken from the autobiography of the 20th century author and seeress, Joan Grant, whose 'far memory' books we review elsewhere on our website.

We've all heard of the 'War on Drugs'. The phrase became popular in 1971 after US President Richard Nixon initiated a programme of drug abuse prevention and control. Today, nearly half a century later, and despite spending many billions of dollars, it has not resulted in any reduction in the use of drugs or criminal activity connected with it. The war on drugs was followed by the equally ineffective 'War on Terror,' launched in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 against the United States. In addition to these two 'wars' we've had (and still have) the 'War on Cancer,' the 'War on Want,' and the 'War on Crime.' None of these 'wars' has been won. It is more expedient and profitable, both economically and politically, to keep them going indefinitely.

So far as we know, there is no official 'War on Death,' but neither can we take credit for inventing the phrase. Over four years ago, a US physician used it in an article published in the Blog of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in which he wrote: "Taught to save lives and fight death, doctors don't bow out gracefully and say enough is enough. We're not taught about dying. We're taught about not dying." Quite so, death has taken the place of sex as the great taboo that dare not speak its name, except when it is coupled with the words 'war on'! The article goes on to say: "We fight death in the hospices. We fight death in the hospitals. In many parts of the world, more people die in hospitals than in their homes." Most tellingly of all, the author writes: "Dying is a vexing problem for the medical profession. As long as we give health an infinite value we will demonize death."

Fear, phobia and facts

There appears to be a definite correlation between the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and increased fear of death among the general population. It is almost as if death had quietly slipped away, or at least out of sight and mind of the public, except for those few who had lost friends and loved ones before the pandemic and will lose them long after it has become a subject for students of social history. But all of a sudden people are shocked and appalled to discover death really does exist and maybe it is going to get them, or someone close to them. The result is universal panic on a scale the writer has never before witnessed and hopes never to witness again, though he is not so optimistic as to believe history won't repeat itself; it usually does, with few, if any, "lessons being learned."

Unless you have been self-isolating under a duvet for the past three months and had all your necessaries delivered by Amazon, you will have seen the fear etched on the faces of those wearing face masks or gloves, or both. Their staring eyes dart furtive, suspicious glances in all directions lest a plague carrier should approach too closely from an unforeseen direction. They are terrified the Grim Reaper is coming for them, and if not for them, then those of their friends, neighbours or loved ones who are in one of the 'at risk' groups, such as those with asthma or diabetes. Many of these pitiable wretches are tormented by the equally horrific prospect of being labelled a murderer for sending an ailing octogenarian to an early grave because they inadvertently infected them. Do none of these people understand that we all die? That death is an integral part of life? Any one of us can die tomorrow from a variety of causes. Most of us know, or have heard of perfectly fit people who dropped dead at age thirty or even twenty. Yet others, with multiple serious health problems, live on into their eighties, or even longer.

Perhaps the oddest aspect of the pandemic is the way the death of a loved one in poor health long past their tenure of 'threescore years and ten' is now regarded. "He was taken from us too soon," is a lament voiced by many who championed the happy clapping of the NHS on a Thursday. Or they complain: "We was robbed of our amazing gran!" When we enquire how old granny was and what, if anything, was wrong with her, we learn, more often than not, that she was 97 and had been suffering from multiple serious medical conditions for several years. Just how long do people expect to live nowadays? 100? Perhaps 120 would be a respectable age to shuffle off our mortal coil? The fact of the matter is that most of those who live to these great ages are not well. Not only are they not well, they are shoved into care homes by their families, or to give them their colloquial name: 'God's waiting rooms.' Is this better than dying, as their grandparents did, after a full and productive life, at the age of 70 or 80 in the bosom of their family? The Book of Common Prayer, still read at funerals, tells us: "In the midst of life we are in death."

This has two meanings. The obvious and literal that death is an inescapable part of life and the occult or concealed, that earthly life, however rich or pleasant, is death compared to the greater life of, and in, the Spirit. Even the Church acknowledges this eternal and unchangeable truth though it has long since ceased to believe in it or teach it to its followers. The point we wish to make is that the medical profession—often from the best of motives—is committed to the extension of life at any cost, to the exclusion of the quality of that life. Hence, nonagenarians suffering from a variety of terminal illnesses are subjected to invasive 'treatments' such as intubation and mechanical ventilation to keep them alive for a few weeks or months. When the poor wretches finally quit their ravaged bodies Covid-19 is given as the cause of death. The reality is they may have died with Covid-19, but they most certainly did not die of it. Meanwhile, those who urgently need medical care and are not infected with the evil plague are told to stay at home and suffer. This cruel and misguided policy and the willing compliance of physicians with it, is a crime against humanity that will come to haunt future generations.

Before you accuse us of making light of the virus let us remind you of a few simple facts published by the UK Government. Yes—you read that right. Not 'fake news,' not a bunch of conspiracy theorists, but our very own loveable rogues in Westminster. Before we do so, we would like to make an important point. From the very beginning of this crisis two mutually contradictory messages have been broadcast by both governments and media. On the one hand we are told "to be afraid, be very afraid," and on the other "there is nothing at all to be afraid of." Both can't be true. No wonder some people have been reduced to state of terminal bewilderment and others to defying the restrictions designed to 'win the war' against the virus. Those of you who are familiar with George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, will recall that the very existence of the totalitarian state he describes depends upon the population believing in just such contradictions, enshrined in the slogans Orwell came up with such as 'Freedom is Slavery,' 'War is Peace,' and 'Ignorance is Strength.' This last slogan could well be the anthem for the fear, suspicion and insanity the pandemic has generated.

The sad irony is that there are no facts which support the degree of fear, suspicion and insanity gripping the country and driving the increasingly frantic measures of the Government to 'defeat' the virus. There is only conjecture, the contradictory opinions of scientists and the discredited Imperial College computer model designed by 'Professor Pantsdown,' which some critics have dismissed as unworthy of the programming skills of a five-year-old. The second message is that Covid-19 is a mild illness in the majority of cases that poses a danger only for the very old or seriously ill. On 30 April 2020, Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, stated that: "Over the whole epidemic, even if there is no vaccine, a high proportion of the population will not get it. Of those who do, a significant proportion have no symptoms. Of the symptomatic cases, the great majority (around 80%) will have a mild or moderate disease."

On 11 May, Whitty repeated his previous statement. "The great majority of people will not die from this and I'll just repeat something I said right at the beginning because I think it's worth reinforcing: Most people, a significant proportion of people, will not get this virus at all, at any point of the epidemic. Of those who do, some of them will get the virus without even knowing it, they will have the virus with no symptoms at all. . .Of those who get symptoms, the great majority, probably 80%, will have a mild or moderate disease. Might be bad enough for them to have to go to bed for a few days, not bad enough for them to have to go to the doctor." This advice must have bypassed those who shuffle around supermarkets wearing masks and gloves in a pathetic parody of the flesh-eating zombies from one of George Romero's horror movies. But it gets better—Whitty continues: "An unfortunate minority will have to go as far as hospital, but the majority of those will just need oxygen and will then leave hospital. And then a minority of those will end up having to go to severe end critical care and some of those sadly will die. But that's a minority, it's 1% or possibly even less than 1% overall."

Less than 1%! Or, according to recent studies, less than 0.5%. On 4 May 2020 Dr Hendrik Streeck, Director of the Institute of Virology and Institute for HIV Research at Bonn University in Germany and his colleagues published a study which found an infection fatality rate (IFR) of less than 0.36%. On 19 May 2020 Dr John Ioannidis, Chair in Disease Prevention, Professor of Medicine, of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University, in the USA, published a review of global cases of coronavirus. He and his team found that mortality ranged between 0.02% and 0.4%. These are FACTS anyone can verify that even that the UK Government does not dispute. Yet the mainstream media seem strangely reluctant to mention them. We wonder why? Answers on a postcard please to "bloke in a long raincoat and dark glasses social distancing behind the bins at the rear of 85 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall, London SE11 5AW" (see note at end).

Whitty ended his statement by saying: "And even in the highest risk group this [death] is significantly less than 20%, i.e., the great majority of people, even the very highest groups, if they catch this virus, will not die. And I really wanted to make that point really clearly. . ." Many Government spokespersons have made the same point 'really clearly,' over and over again, yet Government officials continue to behave as if it wasn't true. Why? That question is definitely one for Bombast and Flitterflop to answer. Who knows, perhaps they will when the nanoparticles from this storm in a culture dish have settled. There is no shortage of possible or even probable villains who have something to gain from the pandemic and the immense changes that will follow in its wake.

Frans Francken — Death playing the violin — ca. 1640, oil on panel

Thanatophobia

The fear of death is sometimes called thanatophobia, a word derived from the Greek thanatos (death) and phobos (fear). It says a great deal about our much vaunted Western technocracy that thanatophobia is not recognized as a mental disorder among psychiatrists and psychologists while made-up illnesses such as Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVD), Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD), Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) and—the currently fashionable—Gender identity disorder (GID), are all listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It comes as no surprise to us that this august publication is the creation of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). We should have thought that the fear of death is a lot more harmful, both individually, and in the mass, than any of the fictitious mental disorders just mentioned, but what do we know, we're only students of occultism!

A scientific study—Values destroyed by death, published in The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1961—still cited by many scientists, lists seven possible reasons why people are afraid of death. These are:

I could no longer have any experiences.
I am uncertain as to what might happen to me if there is a life after death.
I am afraid of what might happen to my body after death.
I could no longer care for my dependents.
My death would cause grief to my relatives and friends.
All my plans and projects would come to an end.
The process of dying might be painful.

We have covered reasons 1, 2, 3 and 7 in this and our other articles on death and dying, so won't repeat ourselves. Reason 4 suggests that those who cited it are either short on the milk of human kindness or a bit dim, or both. Surely, if we are genuinely worried that our dependants might be deprived of healthcare, cash or any other support after our passing it behoves us to make the necessary arrangements to ensure they are adequately provided for before we die! Reason 5 is a very common fear arising from the almost universal ignorance about what really happens when we die, which we have discussed in depth in our article about Life after Death. If reason 6 is prompted by vanity and fear of a competitor getting the better of us after our death we may as well die sooner rather than later! If, on the other hand, we have been engaged in work that benefits mankind in some way, we may be sure we will be given every opportunity to continue it after so-called death. Speaking of which, what of the horrific numbers of people said to have died of Covid-19 in the UK?

On 5 June 2020 it was reported that the total number of deaths from Covid-19 had topped 40,000. This covers the period from 6 March to 7 June. This averages out at 430 deaths per day but does not take into account that many more people die in the winter and spring than during the summer and autumn. Nor does it take into account that anyone testing positive for the virus is deemed to have died of the virus, rather than merely with it, as we mentioned earlier. Should you doubt this fact, here is what Professor Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy's Minister of Health said publicly as long ago as 23 March. "The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus. On re-evaluation by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS—Italian Inititute of Health), only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity—many had two or three." By 'pre-morbidity' the good professor means that the patient was already dying from one or more terminal diseases when they were tested for the virus.

Professor Ricciardi is not alone in his confession. A few days earlier, on 20 March, the President of Germany's prestigious Robert Koch Institut (RKI) confirmed that Germany counts any deceased person who was infected with coronavirus as a Covid-19 death, whether or not it was the actual cause of death. It is no different in the United States. On 5 April the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the following 'guidance' statement: "In cases where a definite diagnosis of Covid-19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely...it is acceptable to report Covid-19 on a death certificate." These are facts anyone can verify online but which none of the mainstream media mention, never mind report. If the number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 has been exaggerated by the amount these damning facts suggest, then the figure of 40,000 which has so terrified the public may well be as low as 5000. Taking into account that the average number of deaths each year due to flu-related complications in England is around 17,000 according to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), we should expect around 5,000 to 7,000 people to have died of flu by this time of the year. This suggests, as we have maintained all along, and the UK Government itself has affirmed over and over again, that Covid-19 is a very mild disease that poses no risk to the vast majority of the population. And yet, here we are, 'locked down' together, our economy in a very parlous state, and no end in sight. The disease responsible for this disaster is not Covid-19 but thanatophobia for which the only cure is independent thought. But no one seems very keen to try this novel, freely available 'vaccine.'

Masking the truth

As we were writing this article the UK Government announced that from 15 June it will be illegal to use public transport without wearing a face mask. This was followed by a further announcement extending the regulation to all those working in or attending hospitals. Yet barely one month earlier the same Government was telling the public NOT to wear face masks. We had some trouble tracking down the actual advice due to the disturbing habit the mainstream media has adopted of 'disappearing' any prior statement about the pandemic that contradicts a later one. What is more disturbing is that the public swallow this dystopian doublethink without a murmur. As Winston Smith muses to himself in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: "The past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken." Perhaps the Covid clowns advising Boris Johnson could tell him since Orwell's doublethink seems to have been adopted as Government policy. We eventually found the actual advice given by the Government which contradicts what they are saying now.

In a statement broadcast on National TV on 3 April 2020, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said. "There is no evidence that general wearing of face masks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society." Leaving aside the question of whether such draconian measures are necessary to combat a virus which the Government itself admits is harmless to the vast majority of people, the question remains: do face masks actually prevent the spread of the virus? The mainstream media and most British politicians are fanatically in favour of forcing us all to wear them, despite the fact that the science supporting this position is thin on the ground. This hasn't prevented newspapers like the Guardian from publishing such pearls of wisdom as: "We can't be 100% sure face masks work—but that shouldn't stop us wearing them." One could easily turn this around to read: "We shouldn't wear face masks if we're not 100% sure they work." This is a classic example of doublethink George Orwell would be proud of.

A dozen or more research articles were published between 2004 and 2016 on the inadequacies of face masks. All agree that the poor facial fit and limited filtration characteristics of this fashionable new item of 'Covid-wear' make them unfit to prevent the inhalation of airborne particles. In 2011, the scientific journal, Infectious Diseases published an article by Drs. Harriman and Brosseau titled Controversy: Respiratory Protection for Healthcare Workers. In it, the authors concluded that: "Health care workers have long relied heavily on surgical masks to provide protection against influenza and other infections. Yet there are no convincing scientific data that support the effectiveness of masks for respiratory protection." This is pretty much what the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England said nine years later in April 2020. Barely one week earlier, on 26 March, Dr April Baller of the World Health Organization (WHO) said: "If you do not have any respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough or runny nose, you do not need to wear a mask." Two months later on 21 May, an article titled Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era, published in the New England Journal of Medicine stated: "We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection." But now apparently it does!

And so it goes on. In April 2020, Research Gate—the European social networking website for scientists—published an article by Canadian physicist Denis Rancourt titled Masks Don't Work: A review of science relevant to Covid-19 social policy. In it, Rancourt argued: "There have been extensive randomized controlled trials (RCT). . .which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses. . .It would be a paradox if masks and respirators worked, given what we know about viral respiratory diseases. The main transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles less than 2.5 µm in size, which are too fine to be blocked. . ." Frankly, this should not come as a surprise to anyone who paid attention during biology classes at school.

The article was removed on 3 June after it had received over 400,000 views, "for spreading information that could cause harm." That lets the tabloid press off the hook as they haven't published a single word during this crisis that 'could cause harm,' have they? Governments around the world clearly want us all to wear masks. What is not so clear is why. Some readers may favour one or more conspiracy theories but we think the reason is rather more prosaic. Our UK Government is clutching at ever thinner and shorter straws to climb out of the enormous hole it has dug itself into. From where we sit, it's still digging. . .

UPDATE: June 2023. Nearly three years after we wrote this article the NHS is still recommending the wearing of face nappies, hand satanization and antisocial distancing. This, despite the fact that out of the 1,400 people who, on average, die every day of the year in the UK, less than 0.1% are now dying with or of Covid-19. The organisers of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry convened on 5 June 2023 to look into the UK's response to the Covid-19 pandemic strongly recommend that all attendees wear masks. This makes it increasingly harder to discount the notion that there is a conspiracy behind it all, a probability we explored in our article on Covid-19 vaccination published in July 2021.

NOTE: 85 Albert Embankment, Vauxhall, London SE11 5AW is the address of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6—the United Kingdom Government's foreign intelligence service, based in London, but whose insidious and prying tentacles extend throughout the world.

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Dying to live!

Science believes consciousness ceases with the death of the body. So it should come as no surprise that when people find themselves still in a body, they refuse to believe they're dead! This was the situation the subject of our afterword found himself in.

We have taken his story from Far Memory—the autobiography of Joan Grant. From an early age Joan saw things others didn't. This often got her into trouble with adults who were far too 'down to earth' to believe in ghosts. Yet she saw them everywhere, waking and sleeping, generally when she least wanted or expected to.

She is not unique in her ability to see the so-called 'dead,' help convince them that they have died, and find their proper place in that part of the Astral World their state of evolution and spiritual attainments entitle them to.

You may be surprised just how many people—sometimes consciously, but more often unconsciously—do this kind of work, both when they are awake and during so-called 'dreams'. Here then, is the remarkable account of Joan Grant's encounter with the dead.

A contemporary dream I will describe in detail because it is typical of many others, in which the "I" alternates between the experience of someone else with whom I was briefly in such close contact that his experience felt like my own, and the "I" that was an extension of the ordinary Joan.

I am a sailor, about thirty years old, on a large liner. I am afraid because there is fire in the ship, but I do not realise I am in any real danger until the smoke drives me back along a narrow passage and I have to climb out of a cabin window because I cannot reach the stairs. I run along the deck but am prevented from going any farther by clouds of heavy black smoke. I look down into the sea where several men are struggling in the fire-lit water. Dare I jump? No, I can't swim. I shall be drowned if I jump. Perhaps if I run towards the bows I shall be able to climb down to a lower deck. Paint is bubbling up into great blisters which burst with a small, sharp noise I can hear above the noise of the fire and the sea...My feet are hurting because of the heat of the deck. I must jump. I must. It is better to drown than to be burned.

I clamber over the bulwark, stand on it for an agonisingly long time, and then, when a gust of heat singes my back, throw myself forwards, trying to keep my feet together as I fall. The sea knocks the breath out of me. I try to swim but I am too heavy, too heavy. The water is crushing my ribs. A great hand is squeezing them. Why does the giant want to kill me?

He has let go! I am buoyant as a cork. I can swim! It is very easy to swim. Swim fast, faster! Get away from the burning ship before she heels over. It is almost ridiculously easy to swim. Why did I never realise I could swim so well? I swim very well. I have swum a long way and yet I am not tired. I feel stronger with every stroke I make. . . A wave lifts me and I see I am very close to an island. The sun is making the water glitter but I can see the palm trees on the island. The water is kind and smooth and warm. . .

Then I am no longer the sailor. I am Joan, standing on a shelving beach of white sand, watching a man splashing towards me through the shallows. He is wringing water from his clothes when he sees me. "Good morning, Miss," he says politely. "Extraordinary what you can do when you're up against it! Never done more than paddle in my life, and there I was swimming like a ruddy champ, overarm and all. Not that I wasn't glad to see this island. Belongs to you, Miss?"

I tell him that I am only staying here for a little while and that a yacht will come to pick us up before sunset. Where would he like the yacht to take him? "My ship was bound for Cherbourg, but I'd rather go to Bordeaux—if it's all the same to you and no trouble."

I ask if he is hungry. I have food, plenty of food and wine too if he would like it. He says he would prefer a coconut. "Very partial to green nuts I am, took a fancy to them when I was deckhand on a cargo-boat plying to the West Indies. I'm on a liner now—very posh job she is. . . "He pauses, beginning to look anxious so I quickly change the direction of his thoughts by asking him to show me how to open a coconut. Then I say casually, "Have you noticed that you're dead?"

"Dead? Me, Miss? Don't talk so barmy!" He picks up a pebble and throws it into the sea, where it makes a most realistic splash. Then he kicks the sand with his bare foot. "Dead men can't wriggle their toes. I've seen corpses in my time, and their feet were as stiff as a plank."

"Was there a fire in your ship?"
"Yes," he reluctantly concedes. "But don't let's talk about it. It will be a good story to tell over a bottle of wine when I get home—not yet though, it's a bit too close for comfort if you see what I mean."

"How fast can you swim?"
"You seen me," he says reproachfully. "Matter of ten knots or more I must have been doing."
"No one can swim as fast as that—unless he is dead."
"You been running about in the sun too long without a hat, Miss? Very odd notions sunstroke gives some people. I remember a stoker, proper raving he was, when I was in the West Indies. . ."

I hasten to interrupt him. I have arranged our present environment with some care and it will only confuse the issue if we find ourselves involved in the playback of a bar fight in Martinique. "You are dead," I say briskly, "and now I will prove it to you. Where was your ship when the fire broke out?"
"In the English Channel."
"And are there coral islands like this in those waters?"
That shakes him for a moment. "It must be one of the Scillies. Never been to them, but I've heard tell they grow palm trees there—which is true, for I can see them, ten good ones, with nuts on."

"Can I fly? If I fly will you agree that you drowned?"
"If you can fly—no cheating, mind you—it don't count if you've got an aeroplane tucked away behind them trees—I'll give you best, honest to God I will."

I try to levitate, but so strong is his conviction that I shall stay solidly on the ground that for a moment nothing happens. Then I make an extra effort and rise into the air, do a few fancy swoops, and land neatly beside him. Then he laughs, gusts of enormous and complete enjoyment, not at me but at himself.

"All my life I've been frightened of dying, and all it was is this! Never enjoyed myself so much as I have since I drowned. What a joke on my poor auntie who always said I'd fry in hell when I died! If this is hell, give me lots more of it! Where do we go from here?"

"Tell me who you would most like to be with and I will fix your passage," I say, efficient as a travel agent.
"Must they be dead too?"
"Not necessarily. But it would be better as a start. People who are only asleep—like me—are inclined to vanish rather abruptly."
"Well, there was a very nice bloke who was torpedoed in the war. . ."
"Think of him hard," I say quickly. I am beginning to feel misty at the edges and know I am soon going to wake up. I hear a joyous shout of recognition and dimly see two men thumping each other on the back...bottles of red wine on a table, the music of an accordion...

I woke. The telephone was ringing. I pulled the plug out of the wall and scrabbled for my notebook. No, this was too exciting to risk losing any of it. "Leslie, listen!" When I had told him everything I could remember he said, "What was the name of the ship? Try hard. It would be evidence."

"All I can get is 'Atlantic.' I suppose he told me the ship crossed the Atlantic before she entered the Channel—although I don't remember him saying so."
"Why do you think the sailor was French?"

"His ship was on its way to Cherbourg, although I suppose she might only have been calling there on her way to Southampton or somewhere. But he wanted to go to Bordeaux and there was wine, not beer or whisky, in the last glimpse I had of him."
"When you were describing his conversation he talked like a cockney."
"The cockney doesn't signify anything. I've noticed that when I remember a dream-conversation I automatically translate it into the nearest equivalent English. When I was in Scotland I had a Roman dream in which a soldier seemed to speak with a Highland accent—because I'd been listening to Old Robbie the day before."

"Well, I hope it wasn't an English ship," said Leslie, and went downstairs to fetch the morning papers. There was nothing in any of them about a fire at sea. But when we came out of a cinema about tea-time we saw the newspaper placards: FIRE IN CRACK FRENCH LINER. The headline was "L'Atlantique burns in English Channel: Many Dead."

There Joan Grant's remarkable account ends. To save readers looking it up, we can confirm that there was a French liner named L'Atlantique which sank in the English Channel on the morning of 4 January 1933. She was on a voyage from her home port of Bordeaux to Le Havre for dry-docking, with no passengers and only a skeleton crew on board when fire broke out in a cabin. Some of the crew were thrown into the sea when a lifeboat tilted as it was being lowered. Others were trapped in the engine and boiler rooms—Joan's sailor no doubt among them. In all 19 men lost their lives. The 'Leslie' mentioned in the narrative was Joan's second husband, Leslie Grant.

Her account raises two important points which are worthy of emphasis. Many people who die—we almost said 'most'—don't know they're dead. Why should they? As the doctor we quoted in our article said: "We're not taught about dying." If doctors know nothing about dying, priests know even less. Science is adamant that the death of the physical body and brain marks the cessation of consciousness because it believes consciousness cannot be separated from it. In other words, when you're dead, you're dead! If you've been repeatedly told all your life that you are your body and when your body dies, you die with it, when you find yourself in the same body after death it is not surprising that, like the sailor Joan Grant encountered, you are sure you must still be alive.

The second point we wish to emphasize is how happy the sailor was when discovered he was dead. As he told his rescuer: "All my life I've been frightened of dying, and all it was is this!" If you take nothing else away from this article and our afterword, we hope you will take these two truths away with you. If you can make them a part of your thinking death will cease to have any fears for you. You won't need to make war on death or encourage others to do so. You will recognise death as an old and familiar friend who has come to take you home.

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