Notes
N O T E S CHAPTER ONE • HERE (?) WE ARE 1. John Leslie zestfully expounds the Doom Soon thesis in The End of the World (1996) and other writings. Martin Rees (Before the Beginning, 1997) is among the stimulating guides to understanding and evaluating the Big Bang theory. This influential theory is still being volley-balled back and forth by ardent proponents and resourceful adversaries. 2. Does everything add up to nothing? The answer—are you ready?—is yes. And also no! Theoretical physicist Henning Genz (1999) examines the cosmic case, and I make a mercifully brief attempt to suggest the relationship between the physicist’s “nothing” and the “nothing” that stares us blankly in the face when we try to think about death (Kastenbaum 2000c). 3. A concise and informative history of the journey of life is provided by Thomas Cole in his 1992 book of that title. 4. Émile Durkheim did as much as or more than any other one person to establish the field of sociology. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1965) kicked free of tradition and wedged open the door for empirical research and new concepts. His influence is perhaps even stronger in the field of suicide studies. Durkheim’s Suicide (1951; originally published as Le suicide, 1897) continues to generate research and prevention efforts. 5. What is often termed death anxiety in the thanatological literature has two main facets (Kastenbaum 2000c, 2004). A general sense of vulnerability and loss of control can make life miserable for some people even when they are not actually in mortal peril. This condition answers to the name neurosis and is almost certainly what Freud intended by his term thanatophobia. In contrast, emotionally healthy people experience a functional anxiety surge when they encounter a realistic threat. This emergency response improves the chances of survival. We don’t want to be on full alert all the time—that would generate the kind of stress reaction that Selye (see following note) has warned us about; and we don’t want to be so smugly wrapped in our illusions of invulnerability that we expose ourselves and others to high-risk situations. 6. Hans Selye was a prodigious bioresearcher who both enriched the scientific un4 1 5 derstanding of stress and made this concept more familiar to professionals and the general public. Two of his more accessible books are listed in “Sources Cited.” 7. Traumatic grief has emerged as a significant concept in recent years. It usually refers to an exceptionally intense and unremitting response to bereavement, most often when the death was sudden and unexpected. The reference here is to Prigerson and Jacobs 2001. 8. Existential psychoanalyst Avery D. Weisman is a pioneer in providing psychotherapy for people with life-threatening conditions. The reference here is to his book The Realization of Death (1974, 4–5). 9. Ibid., 5. 10. Christine Quigley tells us this in The Corpse: A History (1996). I haven’t heard a convincing explanation for this move. The best one was told me by an enthusiastic guide at the City of Vienna Death Museum (my friend and I had been the only visitors that week, possibly accounting for his zeal). He said it was basically a land-grab operation. 11. Kastenbaum 1996a, 2000a, 2003. 12. Cole (1992) again. CHAPTER TWO • PRACTICING DEATH 1. The pioneering studies of Sylvia Anthony ([1949] 1972) in England and Maria Nagy ([1949] 1959) demonstrate the ubiquity of death-related curiosity and concern among young children and their eventful progress toward an adult understanding. 2. Mary D. Ainsworth’s (1973) classic experiment drew attention to the child’s need to remain within “mothering space” even while exploring the environs. Even the most secure infant may at times show fear, even panic, when the comforting person is not in sight: the difference between being gone for a few minutes and gone forever is not yet recognized. 3. The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying is the usual abbreviated title of this opus, though sometimes it is condensed to simply Holy Dying. Reprint editions appear and disappear, so happy hunting if the 1977 version is not available at the moment. 4. Taylor 1977, 47–48. 5. Keenan’s informative 1997 article invites our attention to continuing shifts in religious conceptions of death within the labyrinth of technology and virtual reality. Will death take on still another face? 6. This quote from Keenan 1997, 14. 7. Hoban 1973, 122. Unfortunately, the novel...
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