In early 1988, British neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick found himself inundated with letters from people who believed they had survived a brush with death.
“I floated slowly down a tunnel, not afraid in any way, but anxiously waiting for something,” one man wrote to him. “When it arrived I was absolutely at peace and walking into the most wonderful light. Trust me, it was amazing. No worries, problems or anything, just wonderful.”
In another letter, a woman described walking along a country road and coming across golden gates.
“Inside was the most beautiful garden, with no lawn, path, or anything, but flowers of every kind,” he wrote. “The ones that attracted me most were Madonna lilies, delphiniums and roses, but there were many, many others.”
The letters were among more than 2,000 received by Dr. Fenwick shortly after his appearance in a BBC documentary, “Glimpses of Death,” in which he commented on near-death visions of people who apparently died briefly, or nearly died, and then returned to live.
“These letters were written by people who had never, ever told anyone about their experiences,” Dr. Fenwick said in a 2012 talk at TEDxBerlin. “Why? Because they’re too scared. They told their wives or husbands; they said they weren’t interested. They told their friends; they said, ‘You’re crazy.'”
But Dr. Fenwick, an expert on consciousness, was very interested. Possessing a more scientifically open mind than many of his colleagues, he had begun studying near-death experiences – a controversial topic in neuroscience – in the mid-1970s. He believed that consciousness existed beyond physical death and thought the letters would help strengthen his position.
Dr. Fenwick sent the letter’s authors a lengthy questionnaire to categorize their experiences. He presented his findings, along with excerpts from the letters, in “The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences” (1995), which he wrote with his wife, Elizabeth Fenwick. The book established him as a leading authority in near-death studies.
Dr. Fenwick died Nov. 22 at his home in London, his daughter Annabelle Fenwick said. He was 89 years old.
“Truth in the Light” revealed striking similarities between the authors of the letters. More than 50% of them reported traveling in a tunnel. 72% saw a bright light. Nearly 40% met someone they knew, including deceased relatives. Surprisingly, 72% reported that they had made the decision to return.
A woman who had been in a terrible car accident recalled being “encouraged by a strong feeling to enter the light” through a tunnel.
“I was peaceful, totally content, and I realized that I was born on earth and knew the answer to every mystery – I wasn’t told, I just knew that the light held all the answers,” she wrote. “Then there was a sudden confusion. I had to quickly return to the tunnel; there was something wrong.”
Suddenly, he continued, “I regained my body and all the emotions. I panicked and felt pain, terrible pain, all over my body. I think I died for a short time.”
For decades, neuroscientists have dismissed near-death experiences, or NDEs, as symptoms of anoxia, or a lack of oxygen flowing to the brain. Dr. Fenwick refuted that assessment in “The Truth in the Light,” pointing to pilot education.
“Pilots in training are routinely subjected to acute anoxia in simulators to ensure they can don oxygen masks in time,” Dr. Fenwick wrote. “Those who fail to do so do not have NDEs; they either lose consciousness or become so confused that they try to land their planes on the clouds.
He also rejected another common criticism of near-death experiences: that they are common hallucinations, like those experienced by people with high fevers.
“But describing it as a hallucination in no way explains the underlying mechanism and leaves many of the same old questions unanswered,” Dr. Fenwick wrote. “Why would everyone have more or less the same hallucination under the same circumstances? And why would it feel so real?”
Peter Brooke Cadogan Fenwick was born on May 25, 1935 in Nairobi, Kenya, where his father, Anthony Fenwick, had been sent by his family to northern England to grow coffee. His mother, Betty (Darling) Fenwick, was an Australian-born doctor and director of surgery at Nairobi Hospital.
Peter was a curious and mischievous boy. He enjoyed building things, including the occasional small bomb. One evening, as his parents prepared to welcome guests to dinner, Peter quietly left a trail of gunpowder around the table in hopes of lighting it for entertainment. His father stopped the plot.
“I think he was clearly one of those kids who was incredibly smart but maybe not always so bright at reading the room,” his daughter Annabelle said in an interview. He added: “He did things because he could.”
After graduating from Stowe School, a prestigious boarding school in the English countryside, Dr Fenwick studied natural sciences at Cambridge University. He graduated in 1957 and continued his studies there, earning his medical degree in 1960.
Dr. Fenwick aspired to become a brain surgeon, but changed his mind after witnessing brain surgery.
“I suddenly realized that if you were a neurosurgeon you were looking into a deep, dark hole in the brain, and I could see there was no fun in that,” he told British newspaper The Telegraph last year. “I realized I didn’t want to be a neurosurgeon, I wanted to be a neuropsychiatrist so I could talk to people and not knock them unconscious while I looked into that deep, dark hole.”
He joined London’s Maudsley Hospital, Britain’s largest teaching psychiatric hospital, where he initially specialized in epilepsy. He also studied sleepwalking, dreams and meditation. (One of his first meditation research subjects was George Harrison of the Beatles.)
In 1975, the American philosopher and psychiatrist Raymond A. Moody Jr. published “Life After Life,” one of the first books by a doctor on near-death experiences. It was an international best seller, but Dr. Fenwick, like many other readers, was skeptical of the deathbed visions recounted in the book.
Then, the following year, one of his patients told him he had seen a bright light through a tunnel while experiencing near-fatal complications during heart surgery.
“I was able to look at him, discuss it with him and actually see that it wasn’t psychobabble – it was a real experience,” Dr Fenwick told the Telegraph. “This was extremely important.”
Dr Fenwick was a founder of the International Association for Near-Death Studies in the UK. He was also president of the Scientific and Medical Network, an organization that supports research into the connections between science, philosophy and spirituality.
In addition to his daughter Annabelle, Dr. Fenwick is survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Roberts) Fenwick, with whom he wrote four books in addition to “The Truth in the Light,” including “The Art of Dying” (2008), about the death; another daughter, Natasha Lowe; one son, Tristam; and nine grandchildren.
In “Truth in the Light,” Dr. Fenwick revealed that 82% of the people he surveyed were less afraid of dying due to their near-death experiences and that 42% reported being more spiritual. Forty-eight percent, he wrote, were “convinced” that there was “survival after death.”
“Once you have had this experience you have changed, whether you like it or not,” he told The Telegraph.
His belief that there was death of the body, but not of the individual person, erased any fear he had about death.
“Actually,” he said, “I can’t wait.”