A Guide to Self-Deliverance

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Before considering Self-Deliverance; HAVE YOU RUNG THE SAMARITANS? Their number is in your local phone book

‘A Guide to Self-Deliverance’ is published by the Executive Com­ mittee of Exit, the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, 13 Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington, London W8 5PG. It is distributed only to Exit members of three months standing, aged 25 or over. Copyright © Exit 1981 All rights reserved.

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A GUIDE TO SELF-DELIVERANCE But remember the principal thing: that the door is open. Do not be more fearful than children; but as they, when the play does not please them, say, ‘I will play no longer”; so do you, in the same case, say, ‘T will play no longer”, and go; but if you stay, do not complain. Epictetus: Discourses XXIV The keys of my prison are in mine own hands. John Donne: Essay on Suicide The thought of suicide is a great consolation; with the help of it Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil

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PREFACE by Arthur Koestler, CBE, C Litt, FRSL When people talk of “the fear of death”, they often fail to distinguish between two types of fear which may be combined in experience but are separate in origin. One is the fear of the state of death (or non-existence); the other the fear of the process of dying, the agony of the transition to that state. The aim of this booklet and of the Society which, after much soul-searching, decided to publish it is to overcome the second of these fears. For the first, we must obviously rely on whatever consolations religion, philo­ sophy or parapsychology have to offer. However, the division is not as clear-cut as that, because the two fears are interwoven. Mystics of all denominations have always claimed that a strong faith in after-life deprives not only the grave of its victory, but also death of its sting. Listen to Pope’s “Dying Christian to his Soul”:

Vital spark of heav’nly flame! Quit, oh quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying. In other words, the mystic’s faith can produce a form of euthan­ asia —a peaceful death of the body. The sceptic may call it a placebo­ effect: it makes no difference. But now we come to the crucial point: this connection is reversible. If the agnostics among us could be assured of a gentle and easy way of dying, they would be much less afraid of being dead. This is not a logical attitude, but fear is not governed by logic. We tend to be guided by first impressions — of persons, landscapes, countries. An unknown country to which the only access leads through a torture chamber is frightening. And vice versa, the prospect of falling peacefully, blissfully asleep, is not only soothing but can make it positively desirable to quit this painracked mortal frame and become un-born again. For after all, reason tells us — when not choked by panic — that before we were born we were all dead, and that our post-mortem condition is no more frightening than the pre-natal twilight. Only the process of transition, of getting un-born makes cowards of us all. The whole concept of death as a condition would be more acceptable if dying would be less horrendous and squalid. Thus euthanasia is more than the admin­ istration of a lethal analgesic. It is a means of reconciling individuals with their destiny. *