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Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Euthenasia
Universalism leads to killing and its origins are spiritual entities

Adapted from from "A Church in Crisis" by Ralph Martin

In light of the rapidly advancing legalization of “euthanasia,” the remarkable career of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provides another insight into how apparently very “gifted” people can themselves be misled and mislead others in what appear to be, at first, very innocent ways.

A psychiatrist, Kübler-Ross published a book in 1969, On Death and Dying, in which she outlined five phases of and responses to death, ranging from angry denial to ultimate acceptance. The book became immensely successful, was adopted by many Christians, and was widely used in counseling and ministry to the dying. She was named one of the eleven “women of the decade” during the seventies.

Kübler-Ross gave numerous seminars, many of which were attended and sponsored by church people. In them, often in response to questions, she would tell of her admiration for Mother Teresa and then go on to explain that her research with the dying indicated there was no “judgmental” God. Without necessarily calling into question her early research with the dying, I think it is fair to say that, over a period of time, her work tended to lead people away from orthodox Christian faith. She later acknowledged explicitly doing so.388

In 1979, the depth of Kübler-Ross’s bondage to “spirits” became public when she declared herself to be an “immortal visionary and modern cartographer of the River Styx,” and defended her deep involvement with a spiritualist group called the Church of the Facet of Divinity. A regular feature of this group’s sessions was the invocation of spirits, who then were said to materialize and “minister” to the participants’ various problems. (These spirits were sometimes purported to give back rubs.) Kübler-Ross bought land near this spiritualist center, naming it Shanti Nilaya (Sanskrit for “final home of peace”) and made it a center for workshops on death and dying. In subsequent appearances and interviews, Kübler-Ross openly admitted that she’d had contact with “spirit guides” for nine years and that they told her that there is no such thing as damnation, judgment, or hell.389

At a certain point, she professed disillusionment about her heavy dependence on a particular psychic, but her non-Christian occult views remained unchanged:

There is no such thing as good or bad. If we don’t learn what we’re supposed to in this life, we’ll learn it in another.390

Participants at seminars run by Kübler-Ross often described her as “peaceful,” “gentle,” “wise,” “like an angel.” This can serve as a reminder, once again, that sometimes theories which most deeply undermine Christian truth are attractive and presented by spokes-persons who appear to be “angels of light.” The most diabolical and murderous “wisdom” can appear “life-enhancing” and “liberating.” We need to be alert enough today to recognize the spiritual forces at work in certain contemporary theories, spokesmen, and movements. We need to ponder God’s Word of warning about angels of light and be firmly rooted in the objective truth of his Word:

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:8) For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Cor 11:14)

To be successful, deception must deceive. It must include much truth, and it must appeal to what appears noble, positive, creative, and just. Chamberlain intertwined with his demon-inspired racial theories many references to Christ and Christianity.

Kübler-Ross’s gentleness, peacefulness, “respect for religion,” and admiration for Mother Teresa put her in an excellent position to lead people to doubt or to be silent about important aspects of God’s Word to us. Someone’s immense erudition can so impress us that we unconsciously completely surrender to their views, including deception smuggled in among many good things:

Now the Sprit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretension of liars. (1 Tim 4:1–2)

It is not uncommon that a polite, reasonable desire to “purify” Christianity of its belief in the reality of the devil goes along with doing the devil’s work.

Martin, Ralph. A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward (pp. 299-301). Emmaus Road Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Also, in this interview with SFGate in 1996, she is old, alone (her husband divorced her in 1976) and bitter about life.

“My only regret is that for 40 years I spoke of a good God who helps people, who knows what you need and how all you have to do is ask for it. Well, that's baloney,” she told the reporter. “I want to tell the world that it's a bunch of bull. Don't believe a word of it.”

Notes

388 Kübler-Ross now admits to having contact with “spiritual guides” as early as a few years after the publication of On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families (New York: Macmillan, 1969), and claims now never to have believed orthodox Christian doctrine on the reality of sin, the need for redemption, and the reality of judgment, eternal reward, and punishment. The first published statements in this direction appeared in connection with her introduction to Raymond Moody’s book, Life After Life (Covington, GA: Mockingbird Books, 1975), and in comments in her book Death: the Final Stages of Growth (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1975). In informal remarks in lectures, she was more open about her occult involvement. See the review of her work up until 1977 in Spiritual Counterfeits Project Journal (April 1977): 7–8. An article in Time (European ed., November 12, 1979, 55) brought the whole situation to public notice from the point of view of some of her collaborators, and she subsequently was even more open in public lectures about her views on spirituality and reincarnation (Orlando Sentinel-Star [February 19, 1981], B16), and spoke quite openly about her occult involvement for formal publication in her 1981 interview for Playboy (May 1981, 69–106). The Spiritual Counterfeits Project article gives a good analysis of the whole “thanatology” movement and its threads to Christian truth and life. See also Tal Brooke, The Other Side of Death: Does Death Seal Your Destiny? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1979) for one Christian analysis of the death studies movement.

389 See Marcia Seligson, “Interview with Elizabeth Kübler-Ross,” Playboy, May 1981, 94.

390 Quoted in Joan Saunders Wixon, “Explaining Death, After Death and the Living,” Ann Arbor News, September 4, 1981.

391 Angela Howard and Sasha Renaé, eds., Reaction to the Modern Women’s Movement, 1963 to the Present (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997), 153.

Martin, Ralph. A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward (pp. 535-539). Emmaus Road Publishing. Kindle Edition.

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