{"id":113468,"date":"2025-10-31T19:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=113468"},"modified":"2025-10-31T19:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:43:13","slug":"on-the-way-to-its-actual-its-ancestral-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2025\/10\/on-the-way-to-its-actual-its-ancestral-home.html","title":{"rendered":"“On the way to its actual, its ancestral, home”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Yawning<\/a>
If you see this black yawning dog on Halloween, don\u2019t even bother trying to escape. You\u2019re doomed. And he\u2019s too smart for you, anyway. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Happy Halloween!<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

and<\/span><\/h1>\n

Happy Reformation Day!<\/span><\/h1>\n

Personally, I\u2019m hunkered down in terror. \u00a0I\u2019ve never seen such an onslaught of monsters, ghosts, and other horrors. \u00a0Fortunately, I\u2019ve been able to buy them off \u2014 thus far \u2014 with gifts of sweet things. \u00a0But what will happen if I run out of offerings?<\/p>\n

\"skdjflsjdflksdl00897t867uovoavhasvaa\"<\/a>
Oil painting of Hyrum Smith, Willard Richards, Joseph Smith, Orson Pratt, Parley Parker Pratt, Orson Hyde, Heber Chase Kimball, and Brigham Young. Cropped photo of painting by William Warner Major. \u00a0Created summer or fall of 1845. Original canvas at LDS Church<\/a> History Museum, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Newly posted today from Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>: \u00a0\u201c\u2018A Voice of Warning,'\u201d<\/a> written by Daniel C. Peterson<\/a><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> The Restoration of the Gospel began in an atmosphere of ardent and urgent expectations of the Second Coming of Christ. We are, after all, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>. Those expectations were shared far beyond the ranks of those who eventually joined the Church. But the early nineteenth-century men and women who did become Latter-day Saints were commanded that, having been warned, they should warn their neighbors. However, nearly two full centuries since the founding of the Church, and more than two centuries since Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision, the Lord\u2019s Second Advent has still not arrived. Does that mean that this isn\u2019t a time for warning? That the time to warn our neighbors hasn\u2019t yet come? No, not at all. We remain under the divinely given obligation to spread the word and, yes, to warn. And there are many ways to do so.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Life<\/a>
Jewish shops in Germany under Nazi rule. In each shop window the word \u201cJude\u201d (\u201cJew\u201d) has been painted, in order to warn potentialnon-Jews off.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article from National Review<\/em> provides a useful perspective on the former Tucker Carlson and his abominable new friend Nick Fuentes. \u00a0I hope that you can access it. \u00a0On the other hand, if you\u2019re an admirer of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Putin, don\u2019t bother trying. \u00a0You\u2019re already beyond redemption: \u00a0\u201cHeritage\u2019s Shaky Foundation\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Where<\/a>
An aerial view of the German university town of Freiburg im Breisgau (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

You may have noticed that I\u2019ve lately been reading about a curious phenomenon known in English as \u201cterminal lucidity.\u201d \u00a0First, I read Alexander Batthy\u00e1ny, Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border of Life and Death<\/em>. \u00a0Next, I read <\/span>Michael Nahm, Marjorie Woollacott, and Natasha Tassell-Matamua, eds., <\/span>On the Banks of the River Styx: New Perspectives on Terminal Lucidity and other Near-Death Phenomena<\/em>, which is partly on the same subject. \u00a0I\u2019ve now begun Michael Nahm,Wenn die Dunkelheit ein Ende findet: Terminale Geistesklarheit und andere ungew\u00f6hnliche Ph\u00e4nomene in Todesn\u00e4he <\/em>[\u201cWhen the Darkness Comes to an End: Terminal Lucidity and Other Uncommon Near-Death Phenomena\u201d]. \u00a0Dr. Nahm<\/a> \u2014 who seems, by the way, to have coined the descriptor terminal lucidity<\/em> [German: terminale Geistesklarheit<\/em>] \u2014 <\/span>is a biologist and a research associate at the Institut f\u00fcr Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene (the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health), in Freiburg, Germany.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found the book fascinating thus far. \u00a0And, so, I\u2019m going to share here a few passages (in my translations) that have struck me thus far during my reading in Wenn die Dunkelheit ein Ende findet. \u00a0<\/em>The first comes from one Oskar Bloch, a professor of surgery in Copenhagen, who wrote the following in 1909:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve long known that mentally ill persons [Geisteskranke<\/em>] can have periods in which they are completely healthy. . . \u00a0When such a mentally ill person dies during his clear period, he dies exactly like a mentally healthy person. \u00a0There\u2019s nothing special about this. \u00a0It is astonishing, though, when someone who has been mentally ill for years, sitting there unengaged, as if the world simply isn\u2019t present to him, who has lived more like an animal than like a human \u2014 who, in fact, with respect to intelligence, hasn\u2019t even stood so high as an animal \u2014 suddenly manifests signs of rationality, and this occurs shortly before he dies. \u00a0One is completely justified in being amazed. \u00a0<\/em>[Location 52 of 5438]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

To which Dr. Nahm appends the following comment:<\/p>\n

It is, moreover, worthy of mention how broad the spectrum of organic brain illnesses is wherein terminal lucidity seems to occur. \u00a0We find examples where the diagnosis has been meningitis [Hirnhautentz\u00fcndung<\/em>] and massive brain ulceration, abnormal filling of parts of the brain with watery or bloody fluid, strokes, brain disintegration from \u00a0tumors, in cases of dementia (such as Alzheimer\u2019s disease), but also in cases of psychic illnesses in which the organic structure of the brain remains practically unchanged (as, for example, with schizophrenia). \u00a0Still, the original spirit [Geist<\/em>] of the patient shines forth again in a largely comparable way shortly before his death.<\/p>\n

But how is it that even Alzheimer\u2019s patients who sometimes haven\u2019t recognized their nearest family or their caregivers for months or years are again able to do so shortly before their deaths? \u00a0That they can again recollect memories of their lives and understand the situation in which they find themselves? \u00a0We assume that the memories of people with such illness have been irretrievably erased by the destruction of the relevant portions of the brain. \u00a0Of course, the degree of confusion and recall capacity varies with dementia patients, but the degree to which this is the case precisely in the final moments of life is extremely baffling. \u00a0Are such experiences perhaps an unknown bodily panic reaction to the approaching end and, therefore, biochemically predicated? \u00a0Are the memories of demented persons perhaps not finally erased, but merely somehow hidden and inaccessible? \u00a0Or is it actually the case that the soul gains more mental clarity to the degree that it detaches itself from the material brain that hinders it? [Location 60 of 5438]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

The next passage draws on a report that was published in 1921:<\/p>\n

Under the pseudonym \u201cG. W. Surya,\u201d the engineer Demeter Georgiewitz-Weitzer reported an additional astonishing case, which unfortunately contains no precise diagnosis. \u00a0Nonetheless, the autopsy makes the presence of chronic meningitis [Hirnhautentz\u00fcndung<\/em>] very probable. \u00a0Georgiewitz-Weitzer wrote that a friend of his had a brother who had required institutionalization in an asylum for many years because of \u00a0complete mental derangement [v\u00f6lliger geistiger Umnachtung<\/em>]:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, he received a telegram from the director of the asylum informing him that the mentally ill man wanted to speak with him. \u00a0He headed out immediately and was utterly astonished to find his brother, all of a sudden, completely normal. \u00a0However, the director of the asylum told him \u2014 naturally in private, just between themselves \u2014 that this clear moment was an almost certain indicator of the imminent death of the sick man. \u00a0And, indeed, that\u2019s how it turned out. \u00a0Within just a short time, the sick man died. \u00a0The brother requested that he be permitted to be present at the autopsy and, exceptionally, this was allowed to him. \u00a0And when the the brain of the deceased was examined. it proved to be completely septic [or ulcerated: ganz vereitert<\/em>]. And the sepsis [or ulceration: Vereiterung<\/em>] was of long standing. \u00a0So how had this mentally ill man been able to think clearly again during the last days of his life? \u00a0<\/em>[Location 468 of 5438; italics in (German) original]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The last passage that I\u2019ll share comes at the conclusion of Dr. Nahm\u2019s \u201cEinleitung\u201d or \u201cIntroduction\u201d:<\/p>\n

The ancients [die Alten<\/em>] sometimes called terminal lucidity [terminale Geistesklarheit<\/em>] \u201cthe last flare-up of the soul\u201d [das letzte Aufflackern der Seele<\/em>]. \u00a0But perhaps it\u2019s something quite the opposite \u2014 the first<\/em> flare-up of its most unique [ureigensten<\/em>] capabilities, the first beat of its wing on the way to its actual, its ancestral, home. [Location 142 of 5438]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Happy Halloween! and Happy Reformation Day! Personally, I\u2019m hunkered down in terror. \u00a0I\u2019ve never seen such an onslaught of monsters, ghosts, and other horrors. \u00a0Fortunately, I\u2019ve been able to buy them off \u2014 thus far \u2014 with gifts of sweet things. \u00a0But what will happen if I run out of offerings? Newly posted today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":37222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39311,39314,1387,28346,22891,39317],"class_list":["post-113468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-voice-of-warning","tag-michael-nahm","tag-parley-pratt","tag-terminal-lucidity","tag-tucker-carlson","tag-wenn-die-dunkelheit-ein-ende-findet"],"yoast_head":"\n"On the way to its actual, its ancestral, home"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Happy Halloween! and Happy Reformation Day! 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