The Natural Death Handbook - contents

• Chapter 1: The Natural Death Movement
  
  • The idea that launched the Natural Death Centre
    
  • The cult of youth-at-all-costs
    
  • The medicalisation of society
    
  • Neighbours no longer share the loss
    
  • Natural childbirth leads to natural death
    
  • Death as a goal in old age
    
  • 'Begin the preparation for your death'
    
  • Death as graduation
    
  • American perspective
    

• Chapter 2: Brave and 'conscious' deaths
  
• Ancient Models
  
  • Death of Zen master Taji
    
  • Death of the Buddha
    
  • Amr Ibn Al-As
    
  • Himalayan yogis
    
  • Sun Bear on the Native American way of dying
    
  • Death of St Francis
    
  • Death of Socrates
    
• The seamless death
  
  • Death of George Washington
    
  • Death of Thomas Jefferson
    
  • Death of Scottish philosopher David Hume
    
  • Johnson
    
  • Keats
    
  • Thoreau
    
  • Death of Osceola, an American Indian, by Whitman
    
  • Armstrong - a struggle for death with dignity
    
• Modern and natural
  
  • Hypnotic suggestions and the death of Maria Huxley
    
  • Aldous Huxley death and awareness
    
  • Nearing - 'death like a leaf falling from a tree'
    
  • Einstein refusing surgery
    
  • Death of Swami Vivekananda
    
  • Old man dying at a Dalai Lama talk
    
  • Death former abbot of Dalai Lama monastery
    
  • Twitchell and the art of consciousness withdrawal
    
  • Death of Graham, 'who organised his death at home'
    
  • Joyce, a nurse, in hospital
    
  • A good hospital death
    
  • Sophie in a hospice
    
  • Mrs Thayler and the 'labour pains' of dying
    
  • Old Sarah in the Arctic - and her sense of timing
    
  • Lee - 'dolphin therapy' for a dying 15-year-old
    
• Remarkable models
  
  • Walker - a gentle death by fasting
    
  • Melnyk at home
    

• Chapter 3: Near-Death Experiences
  
• Accounts from past centuries
  
  • An eighth century account
    
  • Pleasure in letting go
    
  • Review of life during fall
    
  • A fall in the mountains
    
• NDE investigators
  
  • The 'typical' NDE
    
  • 35,540 death-bed observations
    
• Varieties of NDE
  
  • The Japanese find death a depressing experience
    
  • Hanging on, in agony, to life
    
• From negative to positive
  
  • Confronting symbolic death
    
  • From terror to fearlessness
    
• The after-effects of NDEs
  
  • Kübler-Ross visited by a dead patient
    
  • Letting the universe take charge
    
  • God is about joy
    
  • NDE after a suicide attempt
    
  • Accepting others and showing feelings
    
  • Insight into others
    
• Mysticism and the NDE
  
  • The necessity of ego death
    
  • Die to live in God
    
  • All creatures one in essence
    
  • Characteristics of a mystical experience
    
  • Zen meditation banishing fear of death
    
• Children's NDEs
  
  • A nine-year-old tours heaven
    
  • Out of the body experience of an 11-year-old
    
• The sceptic's view of the NDE
  
  • The brain a transmitter of consciousness not its source
    
  • The reluctant mystic - an NDE that didn't go away
    

• Chapter 4: Training for Dying
  
  • Fear of living
    
• Courses and workshops
  
  • Open University - Death and Dying
    
  • Death and Immortality Course
    
  • Living with Dying
    
• Anxiety dying
  
  • Death-Related Anxiety Scale
    
  • Da Free John
    
  • Birth, love, courage and death
    
  • Death without fear or pain
    
• Death Weeks
  
• 'Rehearsing death'
  
  • D-i-y obituary
    
  • Meditating on dying
    
  • Shining true being
    
  • Visualising death
    
  • The death bed imagined
    
  • Life is precious for the 'already-dead'
    
• Death in Mexico
  
  • Death as a favourite plaything
    
  • Day of the Dead
    
• Making your will
  
  • Will for a married man and two children
    
  • Pitfalls of d-i-y wills
    
  • Enduring Power of Attorney
    
• A pre-death information dossier
  
  • Registering a death - details needed
    
• Simplifying your affairs before death
  
• Living Wills
  
  • Living Wills
    
  • Living Will (The Natural Death Centre's adaptation)
    
  • Natural Death Instructions
    
• Choosing the attitude
  
  • Choice of attidude - the ultimate freedom
    
  • A death plan
    
• Dying wishes
  
  • Imaginative send-offs
    
  • Taping my own funeral
    
  • Rehearsing last goodbyes
    
• 'I didn't know what to say . . . '
  
• Our wider community
  

• Chapter 5: Practical Care for the Dying
  
• Facts and figures
  
• Hospital attitudes
  
  • Television in hospital
    
  • A dying nurse
    
  • Doctors withdrawing from the dying
    
  • Orderly death
    
  • Nurses too busy
    
  • Dedication despite distractions
    
• Hospice facilities
  
• Dying at home - the legal situation
  
  • Very elderly patients facing major operations
    
• Making the decision
  
  • Mother Teresa on being 'wanted'
    
  • Easier to adjust at home
    
  • Sharing the bed at home
    
  • Dying amidst familiar chaos
    
• Support structures and outside help
  
  • Checklist of possible assistance locally
    
  • We need the dying in our neighbourhoods and lives
    
  • Guilt feelings in children
    
  • Comfort for the dying from a dog
    
• Carer's needs
  
  • Carer's resentment...
    
  • ...and anger
    
  • My source of stress is...
    
  • Enjoy yourself
    
• Preparation and equipment
  
  • A bed downstairs?
    
  • Practical equipment list
    
• Bed and bedding
  
  • A hospital bed
    
  • Bedding and comfort
    
• Moving
  
  • Turning in bed
    
  • Sitting upright
    
  • Moving to a chair or commode
    
  • Changing sheets with the person in bed
    
• Accidents
  
• Eating
  
• IVs and dehydration
  
• Washing and hygiene
  
  • Bathing
    
  • Mouth care
    
  • Hair care
    
• Bedsores and skincare
  
• Bowel management
  
  • Constipation
    
  • Incontinence
    
• Insomnia
  
• Depression/anxiety
  
• Relaxation
  
• Massage
  
  • Scalp massage
    
• Contact
  
• Pain management
  
  • Guided pain meditation:
    
• Music
  
  • Musical midwifery for the dying
    
• Arts
  
  • Hospice Arts
    
  • Memory Boxes
    

• Chapter 6: Green, Cheap & 'D-i-y' Funerals
  
  • Personal involvement in funerals
    
  • The recycled coffin
    
  • Which is Greener, burial or cremation?
    
  • Undertaken with Love
    
  • Composting bodies
    
• Keeping the body at home
  
  • Keeping the body cool
    
  • Why keep the body at home?
    
  • The need to hold one's dead child
    
  • Seeing and touching the body
    
  • Fear of being buried alive
    
• Laying out the body
  
• Forms and procedures
  
  • Going to the Registry Office
    
  • Moving the body
    
• Burial on private land
  
  • Mary Jane's funeral
    
  • Fruit tree planted over body
    
  • Planning permission for private burial?
    
  • Requirements for burial on private land
    
• Burial grounds as nature reserves
  
  • Memorial groves
    
  • Green, no-frills burial ground
    
  • Carlisle woodland burial
    
  • Burial ground as nature reserve
    
• Making the coffin
  
  • Jed Kesey's funeral
    
  • The Huelin d-i-y coffins
    
  • A simple burial box
    
  • A birch coffin
    
  • Re-usable coffin design
    
  • Coffins for cremation - avoiding pollution
    
  • Instructions from the Federation of British Cremation Authorities
    
  • In memory of Dorothy Miller - a simple funeral
    
  • Dorothy Miller's coffin
    
• Burial at sea
  
• Non-assembly line funerals
  
  • A grave lines with moss and leaves like a bird's nest
    
  • Letting off helium balloons at the graveside
    
  • Cortège in 250 mile pub crawl
    
  • The funeral of King Charles I
    
  • The Hindu rites of death
    
  • A pagan death
    
• Public memorial
  
  • A table of objects to commemorate the person
    
  • Memorials by Artists
    
  • Alternative urns
    
• Probate
  

• Chapter 7: The Good Funeral Guide
  
• Natural Death Handbook Awards
  
• Good undertakers
  
  • A funeral director helping with his father's funeral
    
• Good coffins
  
  • A cardboard self-assembly coffin
    
  • Cardboard coffin with disposable outer core
    
  • Coffins from recycled newspapers
    
  • Cheapest coffins in the UK
    
  • Coffin makers
    
• Transport
  
• Cold storage
  
• Embalming
  
• Complete services
  
  • A very independent funeral director
    
  • Cheap funerals for council residents
    
  • Memorial Societies
    
  • Free funerals
    
  • Donating the body
    
  • Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise
    
  • Pre-paid funerals
    
• Crematoria
  
• Cemeteries
  
• Good Funeral Guide Regional Listings
  
• The North West
  
• The North East
  
• Wales
  
• West Midlands
  
• East Midlands
  
• East Anglia
  
• The South West
  
• The South
  
• London region
  
• Scotland
  
• Additional update information (July 19th 1995)
  
• Inexpensive, Green, 'd-i-y' funerals
  

• Chapter 8: 'Improving' Grieving
  
  • Debilitating grief
    
  • Picking up the threads
    
  • How long till grief is 'overcome'?
    
  • A tentative 'map' of grieving
    
• Suicide
  
  • Feeling responsible for a suicide
    
• The bereaved parent
  
  • The loss of a stillborn child
    
  • Befriending
    
• A child's understanding of death
  
  • Coming to terms with a mother's death
    
  • 'Remembering Mum' book
    
• Private grief
  
  • Listen and be compassionate
    
• Consolations
  
  • Keening
    
  • Help from the spirit world?
    
  • Living in God
    
  • Fierce journey towards freedom
    

• Chapter 9: A Manifesto for the Dying
  
  • Rights of the Person Dying at Home
    
• Policy changes needed
  
  • Education
    
  • National Health Service and the community
    
  • Spirituality
    
  • Hospital
    
  • Euthanasia and suicide
    
  • Funerals
    

• Chapter 10: Useful Resources
  
• Booklist
  
• Tapes and videos
  
• Useful organisations and individuals
  

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