Facing Death (with Sebastian Junger)
5/25/20261 hr 7 min
What does a lifelong atheist do when his dead father appears above him in the emergency room? Author and war reporter Sebastian Junger nearly bled to death in 2020 from a ruptured aneurysm, and what he saw in those moments sent him on a journey into physics, near-death experiences, and the nature of consciousness itself. In his third appearance on EconTalk, Junger discusses his remarkable book In My Time of Dying with host Russ Roberts. He reflects on covering wars from Sarajevo to Afghanistan, the strange phenomenon of dying people seeing the dead, and why he's still an atheist. Along the way, Junger offers a powerful meditation on terror and reverence, blessing and wounding, and why understanding life's fragility might be the most sacred gift of all.
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First 90 secondsRuss Roberts· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to EconTalk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links to other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to two thousand and six. Our email address is mail@econtalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. [upbeat music] Today is March twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-six, and my guest is author Sebastian Junger. This is his third appearance on EconTalk. He was last here in June of twenty twenty-one talking about his book, Freedom. Before that, in twenty eighteen, we talked about his book, Tribe. I loved both those books. Our topic for today and his latest book is In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. And I wanna say before we start that I like this book even more than the other two, which is saying something. Listeners, please go buy it, read it. Uh, it's, it's beautifully written, and it makes you think. Uh, I read it in two sittings. It's quite short. It's about a hundred and thirty-eight pages of text on my Kindle, but, uh, I wish it went on forever. It's that good. Sebastian, let's start with a little about yourself. Um, I think if I was ever in physical danger, either from the natural world