''And When I Die, Will I Be Dead?'' is a 1981

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

radio documentary A radio documentary is a spoken word radio format devoted to non-fiction narrative. It is broadcast on radio as well as distributed through media such as tape, CD, and podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital ...

about death and dying that aired on the

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, produced by Mark Morgan and Carl Tyson-Hall.

Description

The program featured interviews with

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (July 8, 1926 – August 24, 2004) was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, author, and developer of the five stages of grief, also known as the "Kübler-Ross model". In 1970, Kübler-Ross deli ...

Ram Dass Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and writer. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been d ...

, columnist Jory Graham and Karl Kruszelnicki. Two Australians, Allan Lewis and Paul Swain, were also interviewed about their near-death experiences. Lewis had experienced three heart attacks in one day at the age of 14 as the result of a rare condition, and Swain had been electrocuted by a spotlight shortly before the opening of the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue Performing arts center, performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive b ...

. Both separately reported leaving their bodies, seeing a long, dark tunnel and meeting a presence they named " The Light". The program was unconventional in that it ran for close to two hours and featured 40 straight minutes of Lewis speaking, including elaborate details of the afterlife as he perceived it. After an eight-week production process and two weekends of mixing, and a last-minute argument about whether it should be broadcast at all, ''And When I Die, Will I Be Dead?'' first aired on

Triple J Triple J is an Australian government-funded national radio station founded in 1975 as a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It aims to appeal to young listeners of alternative music, and plays far more Australian conten ...

at 8pm on Wednesday 21 October 1981. After an overwhelmingly positive audience response, the program was repeated numerous times on ABC stations throughout Australia during the 1980s. The program also won a National Hi-Fi Award for Morgan and Tyson-Hall. In 1987, a book adaptation written by Bruce Elder was published by ABC Books.

References

{{reflist Books about death 1980s Australian radio programs