{"id":76400,"date":"2018-10-24T09:24:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T07:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/psykologiens-indiana-jones\/"},"modified":"2018-10-29T12:17:32","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T11:17:32","slug":"psykologiens-indiana-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/psykologiens-indiana-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"The Indiana Jones of psychology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over his 40 year university career, professor emeritus of psychology Peter Elsass has found himself in countless life-threatening situations. To an outsider, it would almost seem like he is drawn towards danger.<\/p>\n

One of his closest brushes with death came when visiting\u00a0Jonestown<\/a> in 1978. Located in the small country of Guyana, the makeshift town deep in the jungle was where American cult leader Jim Jones founded and isolated his religious cult People\u2019s Temple.<\/p>\n

\n

PETER ELSASS<\/p>\n

Born 1947.<\/p>\n

Professor of health Psychology, University of Aarhus\u00a01988-96.<\/p>\n

Professor emeritus of Clinical Psychology, University of Copenhagen<\/strong>\u00a0since 1996.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI went because I have a strong interest in people who isolate themselves. When I was there, I saw things I should not have seen \u2013 including people in camps, not unlike concentration camps. I was shown specific areas by the leader Jim Jones, but there were also some places where people were not at all thriving,\u201d says Elsass, who came close to extending his time in the camp.<\/p>\n

Ten days after his visit, the 918 cult members committed collective suicide. The story is known as the largest mass suicide in modern history and made headlines around the world.<\/p>\n

I had a period of my life where I couldn\u2019t feel fear. I don\u2019t know where it comes from but I was certainly the kind of young bloke that dreamed of exploring the world<\/p>\n

Peter Elsass, professsor emeritus of psychology<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt was a frightening experience and I overcame the trauma by refusing to talk about it for many years. It was so monstrous and terrifying, what happened – and I had just visited the camp shortly before. But then I got in touch with Rikke Wettendorff who was making a radio program about the massacre. She had the original sound files from the camp, where I gave a speech for the cult members before I left. Then recently, I heard it again. I talk about how if you isolated yourself too much from the surrounding world you can end up part of a conspiracy. And that is precisely what happened,\u201d says Elsass.<\/p>\n

Although the professor was shaken by the visit to the camp and the massacre ten days later, the experience did not make him afraid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a period of my life where I couldn\u2019t feel fear. I don\u2019t know where it comes from but I was certainly the kind of young bloke that dreamed of exploring the world. Of course I have fear, because if you don\u2019t have fear you are a psychopath,\u201d says Elsass.<\/p>\n

Understanding fear<\/h3>\n

71-year-old Elsass has been employed at the University of Copenhagen since 1996 when he became a professor in clinical psychology. He has travelled widely as part of his research, and has visited indigenous communities in the jungles of Colombia, lived in a Northern Indian cave while studying solitude and researched how Tibetan survivors of torture bore their trauma after time in Chinese prisons. In 1992, Elsass was also detained by the FARC guerrilla group in Colombia.<\/p>\n

The vast travels have led to Elsass\u2019 nickname as \u201cThe Indiana Jones of Psychology.\u201d However, the experiences in Jonestown made other lifelong impacts on the professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am allergic to single-minded religious leaders within both Scientology and Islam. I cannot stand them. I have seen what it can lead to when you isolate people and religion becomes a fixed ideology,\u201d he says.
\n
\nThe dangerous situations faced by the professor inspired him the write his latest book,\u00a0Kunsten at v\u00e6re bange<\/a>\u00a0(The art of being afraid),<\/p>\n

where he investigates different types of fear – from the fear of terror, war and catastrophes to the fear of stress, serious illness and death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote the book because I wanted to understand my own fear \u00a0\u2013 or lack of it \u2013 a little better. I have always had a problematic relationship with fear. While angst is something internal, fear is characterized as prompted by external reasons,\u201d says Elsass. He adds that we can learn something from fear because it functions as a kind of alarm when danger presents itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why people talk about seeing \u2018fear in the eyes.\u2019 Fear ensures that we react if we experience danger \u2013 for example when a car drives towards us at high speed or if we receive a cancer diagnosis. But it is important to separate rational fear from the irrational, for example the heightened fear around terrorism versus dying in a traffic accident when the latter has a higher risk. But the media is preoccupied with terrorism which can strengthen the fear of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the process of writing the book, Elsass became depressed by his research into terrorism, cancer and accidents. But then he had an idea: to include a series of heroes within the book\u2019s diverse themes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeros are people who act without thinking about the risk to themselves. For example, in the book I pay tribute to Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who developed logotherapy. The premise of the latter is that people can overcome severe trauma,such as imprisonment in concentration camps, by finding meaning in life. Authors Susan Sontag and Barbara Ehrenreich are also heroes, because they helped give us a new language to talk about cancer.
\n<\/p>\n

White sneakers<\/h3>\n

In his research Elsass has often drawn on methods and theories from anthropology, philosophy, health sciences and history and he has written several books, including about Indigenous Peoples, health psychology and torture survival. However, the common thread across his academic career is travels and ties with people around the world \u2013 from Buddhist monks to Tibetan torture survivors and Colombia\u2019s Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pivot point in my life has been relationships. I have close partnerships in Colombia, Northern India and Tibet. I have also had a somewhat ambivalent relationship with psychology even though I am a professor of it. I have had to step away from the office and out into the world in order to be able to write about psychology,\u201d explains Elsass.<\/p>\n

Throughout his career, Elsass has worked with The Arhuaco in Colombia. He visited the Indigenous tribes in the 1970s for the first time and has returned to their isolated villages more than 15 times. In the 1980s, he made several films about the Arhuaco, including \u201cJorden er vores mor\u201d (the Earth is our mother). Besides personal friendships, his work with the Arhuaco has given him a new perspective across many aspects of life. For example, when he got divorced and realised the Arhuaco tribe had no word for the concept.
\n
\n\u201cThey had previously met my girlfriend and so they asked after her. I answered that we no longer lived together. They didn\u2019t really understand. In their culture, people remain together for their entire lives. Later, they asked a Colombian case worker that I worked with, Gullermo, about his wife. He said that they were no longer together. Then the tribe gathered together and I could understand that they said \u201cOkay, we don\u2019t understand this. Let\u2019s talk about something else.\u201d But the day after, one of the young people from the tribe asked me whether Guillermo and I now lived together. They simply could not understand that people end relationships and live alone,\u201d says Elsass, laughing.<\/p>\n

Among the Arhuaco he became known as the man with the white sneakers, because his luggage was stolen one trip and he had to buy white sneakers. The tribe doubled over with laughter at the sight of the Danish man who moved around the jungle in size 45 white sneakers.<\/p>\n

White sneakers also came to mean something else to the professor many years later. In 1999, Elsass was sent out to Pristina in Kosovo. He visited a cellar where 20 Kosovo Albanians had been executed shortly beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could still smell the stench of death, which was pungent and sour. And I saw that over in the corner there was a pair of bloody, torn-off feet in a pair of white sneakers which looked like the ones I had walked around in. I completely broke down. I have experienced many crazy things, but that sight went straight to the heart. That was where I finally learned fear and confronted my own mortality.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

Life-threatening bacteria<\/h3>\n

Elsass came close to death himself four years ago. The professor was on the way to a meeting when he suddenly found himself with breathing problems. He turned his bicycle around and cycled directly to the emergency room where he was immediately put on a respirator. It transpired that he had been infected with a rare life-threatening bacteria. The professor was in a coma for a month, undergoing three operations. At several points his condition was so critical that he was about to die.<\/p>\n

Death is all too often described in this saccharine way as something sad and unhappy. But my time in intensive care showed me that it is also so much else<\/p>\n

Peter Elsass<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

During the process Elsass experienced psychosis – possibly due to the trauma, or the morphine. He talks about hallucinations and a near-death experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was about to die, my consciousness became completely united with the universe. Death is all too often described in this saccharine way as something sad and unhappy. But my time in intensive care showed me that it is also so much else,\u201d says Elsass.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lying in my hospital bed, and suddenly there\u2019s a little display cabinet at the foot of my bed with Jesus in it. The music is beautiful. And then I take a piece of firewood from the headboard and hurl it towards the display cabinet, which breaks with a huge bang. Suddenly there is the most wonderful silence and then I see a blue heart. The blue heart sits here on my right shoulder. And it has been there ever since,\u201d says Elsass, pointing to a place on the body where the invisible heart rests.<\/p>\n

This powerful experience prompted him to quit his academic role, so that he is now professor emeritus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not a particularly spiritual person but the experience made a huge impression on me. It was a truly beautiful experience. And I felt in some way, that I had been rescued and born again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were you afraid?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo. If that is what it is like to die, then I do not fear death. On one of my travels through Tibet I heard about an older Tibetan lama who was close to death. In his last few hours he was surrounded by a group of lamas who sat and watched over him in mourning, sighing and crying. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at them saying \u201cWhy are you so sad? There is no reason to be sad that I will die. Death is truly interesting. One of the most fantastic things I have experienced. You can cheer up.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Billedet her er fra en artikel bragt i Uniavisen i 2018.","name":"daniel_hjorth_uniavisen_peter_elsass_web_003","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":75579,"date":"2018-10-04 18:05:34","modified":"2022-10-10 08:40:44","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1063,"height":765,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-480x345.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":345,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-768x553.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":553,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003.jpg","large-width":1063,"large-height":765,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003.jpg","1536x1536-width":1063,"1536x1536-height":765,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003.jpg","2048x2048-width":1063,"2048x2048-height":765,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-290x209.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":209,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-700x504.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":504,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003-990x712.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":712}},"style":"full","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"Globetrotter","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"Peter Elsass has lived with Indigenous communities in Colombia, Tibetan monks in Northern India and in 1978 visited Jonestown in Guyana shortly before the infamous massacre."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"Portrait","text":"Peter Elsass has lived with indigenous tribes in Colombia, visited Jonestown shortly before the notorious 1978 massacre and has been held hostage by FARC. For many years, he couldn\u2019t feel fear. Now, the 71-year-old professor emeritus of psychology has released a book about fear and what we can learn from it.\r\n","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>Over his 40 year university career, professor emeritus of psychology Peter Elsass has found himself in countless life-threatening situations. To an outsider, it would almost seem like he is drawn towards danger.<\/p>\n<p>One of his closest brushes with death came when visiting\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jonestown\">Jonestown<\/a> in 1978. Located in the small country of Guyana, the makeshift town deep in the jungle was where American cult leader Jim Jones founded and isolated his religious cult People\u2019s Temple.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">PETER ELSASS<\/p>\n<p>Born 1947.<\/p>\n<p>Professor of health Psychology, University of Aarhus\u00a01988-96.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Professor emeritus of Clinical Psychology, University of Copenhagen<\/strong>\u00a0since 1996.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI went because I have a strong interest in people who isolate themselves. When I was there, I saw things I should not have seen \u2013 including people in camps, not unlike concentration camps. I was shown specific areas by the leader Jim Jones, but there were also some places where people were not at all thriving,\u201d says Elsass, who came close to extending his time in the camp.<\/p>\n<p>Ten days after his visit, the 918 cult members committed collective suicide. The story is known as the largest mass suicide in modern history and made headlines around the world.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I had a period of my life where I couldn\u2019t feel fear. I don\u2019t know where it comes from but I was certainly the kind of young bloke that dreamed of exploring the world<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Peter Elsass, professsor emeritus of psychology<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt was a frightening experience and I overcame the trauma by refusing to talk about it for many years. It was so monstrous and terrifying, what happened – and I had just visited the camp shortly before. But then I got in touch with Rikke Wettendorff who was making a radio program about the massacre. She had the original sound files from the camp, where I gave a speech for the cult members before I left. Then recently, I heard it again. I talk about how if you isolated yourself too much from the surrounding world you can end up part of a conspiracy. And that is precisely what happened,\u201d says Elsass.<\/p>\n<p>Although the professor was shaken by the visit to the camp and the massacre ten days later, the experience did not make him afraid.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had a period of my life where I couldn\u2019t feel fear. I don\u2019t know where it comes from but I was certainly the kind of young bloke that dreamed of exploring the world. Of course I have fear, because if you don\u2019t have fear you are a psychopath,\u201d says Elsass.<\/p>\n<h3>Understanding fear<\/h3>\n<p>71-year-old Elsass has been employed at the University of Copenhagen since 1996 when he became a professor in clinical psychology. He has travelled widely as part of his research, and has visited indigenous communities in the jungles of Colombia, lived in a Northern Indian cave while studying solitude and researched how Tibetan survivors of torture bore their trauma after time in Chinese prisons. In 1992, Elsass was also detained by the FARC guerrilla group in Colombia.<\/p>\n<p>The vast travels have led to Elsass\u2019 nickname as \u201cThe Indiana Jones of Psychology.\u201d However, the experiences in Jonestown made other lifelong impacts on the professor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am allergic to single-minded religious leaders within both Scientology and Islam. I cannot stand them. I have seen what it can lead to when you isolate people and religion becomes a fixed ideology,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":"I wrote the book because I wanted to understand my own fear \u2013 or lack of it \u2013 a little better. I have always had a problematic relationship with fear","quotee":"Peter Elsass, professsor emeritus of psychology","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>The dangerous situations faced by the professor inspired him the write his latest book,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gyldendal.dk\/produkter\/peter-elsass\/kunsten-at-v%C3%A6re-bange-45640\/indbundet-9788702236651\">Kunsten at v\u00e6re bange<\/a>\u00a0(The art of being afraid),<\/p>\n<p>where he investigates different types of fear – from the fear of terror, war and catastrophes to the fear of stress, serious illness and death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wrote the book because I wanted to understand my own fear \u00a0\u2013 or lack of it \u2013 a little better. I have always had a problematic relationship with fear. While angst is something internal, fear is characterized as prompted by external reasons,\u201d says Elsass. He adds that we can learn something from fear because it functions as a kind of alarm when danger presents itself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is why people talk about seeing \u2018fear in the eyes.\u2019 Fear ensures that we react if we experience danger \u2013 for example when a car drives towards us at high speed or if we receive a cancer diagnosis. But it is important to separate rational fear from the irrational, for example the heightened fear around terrorism versus dying in a traffic accident when the latter has a higher risk. But the media is preoccupied with terrorism which can strengthen the fear of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the process of writing the book, Elsass became depressed by his research into terrorism, cancer and accidents. But then he had an idea: to include a series of heroes within the book\u2019s diverse themes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHeros are people who act without thinking about the risk to themselves. For example, in the book I pay tribute to Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who developed logotherapy. The premise of the latter is that people can overcome severe trauma,such as imprisonment in concentration camps, by finding meaning in life. Authors Susan Sontag and Barbara Ehrenreich are also heroes, because they helped give us a new language to talk about cancer.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"MultiImage","images":[{"image":{"ID":75634,"id":75634,"title":"Daniel_Hjorth_Uniavisen_Peter_Elsass_Web_001","filename":"danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb001.jpg","filesize":210040,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb001.jpg","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/psykologiens-indiana-jones\/daniel_hjorth_uniavisen_peter_elsass_web_001\/","alt":"Peter Elsass bor i en stor herskabslejlighed p\u00e5 \u00d8sterbro omgivet af sydamerikansk kunst, mellemamerikanske masker og ikke mindst masser af bogreoler.","author":"33","description":"Peter Elsass bor i en stor herskabslejlighed p\u00e5 \u00d8sterbro omgivet af sydamerikansk kunst, mellemamerikanske masker og ikke mindst masser af bogreoler. ","caption":"Peter Elsass bor i en stor herskabslejlighed p\u00e5 \u00d8sterbro omgivet af sydamerikansk kunst, mellemamerikanske masker og ikke mindst masser af bogreoler. 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However, the common thread across his academic career is travels and ties with people around the world \u2013 from Buddhist monks to Tibetan torture survivors and Colombia\u2019s Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pivot point in my life has been relationships. I have close partnerships in Colombia, Northern India and Tibet. I have also had a somewhat ambivalent relationship with psychology even though I am a professor of it. I have had to step away from the office and out into the world in order to be able to write about psychology,\u201d explains Elsass.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout his career, Elsass has worked with The Arhuaco in Colombia. He visited the Indigenous tribes in the 1970s for the first time and has returned to their isolated villages more than 15 times. In the 1980s, he made several films about the Arhuaco, including \u201cJorden er vores mor\u201d (the Earth is our mother). Besides personal friendships, his work with the Arhuaco has given him a new perspective across many aspects of life. For example, when he got divorced and realised the Arhuaco tribe had no word for the concept.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":"I have had to step away from the office and out into the world in order to be able to write about psychology","quotee":"Peter Elsass, professsor emeritus of psychology","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>\u201cThey had previously met my girlfriend and so they asked after her. I answered that we no longer lived together. They didn\u2019t really understand. In their culture, people remain together for their entire lives. Later, they asked a Colombian case worker that I worked with, Gullermo, about his wife. He said that they were no longer together. Then the tribe gathered together and I could understand that they said \u201cOkay, we don\u2019t understand this. Let\u2019s talk about something else.\u201d But the day after, one of the young people from the tribe asked me whether Guillermo and I now lived together. They simply could not understand that people end relationships and live alone,\u201d says Elsass, laughing.<\/p>\n<p>Among the Arhuaco he became known as the man with the white sneakers, because his luggage was stolen one trip and he had to buy white sneakers. The tribe doubled over with laughter at the sight of the Danish man who moved around the jungle in size 45 white sneakers.<\/p>\n<p>White sneakers also came to mean something else to the professor many years later. In 1999, Elsass was sent out to Pristina in Kosovo. He visited a cellar where 20 Kosovo Albanians had been executed shortly beforehand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could still smell the stench of death, which was pungent and sour. And I saw that over in the corner there was a pair of bloody, torn-off feet in a pair of white sneakers which looked like the ones I had walked around in. I completely broke down. I have experienced many crazy things, but that sight went straight to the heart. That was where I finally learned fear and confronted my own mortality.\u201d<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":75645,"id":75645,"title":"Daniel_Hjorth_Uniavisen_Peter_Elsass_Web_002","filename":"danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002.jpg","filesize":113887,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002.jpg","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/psykologiens-indiana-jones\/daniel_hjorth_uniavisen_peter_elsass_web_002\/","alt":"Peter Elsass i sit hjem p\u00e5 \u00d8sterbro.","author":"33","description":"Peter Elsass i sit hjem p\u00e5 \u00d8sterbro. ","caption":"Peter Elsass i sit hjem p\u00e5 \u00d8sterbro. ","name":"daniel_hjorth_uniavisen_peter_elsass_web_002","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":75579,"date":"2018-10-05 08:41:16","modified":"2018-10-05 08:41:44","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1024,"height":682,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-480x320.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":682,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002.jpg","1536x1536-width":1024,"1536x1536-height":682,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002.jpg","2048x2048-width":1024,"2048x2048-height":682,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-290x193.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-700x466.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":466,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb002-990x659.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":659}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"Peter Elsass in his \u00d8sterbro home."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<h3>Life-threatening bacteria<\/h3>\n<p>Elsass came close to death himself four years ago. The professor was on the way to a meeting when he suddenly found himself with breathing problems. He turned his bicycle around and cycled directly to the emergency room where he was immediately put on a respirator. It transpired that he had been infected with a rare life-threatening bacteria. The professor was in a coma for a month, undergoing three operations. At several points his condition was so critical that he was about to die.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Death is all too often described in this saccharine way as something sad and unhappy. But my time in intensive care showed me that it is also so much else<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Peter Elsass<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>During the process Elsass experienced psychosis – possibly due to the trauma, or the morphine. He talks about hallucinations and a near-death experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was about to die, my consciousness became completely united with the universe. Death is all too often described in this saccharine way as something sad and unhappy. But my time in intensive care showed me that it is also so much else,\u201d says Elsass.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m lying in my hospital bed, and suddenly there\u2019s a little display cabinet at the foot of my bed with Jesus in it. The music is beautiful. And then I take a piece of firewood from the headboard and hurl it towards the display cabinet, which breaks with a huge bang. Suddenly there is the most wonderful silence and then I see a blue heart. The blue heart sits here on my right shoulder. And it has been there ever since,\u201d says Elsass, pointing to a place on the body where the invisible heart rests.<\/p>\n<p>This powerful experience prompted him to quit his academic role, so that he is now professor emeritus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not a particularly spiritual person but the experience made a huge impression on me. It was a truly beautiful experience. And I felt in some way, that I had been rescued and born again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Were you afraid?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. If that is what it is like to die, then I do not fear death. On one of my travels through Tibet I heard about an older Tibetan lama who was close to death. In his last few hours he was surrounded by a group of lamas who sat and watched over him in mourning, sighing and crying. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at them saying \u201cWhy are you so sad? There is no reason to be sad that I will die. Death is truly interesting. One of the most fantastic things I have experienced. You can cheer up.\u201d<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"Dansk","identifier":"Nyhedsbrev","headline":"Modtag et ugentligt nyhedsoverblik i din inbox","button_text":"Tilmeld nu","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":46,"name":"Science","slug":"science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":46,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":831,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":1516,"name":"Peter Elsass","slug":"peter-elsass-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1516,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1460,"name":"portr\u00e6t","slug":"portraet-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1460,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1306,"name":"Psykologi","slug":"psykologi-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1306,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":18,"name":"Feature Article","slug":"feature_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":1200,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danielhjorthuniavisenpeterelsassweb003.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76400"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76684,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76400\/revisions\/76684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}