LETTERS
`The other side'
Sir: I was too ill to be aware of the reference to myself by my friend Peregrine Worsthorne (Diary, 16 July). It is only today that I was able to read what he wrote. I am gratified by his and your assumption that my welfare would be of interest to your readers, but I feel obliged to remark that he was mistaken on two points, at least one of which may be of great interest to them.
First, I think it extremely improbable that I corrected my youngest step-daughter about the duration of my death. Obviously this is not an event that I myself tried to time. I was informed by one of my doctors that it lasted for four minutes and I have had no reason to disbelieve him.
Secondly and more importantly, I do not have the gratification of knowing that I failed to find anything 'on the other side'. All that I do remember is having had a somewhat agonising but very astonishing experience. If I am right in believing that the brain continues to function when the heart has stopped, it does not very much matter whether I had the experience dur- ing or just after the period of my heart arrest. Nevertheless the experience was interesting in itself and, since I value truth more than consistency, I intend to write an account of it.
I intend also to include in my narrative a record of another remarkable experience which I am told I related to a friend a day or two after I returned to life. I have no recollection either of it or my first recorded utterance, an exclamation from which I can deduce nothing abut the state of mind which prompted it.
I am pleased, however, to be able to reassure Mr Worsthorne that I remain an atheist. It is possible but, since it is required not only that I be dead for good, which he can presumably count on, but also, what he cannot count on, that I obtain the evidence which will convince him that my opinions on this subject were false, it is not probable that I shall fairly soon discover whether any gods exist. In the unlikely event of my making such a discovery there is next to no chance that I shall be able to suply you with the scoop which my communicating it to you would put within your reach. I am sorry about that.
A.J. Ayer
51 York Street, London W1
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