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The Current Transcript for June, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

What we have seen there is attacking people, protestors. Heavy use of live ammunition, use of tear gas, beating with sticks and with lashes.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Protesters for democratic change in Sudan are still reeling from a wave of violence earlier this week in Khartoum that saw people at a sit in gunned down by security forces. Those who got away are now afraid to venture out and they fear that even while Western nations ignore them, strongmen from countries in the region are offering support to those who would want to stop their push for reforms. It is a dilemma reverberating through a Sudanese diaspora here in Canada as well. And we'll hear the concerns in just a moment. Also today a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia has been the focus of big dreams and bigger disappointments for more than 200 years. They all think there is a pirate's treasure on Oak Island.

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This island catches people's imagination. There's been a lot of people that have lived their lives hoping for answers in their lifetime. And they never got it.

AMT: Someone built an elaborate system of flooding chambers that no one has been able to figure out in half an hour we're talking about the curse of Oak Island. We're also going to introduce you to an extraordinary man today, David Maginley. He's not even the guy most people want to meet at first.

SOUNDCLIP

The nurse will say to the patient do you want to see the chaplain because the chaplain for them often means religion, means death. My goodness their calling in the God guy, is it that serious.

AMT: Chaplain David Maginley has spent time sitting with hundreds of dying people. He says their peace of mind at such a crucial time all comes down to whether they have loved well and been well loved. David Maginley shares what the dying can teach the living in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Sudan

Guests: Hamid Murtada, Razan Abdelrazig, Eric Reeves

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Machine guns]

AMT: For months protesters have filled the streets of the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. They have been calling for democratic reform. In April they achieved a major goal toppling the brutal 30 year dictatorship of President Omar al-Bashir. But this week the revolution's fragile peace was shattered.

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[Sound: Gun shots and protestors crying]

AMT: Dozens of protesters were killed when armed forces stormed the long standing sit in camp and a local doctor's organization aligned with the protesters says another 40 bodies were pulled from the Nile River on Tuesday. The Central Committee of Sudanese doctors now puts the death toll at 108. The state news agency puts that figure at no more than 61. So now many of the protesters who occupied the camp are staying closer to home. Some fear the push for democratic rule will falter if the international community doesn't step up and step up soon. Hamid was at that Sudan where only using his first name, we are withholding his last name for his safety. And he is in Khartoum. Hello.

HAMID MURTADA: Hello Anna Maria. Thanks for having me.

AMT: What's the mood like in the city right now, Hamid?

HAMID MURTADA: It's very tense. Everyone is very scared and frightened and actually traumatized, after the terrible experience we had two days ago and they dispersed the citizens. And the following days were also as terrorizing because the militias, the Janjaweed militias, who are actually called the Rapid Support Forces are now in the street, are now in Khartoum and terrorizing people and committing all sorts of violations against people.

AMT: So what happened on Monday at that sit in?

HAMID MURTADA: At 5:00 a.m. in the morning the forces from the Rapid Support Forces came to the city from all sides. At least 200 pickups and trucks were counted. Thousand agents were around the city and from all sides. And then they started opening gunfire on the protesters directly. And many were shot on the spot at the moment. So people started jumping around trying to find safe places to hide. Some people managed to find a safe spot like myself and my sisters who were with me. We managed to find a safe office at the University of Khartoum which just on the corner of dissidents. And we were hiding there for about 10 hours.

AMT: Let me just understand. So you ran into the offices at the University other people did the same thing. What could you hear? Because they were going in. They were looking for you guys were they not?

HAMID MURTADA: Exactly. We actually went into our offices and then we saw that the windows actually would allow them to see us inside. So we went into another office. And as soon as we got to the other office we could hear them pouring in at the office we were in in the beginning, and they didn't find anyone. And we could hear them also finding people within some of the offices and arresting them, torturing them, beating them. We would hear them screaming. They tried to actually break into the office a couple of times but the resistance of the desks made them feel like the doors were actually locked. This is how we made it. Otherwise we would have been detained, tortured and beaten like other protesters who also could- they shave their heads, humiliate them. And many of the female protestors and male protestors as well.

AMT: You say that these security forces are part of the Janjaweed. That's the group linked to the conflict in Darfur is it not?

HAMID MURTADA: That is correct. So the Janjaweed were the older generation of the armed forces or militias that the previous regime used to kill people in Darfur. And this Rapid Support Forces were formed in the same way by the previous regime to basically oppress the people. That's sort of the younger generation of the Janjaweed and now they were all brought into Khartoum to track down this.

AMT: So what has happened since that hope filled time after President al-Bashir stepped down to come to this?

HAMID MURTADA: Basically it is very clear that this Transitional Military Council did not want to be transitional. And all the negotiations that they were having with the political parties and the forces of Freedom and Change, who were leading the protest and the revolution, were just something to please the international community, maybe to make sure that people in the streets like calm down and go back home, and just for them to have control on the country and to be an actual extension of the previous regime. And once they saw that people were still determined to be in the streets and not going back home until they see that power is actually getting transferred to civilians. So then they thought like okay maybe this is not working and we need to crack down on the [unintelligible] and just cut on negotiations.

AMT: So given that so many of you have been scared off the streets. What do you do now? What happens to the movement? What happens to this protest?

HAMID MURTADA: People are scared but they're not giving up. We have been through a lot already. The sit in would have been two months old today. The revolution started since December. So six months now. So we have been a long way. There is no way we to go back now. We lost very dear and love life and we're not ready to make that not go for nothing. We are determined to go until our demands. It is Eid holidays this week, the holidays following the month of Ramadan. So as of next Sunday when people are supposed to go back to work, this is will be civil obedience wouldn't be effective. And this is the new sort of resistance that we are going to use, the civil disobedience.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: What have you wanted to hear from the international community that you're not hearing?

HAMID MURTADA: We are waiting to hear a lot from the international community. They are late but they can still catch up. The revolution in Sudan, it would have been a day or two chance for the International Committee to play a role in that revolution. That is not only up and down dictatorships but it's also saying no to Islamists, saying no to military rule, saying no to dictatorship all at the same time. It's something that has not happened in any of the countries that are in the region. It is not like the Arab Spring. It's not like any of the other revolutions that have taken place.

AMT: Hamid we are going to have to leave it there. Thank you for speaking with me today.

HAMID MURTADA: Thank you so much.

AMT: That is Hamid. We're not using his last name for his safety. He's been protesting for a newly elected government in Khartoum, Sudan. We did ask the Sudanese embassy in Ottawa for comment. We have not heard back. Watching the violence unfold in Sudan has been difficult for members of the Sudanese diaspora. Razan Abdul Abdelrazig. Her family is from Sudan. She lived there for six years while she was in medical school. Now she's in Waterloo, Ontario, and that's where we've reached her. Hello Razan.

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: Hi Anna. How are you doing?

AMT: Well I'm wondering about you. How much contact have you had with friends or family in Sudan since Monday?

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: It was patchy. It comes and goes but I've lost complete contact with my cousin last night. I haven't heard anything from them. So I haven't actually stopped trying to contact them.

AMT: What were they telling you right after the shooting? What were you hearing from them before you lost contact?

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: So the internet wasn't cut off straight away while the shooting was happening. I talked to my friend. He was in the sit in. He managed to escape and go to the nearest hospital. He stayed there. He was trapped and he was telling me how the Rapid Support Forces were coming inside the hospital grounds. They were abusing the doctors. Any person who was wearing a lab coat was a target. Anybody who was holding the camera to film was a target. He managed to take some videos but he was hiding from behind and the hospital walls so they didn't see him. Thankfully he was lucky. He managed to get out after being trapped there for hours. But [sighs] sorry, it's a bit hard. Our other friend, he wasn't as lucky. I was told that he was trying to protect some other- like other girls and women and he was shot in the head. He was actually filming what was happening. So we think that's why he was targeted. His name is Mohammed. And he was one of the people whose pictures are being circulated now in social media which makes it even harder. But I feel like the world does have to know and understand the brutality and the way that he was killed.

AMT: Razan, so tell me about Mohammed. How old was he?

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: Mohammed was only 28 years old. He was only 28. He's living between Sudan and UK and he only came there for a holiday that became longer because of the protest. He decided to stay there. He always greets people and says [arabic speech] which means 'hello my country'. And that's how much he loved it and that's the reason he stayed there a bit longer.

AMT: And so you got that terrible news and you said that one of your cousins was uploading stuff. Have you seen the videos that that they were taking when the shooting started then and they ran for cover?

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: Yes I have seen those videos but they weren't these weren't shot by my family. It's just something I guess circulating and you can see them on the hash tag Sudan uprising. You can see the video the videos coming up now. I think people are managing to get some sort of internet connection and uploading as much as they can. There's some videos of the bodies that you mentioned that were drowned. It's very- it's horrible imaging. I wouldn't advise anybody to see it. It's too hard to see but it's something that we should know that that's what they did. That's how they killed everyone and they threw them in the River Nile. So there are some people that are still missing that we don't know what's happening. My neighbours, or my cousin's neighbour, keeps saying that she wants to go back to sit in area because she wants to see her son. She's saying her son didn't come back. She wants to go see him and everyone's telling her the sit in area is empty.

AMT: It's too dangerous, eh.

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: She can't understand that he might be dead.

AMT: So Razan, this is all unfolding just as Ramadan was was ending I'm just wondering how you and your family here are coping with all this kind of news.

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: It was devastating. It's heartbreaking. It made us feel so hopeless enemy. Because we have been like my friends in Sudan said that we have been protesting, or actually they have been protesting. But we have been living this sit in with them for the past two months. We've seen the videos and the poems and the art they did in the area. They made it such a beautiful community but now looking at these videos only makes me want to cry because every time I see them I keep wondering are you alive? Are you well? We couldn’t celebrate. We were not able to celebrate. It was the last day of Ramadan we were supposed to wake up in the morning, go to prayer. Usually because we live in Canada we get these messages from everyone. It's all my friends and family in Sudan and everywhere else. You get the message. Your WhatsApp gets bombarded by kind of messages which like 'Eid Mubarak', 'Happy Eid' messages. I got nothing. It almost felt like the international Sudanese Diaspora was all feeling the same feeling of hopelessness. It was the same feeling of just feeling tired and feeling like that. It's just--it's the first time in six months that we actually felt helpless and hopeless. I can look at some of the message that I was getting instead of 'Eid Mubarak' is 'I don't know what to do anymore. Honestly we all feel so helpless. I spent the day crying. You guys I'm emotionally exhausted but I can't bring myself to stop calling'. These were the messages I was getting on Eid day one of the most holiest days in my religion.

AMT: When it's supposed to be a celebration. Razan, we have to leave it there. I'm going to talk to our next guest about what the expectation is for governments elsewhere. Thank you for speaking with me today.

RAZAN ABDELRAZIG: Can I just ask everyone to just go on Twitter and see the hashtag Sudan uprising, and I am done revolution, just have an idea of what's happening. Thank you so much Anna Maria.

AMT: Okay, thank you Razan. Thank you. That is Razan Abdelrazig. She's in Waterloo, Ontario, a member of the Sudanese diaspora. My next guest has been following this week's developments closely and long before that. Eric Reeves is a Sudan researcher. He's been writing about the country for academic journals and media outlets for the past 20 years. Eric Reeves is in North Hampton, Massachusetts. Hi, Eric.

ERIC REEVES: Hello.

AMT: I keep getting little alerts on the news system. The African Union's Peace and Security Council has suspended Sudan's participation in its activities because of this unrest and the shootings. The Ethiopian prime minister says he's going to Khartoum Friday to try to mediate between the military rulers and the opposition alliance. What do you make of this? And Russia's- they're also saying they don't want any foreign intervention.

ERIC REEVES: I think we can ignore Russia. It's important that the African Union make good on its promise that occurred right after the military seizure of power following the posing of Omar al-Bashir that can be suspended from the African Union. What's just as important, this morning however is the signal we're getting from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two key financial backers of the. Transitional Military Council as it's called. They seem suddenly to be aware that they are getting a lot of unwanted attention. And it seems to me that with concerted international pressure from the European Union, from the United States, from the U.N. possibly and from mid-level countries like Canada, that targeted sanctions need to be imposed first and foremost on people like RSF Commander Hemeti, and the transitional military council as a whole. But we are very very close to civil war in Sudan. Most of the mid-level officers opposed the Rapid Support Forces.

AMT: And these are the forces that shot on Monday, the Rapid Support Forces.

ERIC REEVES: Yes they are responsible overwhelmingly for the violence we've seen. Indeed some were dressed in police uniforms to try and make it look as though it was a multi service operation. But this is the work of the Rapid Support Forces which are - as an earlier guest indicated - the evolved form of the Janjaweed formed in 2016 and led form the beginning by general Hemeti.

AMT: So I'm just going to interrupt you here because I want to keep moving you forward so we understand. Help us understand what led to this attack on protesters on Monday.

ERIC REEVES: Negotiations between civilians and the Military Council broke down two weeks before the attack over the question of who would lead the executive body that would be formed and a transitional government. Once those talks broke down, once there was no consensus about whether the executive branch would be led by civilians or the military, I believe violence became inevitable. We saw more and more ominous signs leading up to this past weekend. But by the beginning of the weekend it was clear that the sit in which is located in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum would be violently dispersed. The violence is captured in part by what your previous guests have said is in fact much much greater. It extends throughout Sudan. The uprising has not been Khartoum centric but has been present in all states, all 18 states of Sudan. And violence has been reported in most of those states since the weekend.

AMT: So are you telling me that- you mentioned that they're on the brink of civil war here so that it's these and these other forces actually don't agree with the military because they're trying to decide who gets to control things?

ERIC REEVES: I think it's long been the case that mid-level officers, colonels, majors, junior officers have been deeply opposed to the al-Bashir regime, its wars, its corruption, its destruction of the Sudanese economy. They would be the backbone of any military resistance to what is presently the predominance of the Rapid Support Forces which are not part of the regular army there. And General Haemeti is not part of the chain of command. These are not soldiers. They are militiamen. They are undisciplined, untrained and they have no armour. The Sudan Armed Forces, a regular army, does have armoured personnel, carriers, tanks, heavy weaponry. It came to it if it were truly a place between the Rapid Support Forces and the regular army, the army would prevail. But there's a great deal of evidence that the generals at the top are trying very hard to prevent any sort of coalition of army forces to put down the Rapid Support Forces rampage.

AMT: And so what needs to be done on the international front?

ERIC REEVES: Immediate targeted sanctions to be put in place. There should be no travel for anyone connected to the Transitional Military Council. Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates to face extreme pressure to cut off their support to the transitional military council. Right now they're perfectly happy with this non-democratic body that has no concern for human rights, tits perfectly with the model of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. We need to put pressure on them and we need to make it clear that the Transitional Military Council will never be accepted as the representative of the state of Sudan.

AMT: Okay. Eric Reeves we're going to have to leave it there but thank you for giving us some insights on the wider picture.

ERIC REEVES: Thank you.

AMT: Eric Reeves Sudan researcher. He's been writing about the country for 20 years. He's in North Hampton, Massachusetts. The news is next and then for centuries treasure seekers have been losing their livelihoods, their minds and their lives looking for Captain Kidd's treasure on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. We're talking about that when we return. This is The Current.

Centuries of intrigue, turmoil and death: Why treasure hunters can't stay away from Oak Island

Guest: Randall Sullivan

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come Chaplain David McGinley has learned a thing or two about death and dying well. He has sat with hundreds of people in their lives dying days. And he'll join me in half an hour to talk about the things people often feel most unsettled about when their time comes. But first the world's longest treasure hunt.

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This island catches people's imagination. I think everybody hopes that something is found here. There's been a lot of people that have lived out their life hoping for answers in their lifetime and they never got it. It's what every kid want pirate's treasure and we've got it all here.

AMT: Well 'here' is a treasure island right here in Canada. Oak Island in Mahone Bay Nova Scotia. According to the legend there is treasure buried somewhere on that little island. The legend has drawn adventurers and dreamers from all over the worlds for hundreds of years. The reality of being a treasure hunter though may not be quite as exciting as the story books make it out to be over the centuries six people have lost their lives hunting for this treasure. A number of others have had close calls. Still others have been digging and searching fruitlessly for decades.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: I am David Blankenship. I've been here since 1972. I came up to help my dad. He read Reader's Digest in 1965 and handed the book to my mother and she read it. She said, so, I'm going to be instrumental in solving the treasure. There is treasure there and I will be instrumental in solving the mystery. Well he spent 50 some odd years here and he died at 95 and I'm hoping we find something before he died. Well he died two months ago. So and we haven't found anything that spendable yet for 50 years. We found a medallion that is gold plated, but not real gold. Well every time you get ready to quit you find some little thing and it brings your interest back up again. The same thing that we're doing now. Just you find one- Mother Nature will give you one little thing, and then slap you on the ass [laughs].

MARY CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Can you just tell me as clearly as possible what are you hunting for?

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: Well if you'll give me your crystal ball I can tell you because we don't know there. So many theories. It could be the Knights Templar, [unintelligible] pirates. We don't know what we're looking for. It's the first treasure hunt that nobody knows what we're looking for but yet they've been looking for 250 years.

MARY CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Why?

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: That's a good question why. I have no idea why. [To Doug] No you going swimming? [To Mary Catherine] Doug Crowell. He's our researcher. [To Doug] I still owe you a dinner.

DOUG CROWELL: Oh yes.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: I'm waiting on it.

DOUG CROWELL: I'm going to hope you do that.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: I'm waiting on it bud. How have you been?

DOUG CROWELL: Good. You? Went well?

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: Oh yes yes.

DOUG CROWELL: All Things Considered.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: Yep.

DOUG CROWELL: Yep. We're out today. We're marking sports for this year's exploration. Oh we call it the magic stick but it's Steve's G.P.S. So this is how we can locate points on the island precisely if we want to pick a hole to drill then we get Steve to come out and mark these [unintelligible]. I think I've seen enough on this island that something happened here that's out of the- It's not mundane. Something happened here. The big question is what. People like Dave, it's also good to have the sceptics. The sceptics keep you honest. This is I think this is what makes this treasure mystery is so fascinating to people is it's a treasure supposedly deposited by people who we don't know, at a time that we're not quite sure of. We don't know what it consists of. And we don't know why they did it.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: The close to call my dad ever had was when they came to your hose, and you down on 180 feet. They had no money so I used the garden hose to get in there.

DOUG CROWELL: He had the diving suit and the factory made Cable had broke. So he used a garden Garden hose to replace it.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: And they kinked it as it were going down. And nowhere. I know what it's like having--

DOUG CROWELL: You know I asked your dad about that one time here two summers ago I said Did that scare you? He said that didn't scare me I was in the war [Laughter]. The most convincing thing for me is bringing parchment up into the ground and the money pit area from 150 to 160 feet down. What is really old paper doing that far underground. You dig a hole 100 and some feet deep. You had a really good reason to put something really valuable there. Yeah. All manuscripts and books would be very interesting to.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: Too much debt and too much fighting with the government. That's an artefact and they are going to get all.

DOUG CROWELL: Yes. You'd rather find the spendable. I know. And I hope the spendables are there too.

DAVID BLAKENSHIP: The only thing that led growth is going to be worth an awful lot but it's not worth it. What? Ten dollars now.

DOUG CROWELL: I think its value is in the clues that may give us as to who was here in the time period possibly but. Well my hope is that when they drilled in 1897 they brought that piece of parchment. They probably broke into a container that held that paper. I'm hoping there's other containers down there that remain unbroken. Then maybe we'll get something readable. This might be a good spot for him.

AMT: Okay. While the voices of David Blankenship and Doug Cowell on Oak Island. I'm speaking with our Halifax producer Mary Katherine Mackintosh. Randall Sullivan has been digging into the mystery of Oak Island for nearly two decades. He was a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine when he first started in on this. He's the author of the new book The Curse of Oak Island: The story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt. Randall Sullivan joins me from Astoria, Oregon. Hello.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Hi there.

AMT: How does the mystery of Oak Island begin?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well it begins historically in 1795 with three teenage boys on this little island of Mahone Bay. Actually one teenage boy spotted at first. Oak Island was famous at that time mainly for having oak trees. And he found an area that was the oak trees were younger and then he saw the stumps of old oak trees that have been cut down. Then he saw that there was sort of a circular depression that they were growing, the new trees were growing in. And that is how the wooden tackle block, old very old wooden tackle block, hanging from a branch of an old oak tree. And he concluded that this was probably a pirate treasure and he got two friends to join in. And what they found immediately you know started the intrigue. They dug down a few feet and there was basically a patio and laid stones. They dug down under that, at 10 feet struck wood, thought they'd hit the top of a treasure chest. But what they'd actually hit was a platform of logs that were embedded in the walls of this round shaft. And they knew it was a manmade shaft because the outer walls were rock hard clay, but inside it was all loose dirt that had been dug out. They dug down another 10 feet, struck wood again, assumed again that they'd had a treasure chest. But it was another platform of logs. At that point they looked up saw 20 feet of earth towering above them and realized they'd be buried alive by any slippage. And so covered it over and filled it up a bit and then went looking for someone who could mount a more exhaustive or elaborate search. And eventually a few years later did find a group of men who mounted a full scale expedition sailing a schooner around the Bay of Fundy to reach Oak Island.

AMT: This part that they were digging down in this has come to be known as the money pit.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: That has become known as the Money Pit. It wasn't until that group the next group arrived and hit platforms at 30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet, 60 feet, 70 feet, 80 feet and at 90 feet hit one that had a large stone tablet on it. Then when they flipped it over there was some sort of an inscription on it something that had been carved or etched into the stone. And it was a code of some sort. And part of the problem is that the descriptions of the people who were there - some say it was letters and symbols some say it was just symbols - whatever it was they couldn't decipher it.

AMT: So we need to back up a little bit and talk about Captain Kidd because Captain Kidd has an outsized role in this mystery. Remind us who he was and how his name becomes part of Oak Island lore.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well Captain Kidd was obviously one of the most famous pirates in the world. Actually before I started researching this book I had no idea that he was you know far less than the bloodthirsty Buccaneer than really a kind of political martyr. And that was probably a lot of the reason that his death and legacy lingered so long after the early 17th century when he died. And songs were songs about it and the great treasure he'd buried somewhere and then it was an actual treasure he had buried was found in a little island off Long Island in New York. But it didn't match the size of the treasure that people assumed he must have based on the ships he'd taken first as a privateer and then as a pirate.

AMT: So the theory was that he had gone to Oak Island and buried his treasure there.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well it sounds so apocryphal now but there was, at the time, it was the first time this story was spread around the country about an old sailor who claimed that he'd been part of Captain Kidd's crew and had buried treasure on some island off the Atlantic coast, probably in the North Atlantic. So that spread up and down from New England into the maritime provinces of Canada and so virtually everybody knew that story and thought that there was a Captain Kidd treasure somewhere buried. So these boys jumped to that conclusion and it was so convincing. It held so long that even 100 years later people refer to it as the Captain Kidd treasure.

AMT: So what did you think when you first heard the story of a bunch of pirates burying a treasure chest more than a hundred feet down on the island?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well when I first heard the story it was just that there was this treasure hunt that had gone on for more than 200 years on this island in Nova Scotia. And then I discovered that it was pirate treasure was a theory and the one that held for the first century of the treasure hunt. But it was really finding out what had happened on Oak Island. You could know for certain about what had taken place there that really drew me in because some extraordinary work was done on that island. No one knows for certain why or who, but you can certainly verify that something of a remarkable nature was done there, something that would have taken 50 men a year working full time to have accomplished.

AMT: To put all those different barriers 10 feet down and keep going down down down, because they flood don't they? Like you get to a certain point then it starts to flood.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well what happened was when they pulled out that inscribed stone - what's become known as the inscribed stone - it triggered some sort of flood system. And by the next morning the shaft was full of water. I think it was to the 80 foot level or something like that. And they simply could not- they couldn't bail it out. They couldn't pump it out. Successive attempts were made over the first hundred years to pump it out never with any real success because they would lower but water kept pouring in. Someone had to devise some sort of a system that brought water in from the bay directly into the pit and they did many things to try to plug it stop it divert it. And that eventually led them to an equally remarkable discovery, something equal to the money pit really, which is this manmade beach on a place called Smith's Cove which was again extraordinary feat of engineering and effort that involved moving thousands of tons of sand and gravel and creating this map sort of a sponge of what turned out to be mostly coconut fibre. This was part of the flood system. This was the very flood system and so that was the point of that was to try to plug it at that end which didn't work. Then they tried to intercept it in between the beach and the Money Pit but that didn't stop it either because as it turns out the water was coming in for more than one place.

AMT: Is there any history of pirates during anything that elaborate?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well initially yes. That's why initially I dismissed the pirate theory because I thought pirates are going to dig 10 or 20 feet down and cover it up and come back and get it when they feel like it. But then I discover that there actually were some extremely elaborate pirate tunnels and chambers that were made in the Caribbean in Jamaica and [unintelligible]. So there were pirate engineers and and there were pirate crews, probably slaves, that had created some really elaborate underground systems that did involve flooding.

AMT: So tell us about some of the expeditions that were undertaken to try to find the treasure that is supposedly still there.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well the first one was mounted by a group of businessmen from Truro and they're the ones who found the platforms at 30 feet, 40 feet on down to the stone. When they were stymied by the flood system it was actually a few decades before another really major expedition was mounted and they were the ones who found the artificial beach and tried to stop the flooding there. A lot of what the treasure hunt on Oak Island has become is sorting through the detritus of all of the previous treasure hunters, because the strategy over and over again was to try to dig another shaft on this hill where the Money Pit is and divert water into it or tunnel over to the Money Pit, presumably underneath the flood system or away from the flood system. But the result was the ground is honeycombed with tunnels and shafts many of which have collapsed. There's tons of wooden cribbing that was used to line the shafts that's fallen down in there too. So you really have to figure out, well, is this from a previous searchers that the original work. They have found ways to do that carbon dating and other things. But it's exhausting as well as exhaustive and very expensive.

AMT: I was just going to say the technology keeps getting better too but nobody's actually been able to deal with that water system.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well that's I mean that's been the story over and over with Oak Island as each new group thinks, well, we have better technology and a better plan. And you know this time we'll solve it but Oak Island keeps defeating it. And one of the other aspects of the Curse of Oak Island for most of the people who've worked there is the way equipment fails. I mean that's the story that I've heard consistently from people who've come there with various instruments that have worked fine all over the world and they come to Oak Island and they fail. I mean people, I've see people crying frustration. They can't believe it. But when I was working on the television show even though the people who are doing- the sound guys would tell you that know sound equipment that worked fine everywhere else would go out over and over again on certain parts of Oak Island.

AMT: And no one knows why.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: No one knows why. I mean there's I mean Marty Lagina who's one of the two brothers that runs the treasure hunt now and I we're talking about doing what he called a magnetic survey to see if you could actually measure what it was. But to my knowledge they haven't done that yet.

AMT: Now not everyone believed that what was buried on the island originally was pirate treasure. What are some of the other theories around what is buried there?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well as Dave Blankenship said there are so many theories that it boggles the mind, because it's such a Rorschach blot of for any treasure hunter or conspiracy theorist or you know amateur historian. So I mean some of them are a bit more mundane or obvious like that the Akkadian is when they were pushed out of Nova Scotia might have buried their treasure somewhere and created a bank to store it. That doesn't really hold up but at least it's semi believable. The Treasure of Havana much of it disappeared and it was English troops who made their way to Halifax, many of them, shortly after where they spent money you know in a way that impressed the locals so that sort of help support the idea that maybe you know these rogue British officers had created a bank for what they'd taken from Havana there. But the theories began to get more and more interesting. I mean they're thrilling to hear. And actually there is a lot of them there to some of them and the two that are most attractive to people involve the fact that it may have been the Knights Templar who may have buried the great stolen treasures - we call them stolen - with the treasures they removed from under the temple in Jerusalem when they were occupying it. That would be the Holy Grail or The Ark of the Covenant or both. And then there's a whole segment of people who believe it was the followers of Francis Bacon and all of this group of kind of the original Rosicrucians who gathered around him in England and that once sounded the most outlandish type when I first heard. But it's amazing how much, how many threads of history can be woven into that story too.

AMT: And if anybody finds anything who gets to keep it?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well the Canadian government has a special Oak Island law. It's the only one of its kind in the country that whereby they permit treasure hunting on Oak Island. If they give you the permit but they get 10 percent of whatever is found.

AMT: People have been digging on Oak Island for more than 200 years. If something was really therem, you think they would have found it by now?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well yes that's a fair point to make but they have found a lot of really curious thing, and that's what keeps them going. I mean a couple of summers ago they found the remains of of human beings at 180 feet. So what were people doing 180 feet below the ground on Oak Island other than Duke performing these excavations, and they dated them to at least 300 years ago. So 300 years ago people were down digging 180 feet below the ground on Oak Island for some reason. The Templar story which I've always - I'm pretty sceptical about and probably that does come through to some degree in the book. But two summers ago they found a 13th century cross on Oak Island that matched exactly the image that is carved into the wall at dawn prison in France where the Knights Templar were held in the early 13th century, shortly before they were executed by the King of France. So you know these sorts of things you know they're intriguing and compelling enough to keep you going.

AMT: Do you think Oak Island will ever give up its secret?

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Well not easily. That's for certain. I mean but I also think they're going to keep making fascinating discoveries and there's just something about the place that captivates people. I mean it is spooky. I mean a number of people who've been utterly terrified or more broken by the things they've experienced there and yet they, some of them never go back, but I know at least one who despite two nervous breakdowns has returned to join the search.

AMT: Well Randall Sullivan It's fascinating and perplexing. Thank you.

RANDALL SULLIVAN: Thank you.

AMT: Randall Sullivan is the author of The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt. He joined us from Astoria, Oregon.

[Music]

AMT: A decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is expected later this month. June 18th has been set as the deadline for the federal government to decide. This project would see the pipeline that is there from Edmonton Alberta to Burnaby B.C. twinned, which would triple its capacity. I travelled that route a few weeks ago. I was away a few weeks ago off the air here and I went to travel that route to talk to people whose land and lives are going to be affected by that decision.

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VOICE 1: So our company, it's completely changed because of the fact that investors do not want to invest in Alberta until that Trans Mountain is going.

VOICE 2: I don't feel sorry for somebody who's lost her job but they're still eating. I'm taking a global look at this. I have a hard time having sympathy for somebody losing their job when others are losing their life.

VOICE 3: There are some concerns for my side. I want the other side to hear and I know that there are solutions to it. That's just not me jumping up and down and saying no.

VOICE 4: Where do you see it in their animals and we see it in the water and we have to bail to make those changes now and the number one change in our territory is no transmountain.

VOICE 5: I still want to buy this pipeline whether it gets twinned or not. I want the equity for the revenue and I want the environmental oversight. Whether it's one pipe or two, I'm going to buy this pipeline.

VOICE 6: People are just chasing pipeline dreams. They're chasing enormous wealth. It's okay to have a national debate about the future of the planet.

AMT: My documentary following the path of the Trans Mountain pipeline extension coming up Tuesday on The Current. Stay with us in our next half hour. What's sitting with hundreds of dying patients has taught a hospital chaplain about death and life. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

How to die well: What David Maginley has learned from counselling hundreds on their deathbeds

Guest: David Maginley

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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If a patient is distressed when they need support in the moment. Often when my paycheque goes off that's the situation. The nurse won't say to the patient do you want to see a chaplain, because a chaplain for them often means religion or it means death. My goodness your calling and the god guy, is it that serious?

AMT: David Maginley has spent the last 20 years sitting on the edge of death's doorstep. He's a hospital chaplain in Halifax.

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DAVID MAGINLEY: The point at the end of life is not to be good or calm or controlled or altogether. It's to be real. And that's not comfortable.

FEMALE VOICE: I've had to stop myself and after the last time we talked you know how real am I. Sometimes I'm not a little bit that.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Me too.

FEMALE VOICE: [Laughs] Just because it's easier not to open up or whatever you know.

AMT: David Maginley has sat with hundreds of dying people. They've shared with him. Their greatest fears and their most hidden secrets. And what he's learned from those conversations can help us all, not only to face the scariest time in our life, but to live better.

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FEMALE VOICE: If everybody, everybody in the world, would get this for two months or three months and they could all get well after, it would be such a different world that we would be living in because they would definitely know what living is all about.

AMT: That was Marie one of the patients David Maginley has helped prepare for death. The chaplain invited our producer Mary Catherine McIntosh to go along with him as he visited a few of his patients.

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DAVID MAGINLEY: Have a seat. Over here actually beside your wife.

AMT: At 6 foot 8 he's probably the tallest person ducking into those hospital rooms.

[sc].

DAVID MAGINLEY: The cancer is here. We're having a hard time coping. What is the hardest part about this experience?

PATIENT: The hardest part is the helplessness. Now after I've had my treatment and lost more than a third of my weight. I'm underweight 50 pounds and I see life getting out of me. I can feel it. My chance to live is to be able to go for the treatment that can heal me. But I don't think I can make it. My son has to see me deteriorating.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes.

PATIENT: Right in front of his eyes.

DAVID MAGINLEY: So you see the expression on his face when he sees you.

PATIENT: Yes. Oh.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes.

PATIENT: [Sobs].

DAVID MAGINLEY: And you want to protect him and you want to tell him it's going to be okay.

PATIENT: Yes but he knows that's not okay. He's not stupid. I fell off my feet a few nights ago. I had power enough to call them to pick me up from the floor. I saw their faces. They are not prepared.

WIFE: I was scared to death. I tried to lift them up but I couldn't. So I called my son and he helped me and we put him back in bed, but I'm not prepared for that. I'm not a nurse so I don't know.

DAVID MAGINLEY: There is a very difficult surprise waiting here. This is a disease that has robbed you of your health and your vitality. It's changing your body, it's sapping your strength.

WIFE: It is the malnutrition. It's not the disease itself. You've got to watch the thing. It [unintelligible] me. You know it is spread. Fine. You know. But I don't want to put my son for this. And my mother will get wasted. She will follow me right away. And I want to stay home and be [unintelligible]. And even I know I won't make it. But I'll get on the plane, you know, and go and die home and be burried where I been born. If I won't make it on the road, you know, someday at least I die fighting.

AMT: That was Marian who's being treated for cancer, and his wife, meeting with Chaplain David Maginley and David Maginley joins us in our Halifax studio to talk about what he's learned sitting bedside. Hello.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Hello. What a pleasure to be with you.

AMT: Well it's good to be with you. I think I'm going to cry hearing that. I'm Marian's describing his incredible sadness and as you listen to him again what are you thinking?

DAVID MAGINLEY: Oh my heart is breaking it brings it all back and I'm struck with the unfinished love stories of his life, right, with his son, with his wife and that desire to go back to his place of birth. I'm hearing profound love wrapped up in the sadness. I see the most noble qualities of a human being expressed through his grief because grief is the price we pay for love. So while he is crumbling in the face of mortality I am also seeing him ascend to the best that we can be.

AMT: What have you learned? What scares us most when it comes to death?

DAVID MAGINLEY: It's not the dying. It's the leaving. It's leaving your loved ones, the not being part of their stories and seeing the burden of care in their eyes and feeling the weight of sorrow in their heart. That's the hardest thing. We spend so much energy suppressing it and protecting our loved ones from that sorrow and they're protecting us from it. But everyone needs to be transparent on the same page and then we feel oddly safe, because you know when we are deeply loved we feel safe. And when we love deeply we have clarity. So much of my work is focussing on the unfinished love stories.

AMT: Why is death so hard to talk about?

DAVID MAGINLEY: We have a massive aversion to death. In the medical system we see death as a failure, must be prevented at all costs. In our culture we project death through entertainment, reducing it through violence or through the images on the screen. We don't have a nuanced vocabulary about death unlike other cultures. So it becomes something we strive against with every aspect of our being subconsciously. But it's inevitable homework for everyone. And what a surprise to find out when you're well supported and when you're well loved, you can also die well and you're wired with that wisdom.

AMT: You just used a phrase and a word that I wanted to go up on you said homework, and you said die well. I know that you believed to die well we must first do a lot of hard work. What kind of work are you talking about?

DAVID MAGINLEY: Oh boy. Death deconstructs our ego identity in the reverse order that it was formed. Dying well means not only controlling the basics like pain, but dying well essentially is that art smart and the art of dying, working compassionately with your ego defences which are triggered - because ego doesn't want to be annihilated - and recognizing that when I'm frustrated, when I'm angry, when I'm weeping into fear, these are part of my ego defences. Who and what I am must disappear through death. It's universal. And when we're intentionally participating in that and open to the mystery that we are to be transformed into, it's profoundly difficult work.

AMT: Does spirituality have to be part of dying well?

DAVID MAGINLEY: It always is. One does not need to identify as religious or spiritual in order to be practicing this. Because if I'm right one's spirituality is not found so much in what the content of their belief as it is in the quality of their life because God is love. All healthy spiritual traditions emphasize how you treat yourself, how you treat your neighbour, how you treat the world. You do that in love you're going to be doing the wisest most noble spiritual thing you could ever do. So that's the heart of the homework; forgiving the past, having a sense of humour about your failings and shortfalls.

AMT: I want us to listen to another of your hospital visits. This is Ferne Selig, a cancer patient. At the time of this visit Fern had long polished purple fingernails. In her working life. She was a master Mary Kay beauty consultant who earned the enviable Pink Cadillac for her sales. We've all seen those Cadillacs. What we're about to hear is a very emotional visit she had with you.

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FERNE SELIG: 14 months ago I wouldn't have believed that I was capable, first of all living the 14 months, but of living a good 14 months right. I've had a good life. And I mean this very sincerely, I could go. I could go anytime. After our last conversation I'm quite looking forward to it, to be honest with you.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes?

FERNE SELIG: [Sobbing] Yes.

DAVID MAGINLEY: That's good. That's beautiful.

FERNE SELIG: I don't know that my family appreciates me saying it but I always follow it up with I'm going to miss you too. [Laughs] Yes it's got to be something in it for them. But, yes, I don't know if the experience of sitting - because I've never sat with anybody.

DAVID MAGINLEY: As they die.

FERNE SELIG: As they died until February before I got sick and my mom-- Yes it was a peaceful cancer death. I would have said I don't have any benchmark. I don't have any yardstick to measure.

DAVID MAGINLEY: And now your mom died.

FERNE SELIG: [Cross talking] Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh I was so sure she was coming last night, David. I'd have bet my house that my mother was going to take me last night.

DAVID MAGINLEY: It was a rough marriage. It was so [unintelligible] right now. This is hopeless. This is a huge emotion. This is your connection to your mom. Stay with it. Stay with this. This is good. [Ferne sobbing] I know that the tears are big. You're containing them. Breathe into it. [Ferne breathing heavily] So big. And even as you breathe quietly from the heart, talk to your mom. Say thanks Mom. She's your guide. Notice in your body how it drains you of energy.

FERNE SELIG: Yes it does, I have nothing left.

DAVID MAGINLEY: No a commitment to do.

FERNE SELIG: [Breathes heavily] [Laughs].

DAVID MAGINLEY: Nice. So that that emotion right there, there's probably no bigger emotion than that. That emotion is awareness of death.

FERNE SELIG: Yes.

DAVID MAGINLEY: It's grief. It's anticipation and it took over your body, your breath. You were washed by it, submerged in it. And all we want to do is not suppress it. Breathe into it. And discover that we're actually floating not drowning. Just breathe for a little bit. [Ferne breathing] You're floating in this. That emotion is so important. So accurate. This is a good rehearsal.

FERNE SELIG: [Laughs] Is it? This is a good rehearsal. Yes.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes. Because just like on an open ocean, the big swells come. Right and press down and up. That's what just washed over you, and the ship rises into that wave. Oh my goodness it feels like we're going to capsize we'll splash down. But we are designed to ride the waves. And when we understandably resist this distress, we go under. We're trying to stay control, trying to stay afloat. But if you give yourself to that emotional, you will experience just what happened now. It passed through you. You rode the way. You're okay. You're still here. This is what makes dying so overwhelming. We prepare to say goodbye to you. It's heartbreaking. But you prepared to say goodbye to reality. And every love you've ever known. The scale of that is too much. However, we discover when you give yourself to that flow, that love has you and will not let you go. And every love you know you take with you to the other side. Unfortunately to do that well involves this surrendering and giving yourself to the experience. How do we do that when we're trying to protect our loved ones from it? We're just trying to stay afloat and cope.

FERNE SELIG: Right.

DAVID MAGINLEY: And in that tension we lose our centre. You did that really well. [Feren Laughs] How are you feeling?

FERNE SELIG: Empty.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Good.

FERNE SELIG: [Laughs] Is that the right word?

DAVID MAGINLEY: That's a good word.

FERNE SELIG: That's a good word? It wasn't what I was thinking to say. I don't know why I said that.

DAVID MAGINLEY: That's so accurate.

FERNE SELIG: So sometimes I hate the fact that I've lived 14 months. You know sometimes they just think, wouldn't it have been easier. Yes. Yes I could go to that doctor best to say you know what. I'll take your shit, just pump me full and kill me. Let's be done. You know it would have been-- you know, at some days I think that. Some days I think, well, that would have been easy. But I've never been a boat easy so it never occurred to me to go easy. But it's been easier because I've had so many wonderful people. I've had people that don't know how to talk to somebody that's dying but that's okay. I'm trying to reach out and touch them too and let them know that you know it's-- I guess if I had a regret it would be that one that I didn't spend the last 14 months really preparing everybody else for their deaths. You know what I mean. I just think I just should have done something to let everybody see [laughs].

DAVID MAGINLEY: Here I sit with such admiration for how you're doing exactly that. For your family. Wow you are doing it really well. This is what it feels like to do it well. It feels intensely emotional and destabilising and to keeping real about that and to face it heart open, eyes up.

FERNE SELIG: Yes I love that. Yes eyes open. I've been telling everybody that, you know what, if that's all that's good enough for me. That's perfect for me.

AMT: Ferne Selig died shortly after that visit. The hospital chaplain to whom she was speaking was David Maginley who's with us from our Halifax studio. David so many emotions there and that phrase 'heart open eyes up'. What do you mean?

DAVID MAGINLEY: To not shrink back from death but to enter it with and surrender into something greater, to keep your heart connected. When we protect others from the sorrow, we actually close our hearts and that increases the feeling of disconnection. She was amazing doing that. I just had such admiration. And the existential distress and realization of death swallowed her and she gave herself to that wave and felt it in her body right. Because her mind-- our mind is trying to cope but our body tells us the truth about our emotions. So we moved into body awareness. She rode the wave and it brought her back to herself. She felt empty. She felt peaceful. She discovered that she floats. Well, that was an amazing moment.

AMT: And you made an interesting distinction there you see that people prepare to say goodbye to her and she has to prepare to say goodbye to reality.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes. Yes. So the scale of that preparatory grief is exponentially higher than our anticipatory grief. And it's too big for the mind to work out. So the body does it. It comes through the emotions. It takes the lid off the subconscious material we've been suppressing, it all bubbles up. This is part of ego deconstruction and what's underneath that is the astonishing discovery that spirit identity was the foundation of our being all along. Unfortunately one has to die to completely discover that and she was doing the hard work.

AMT: She talks so openly about her death. What advice can you give the dying and their families on how to do that?

DAVID MAGINLEY: Begin the conversation early. If you have a serious diagnosis, an advanced cancer start the conversations about palliative care and good preparations for death, even while you are fighting for life. Your heart is more complex. You don't need to have one or the other. Hold them both in your heart at the same time. Those open heart conversations I recognize are profoundly difficult, but so empowering when everybody feels onboard and you're able to make good choices.

AMT: What tends to be our life's greatest regret when we're dying?

DAVID MAGINLEY: Oh it's the words we did not say or you know affirming love or the words we did that just pushed love away. It's not the finances or the career or accomplishments. It's the relationships. It's always the relationships. And everybody's got some broken bits in the journey. You've got to have a sense of humour and compassion with that stuff to forgive it, to let it go, to make the phone calls to say, hey, you know we didn't treat each other too well but let's just leave that behind because I don't want to wear that where I'm going.

AMT: Do you think people have a hard time letting go of those regrets.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Big time. That critical voice in us that's always beating ourselves up, that tends to be the dominant thing through our days. And we're also incapable of seeing ourselves accurately from inside our own experience. It's true for all of us. So when you talk about those broken relationships and broken bits usually you discover that you're putting a lot more energy into that than anybody else did. Mark Twain said I have survived a great many catastrophes, a few of them were real. We tend to play it out. This is one of the new nuances. Pain is of the body suffering is of the mind and of the soul. And we tend to be very good at causing our own suffering.

AMT: So interesting.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes.

AMT: Do you ever sit with patients who you can tell have been bad people, really nasty people in their lives?

DAVID MAGINLEY: Yes. You can you just pick up the energy in the room or you know you think of how they're projecting their anxiety and their distress. I remember one fellow. He was swallowed by inconsolable weeping. The nurses paged me and they said go in and see him. We just can't figure out why he constantly cries. And I sat with him, and he says here the chaplain. I'm like, right. He goes okay, I'm really scared. He said do you think God's going to accept me? Turned out he had spent time in prison because he had abused the child or several. To be honest I recoiled in horror. I had that instinct of disgust but stayed with it and he continued to share how it destroyed his family, destroyed his life. He lived on the streets. He lived in shelters. Eventually after he had served time in prison he got a job on the docks and he was always alone and he had recycled that pain as his identity and now feared condemnation. So my job was then to incarnate that compassion he never experienced in life. I asked him if he wanted to pray and he just kept weeping and I told him God loves you more than anyone who has ever loved you on earth and understands you to the core. You don't need to take this pain to heaven. I can see you are deeply sorrowful. So I said the prayer of confession and forgiveness. And as I gave him the absolution he became very quiet and he said is the peace I feel the drugs or is it me? Is it real? This was such an unfamiliar experience to him because he had compromised and insulted and injured love throughout his life and he had been an angry and hurt for man too many in his journey. But now he touched on something different and the next day I came back and I checked and turned out he had died in his sleep with a smile on his face and he never wept again.

AMT: Mm hmm. Does it always happen that way?

DAVID MAGINLEY: No no no. I think most of us leave this world with broken bits and unfinished business.

AMT: You sat with a patient named Liz. What did she tell you?

DAVID MAGINLEY: This was astonishing to me. Liz was dying. She knew she was going to die. And she shared with me that she had repaired her heart from a horrid childhood in which her father had abused, sexually abused both her and her sisters. She at some point in her adult recovery from that pain pressed charges and he served time for this. And it shattered the family because it broke the silence and she was rejected by her family because of it. She sat there and she said I got to tell you last week there was a knock at the door. I expected my mom to come, but it was my father and he came in and his head was bowed low and his eyes were averting me. And he came in and he stood so awkwardly and afraid in front of me and I felt my heart filled with peace and forgiveness for this man. I had worked through my pain and I wasn't going to be carrying it. I looked at my dad and all I saw was a man in pain as well. And I got up off the bed and I gave him a hug and we sat and we talked. She had done her homework and she had realized that to forgive is to set yourself free from the pain you've been carrying. It has no bearing upon what the other person has said, feel, thinks or does. You can forgive and let go of it and release and find your own peace and freedom. She died well.

AMT: Heart open eyes up.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Better person than I could imagine being in that situation.

AMT: It must be so profound for you to see people make these changes to see it reflect in even their bodies and to see them at this final point. You know I might have thought that would be depressing but I think it's profound.

DAVID MAGINLEY: I it's so empowering. We are more noble and magnificent than we could ever imagine.

AMT: What's your view on medical assistance in dying?

DAVID MAGINLEY: I have no problem with the policy. I have a lot of problems with the assessment process. The main reason people request medical assistance in dying is existential distress loss of purpose loss of dignity loss overall inability to imagine anything noble or good coming out of their suffering, their descent into death. That's the main reason people request it which means we are using a medical procedure to treat a spiritual distress. And the assessment process does not adequately explore existential distress. It's mandated we ask about the patient's suffering but that tends to remain a physical conversation about the physical pain. MAID is an act of the ego to maintain control to make this smooth and more simple and to prevent what is deemed unnecessary suffering. That it's an act of control over death. It's an act of the ego. Precisely the thing to be deconstructed through death. Again they want to avoid that vigil, lying in the bed deteriorating slowly while the family sits at their side. I understand the reason for the request and we can judge no one for going through with MAID. However we can do better. And fundamentally we don't know what we're stopping consciousness that animating life force is the greatest mystery to science. We see its effects right. Electrical activity in the brain and heat and heartbeat and you know animated conversation and eye contact. That's consciousness. But we have no idea what it is. So we don't know what we're stopping.

AMT: What can those of us who aren't dying, yet, learn from the patients with whom you work?

DAVID MAGINLEY: How to live deeply. Most of us move unconsciously through our day, not aware of the gift of the moment, how precious we are to each other, how even the ordinary can be saturated with sacred. And that gets cranked up as we die. A person becomes a great teacher as they lay in the bed and others are caring for their body in the most basic and sometimes undignified ways. But I've seen patients shine with compassion beauty love for the custodian, for the nurse, for their family and say the words that need to be said like: Thank you.

AMT: David Maginley You're a wise man.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Oh, my patients taught me well. I think I listened.

AMT: It's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.

DAVID MAGINLEY: Thank you.

AMT: David Maginley is a hospital chaplain in Halifax and he's written a book about all of this it's called Beyond Surviving Cancer and your Spiritual Journey. That is our program for today stay with Radio One for Q today. The actor Evangeline Lilly of The Hobbit film series joins Tom Power. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti thank you for listening to The Current.

Thursday June 6, 2019 Full Transcript

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