Facing Death (with Sebastian Junger)

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

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Summary

What does a lifelong atheist do when his dead father appears above him in the emergency room? Author and war reporter Sebastian Junger nearly bled to death in 2020 from a ruptured aneurysm, and what he saw in those moments sent him on a journey into physics, near-death experiences, and the nature of consciousness itself. In his third appearance on EconTalk, Junger discusses his remarkable book In My Time of Dying with host Russ Roberts. He reflects on covering wars from Sarajevo to Afghanistan, the strange phenomenon of dying people seeing the dead, and why he's still an atheist. Along the way, Junger offers a powerful meditation on terror and reverence, blessing and wounding, and why understanding life's fragility might be the most sacred gift of all.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econTalk.org.
0:30.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:36.7	Today is March 24th, 2026, and my guest is author Sebastian Younger.
0:41.9	This is his third appearance on Akon Talk.
0:44.1	He was last year in June of 2021, talking about his book, Freedom.
0:48.6	Before that in 2018, we talked about his book, Tribe.
0:51.8	I loved both those books.
0:53.7	Our topic for today, and his latest
0:55.3	book is, In My Time of Dying, How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an afterlife.
1:02.3	And I want to say before we start that I like this book even more than the other two, which is
1:05.5	saying something. Listeners, please go buy it, read it. It's beautifully written, and it makes you think.
1:13.1	I read it in two settings.
1:14.8	It's quite short.
1:15.6	It's about 138 pages of text on my Kindle, but I wish it went on forever.
1:21.7	It's that good.
1:23.7	Sebastian, let's start with a little about yourself.
1:26.5	I think if I was ever in physical danger, either from the natural world or bad people,
1:31.4	you might be the one econ talk guest I'd want by my side.
	...

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