Book excerpt: Through a profound exploration of one of the most explosive issues of our age - euthanasia and the right to die - M. Scott Peck helps us determine the spiritual lessons that dying is meant to teach us. As a physician, psychiatrist and theologian, Dr Scott Peck is uniquely suited to address the complex issues that have resulted from medicine's ability to perpetuate the mechanisms of life - often without preserving life's essence. DENIAL OF THE SOUL grapples with the deeper meanings of life and death and asks whether we have the ethical right to kill ourselves even though we have the power. Through compelling stories from Dr Peck's own experiences as a physician as well as from other medical cases, he guides the readers through a disturbing emotional and philosophical terrain towards greater spiritual understanding.