ADeath Cafe is a scheduled non-profit get-together (called "social franchises" by the organizers) for the purpose of talking about death over food and drink, usually tea and cake. The idea originates with the Swiss sociologist and anthropologistBernard Crettaz, who organized the first café mortel in 2004. Jon Underwood, a UK web developer, was inspired by Crettaz's work, introduced the death cafe to London in 2011, and launched the Death Cafe website. They have since been held in many countries.
The Death Cafe is not a physical location but an event, usually lasting two hours. Usually there are a dozen participants, who are free to discuss their understanding, thoughts, dreams, fears and any other aspects of death and dying. Tea and cake assist with creating a nurturing and supportive environment. Some Death Cafes have specifically created an opportunity for health-care professionals to talk about death.[1] Venues include homes and rented halls as well as restaurants and cafes;[2][3][4][5] a cemetery[6] and a yurt have also been used.[7]
The Death Cafe website created by Underwood states the purpose as "to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives".[8] Facilitators have said that there is "a need among people to open [the] closet"[3] into which death, the "last taboo", has been placed,[2] to reduce fear and enable people to live more fully.[2][3] Crettaz said that his aim was to break the "tyrannical secrecy" surrounding the topic of death,[2] and that at these gatherings, "the assembled company, for a moment, and thanks to death, is born into authenticity."[9] Underwood said that "we have lost control of one of the most significant events we ever have to face."[7]
Death Cafes have helped to relax the taboo of speaking about death, particularly with strangers, and encouraged people to express their own wishes for after they die. The open-ended discussions also provide an avenue to express thoughts about one's own life stirred up by the death of a family member.[1] According to one commentator, Crettaz wanted to revive the pagan tradition of the funeral feast, "where the living would renew their bonds while letting go of what weighed on their hearts".[10]
Crettaz organized the first café mortel in 2004 in Neuchâtel[2][11] and in 2010 brought the idea to Paris. He published a book titled Cafés Mortels: Sortir la Mort du Silence (Death Cafes: Bringing Death out of Silence).[12]
In 2011, inspired by Crettaz and with his guidance, Underwood held the first London Death Cafe at his home.[2] He subsequently developed the Death Cafe website, generating guidelines with his mother, psychotherapist Susan Barsky Reid, and the concept took off globally.[3][13][14] The first US event was organized by Lizzy Miles, a hospice worker, in summer 2012 near Columbus, Ohio.[15][16][17] By June 2014, the idea had spread to Hong Kong,[18] and it was subsequently popularized in Shanghai by a non-profit organization that provides hospice services to cancer patients.[19] In February 2013, a Death Cafe in London was filmed.[20] The first Latino Death Cafe was held in San Diego on April 25, 2015, and the first on the East Coast was held on September 19, 2019 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.[citation needed]
Café TotentanzorTotentanz-Café is used in German-speaking areas.[11][21]
Underwood died in June 2017; Death Cafe has since been run by his mother, his sister Jools Barsky, and his wife Donna Molloy.[22] A qualitative study by Jack Fong, The Death Café Movement: Exploring the Horizons of Mortality, was published in 2017.
