A cry was heard from his room and he was found in his bedroom, lying on the floor and grasping an electric fan. Merton had come out of the bathtub, slipped on the tiled floor, and grabbed a fan to break his fall. The fan electrocuted him and he died instantly.
Becoming Who You Are, Paulist Press
- James J. Martin, SJ
...in Bangkok, on a warm day while taking a bath, he slipped in the bathtub, grabbed an electric fan and was electrocuted.
Thomas Merton, a Man of Contradictions,
Loyola Press
- James J. Martin, SJ
...stepped out of a bathroom shower during a visit to Bangkok. Slipping on the wet floor, he grabbed a poorly wired fan for support and was electrocuted.
Thomas Merton: Still Controversial
America Magazine-James J. Martin, SJ
He takes a shower. On his way out of the shower, he slips, grabs a fan, and is electrocuted.
Loyola Productions
James J. Martin, SJ
Merton was found electrocuted by a handheld hair dryer that had fallen into his bathwater. This was especially suspicious since Merton was bald and would have had no reason to use a hair dryer. He was found dead in the bathtub.
Andrew Young
former Congressman, UN
Ambassador, & Mayor of Atlanta
Rev. C. John McCloskey
Research fellow at the Faith and
Reason Institute in Washington, D.C.
Merton died on December 10, 1968, there in Thailand, when a fan fell into his bathtub and electrocuted him.
Rev. James J. Martin, SJ,
Editor-at-large of the
Jesuit magazine America
Paul R. Dekar
Professor Emeritus Memphis
Theological Seminary
“Not for a minute, however, do I believe that Patrick Hart ‘invented the story that Merton took a shower before his accident.’ That idea is apriori implausible. I knew Patrick Hart very well. One would sooner impute such a thing to Mother Teresa.” Feb. 2021
...he had died by an electric shock when he touched a live wire on a floor lamp. That was just this month on December 5th. He had been taking a shower before an evening conference he was giving.
Fr. Jacob Restrick, O.P.
Mary Gordon
author & academic
[Thomas Merton] died...in a bathroom.
What is the standard or accepted account of Thomas Merton's death?
Religious writer Thomas Merton died when a radio fell in the bathtub.
Faulty wiring electrocuted him as he directed a fan’s air flow after his shower.
Rev. George Kilcourse
Bellarmine Univesity
Past member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
…returned to his room; took a shower; bumped into an old upright electric fan; and was accidentally electrocuted…
Fr. John Dear
Author
He took a shower and, afterwards, slipped on the wet bathroom floor; he grabbed a rotary fan for balance and was electrocuted.
Paul Elie
Writer
Merton took a shower around 1:30 in the afternoon and, in an attempt to move a large fan, was electrocuted...the facts seem more straightforward: he died either from electrocution directly or from a heart attack precipitated by the shock he received or he had a heart attack and fell over the fan."
Lawrence Cunningham
Notre Dame Professor
Thomas Merton Award 1993
from International Thomas Merton Society
What seems the most likely reconstruction is that Merton came out of the shower either wearing a pair of drawers or naked...Merton may have slipped and drawn the fan sharply toward him for support, or he may have simply tried to change its position.
Michael Mott
Authorized Merton biographer
He was electrocuted accidentally when he touched a fan coming out of a shower in Bangkok.
Judith Valente
President of the International Thomas Merton Society
Fr. Louis died by electrical shock moving a fan with a shorted circuit.
Bro. Paul Quenon O.C.S.O.
Abbey of Gethsemani monk
Past member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
Bro. Patrick Hart O.C.S.O.
Abbey of Gethsemani
Past member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
[Merton] returned to his cottage at about 2:30 and proceeded to take a shower before retiring for a rest. Standing barefoot on the terrazo floor he apparently had reached for the large standing fan (either to turn it on or pull it closer to the bed) when he received the full 220 volts of direct current.
Fr. James Fox O.C.S.O.
Abbey of Gethsemani abbot
Said Br. Patrick [Hart] and seconded by Br. Lawrence: "Fr. Flavian received a message...that [Thomas Merton] had been electrocuted by a faulty wire in a large fan in his room. Either he had a heart attack and grabed (sic) the fan and it fell with him; or he grabed (sic) the fan and it fell with him; or he had been fixing the fan and grabed (sic) a badly insulated hot wire."
It seems to me very obvious that when you just step out of a shower you are naked and that when you are electrocuted you urinate involuntarily…When the Thai police arrived…they discovered that the body had a pair of drawers on. In fact, it is a second pair. The first pair they put on him must have been put on while the fan was still running because they have burn marks. So he is given a second pair. He's all cleaned and ready for inspection. The naked monk is made modest.
Michael Mott
Authorized Merton biographer
…Merton had been found dead in his room after an accident in the shower.
He slipped in the shower, grabbed a rotary fan, and was electrocuted.
The International Thomas Merton Society, Corpus Christi Chapter
[Merton] had a shower, and then, very possibly with the soles of his feet still wet, grasped a large standing fan that was defective and took a full 220 volts of direct current.
Austen Ivereigh
Roman Catholic Journalist
Michael Higgins
Canadian Academic
Past President and
Member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
Eventually, I got through to the embassy in Bangkok and they confirmed it and they said there had been an accidental death: nothing more than that.
Rev. Abbot Flavian Burns, O.C.S.O.
Abbey of Gethsemani
In his room he took a shower. Afterward he happend to grasp a large standing fan at a point where the covering on the electric cord had worn thin, exposing the copper wire within. Receiving the force of 220 volts of current, he cried out, collapsed, and died of heart failure.
Jim Forest
Thomas Merton Award 2017
from International Thomas Merton Society
[Merton] will return to his room for a bath, reach for a fan, and receive the accidental electric shock that will end his life.
Fred Bahnson
School of Divinity
Wake Forest University
Louis A. Ruprecht
Chair of Religious Studies
Georgia State University
[Merton] returned to his room, and was electrocuted in his bath;
Thomas Merton always could make an exit. He returned to his room and took a nap, then a shower, there’s a wet floor, a fan with bad wiring, 220 volts. The official explanation is death by accidental electrocution.
Morgan C. Atkinson
Author
Merton died in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution.
Christopher Pramuk
Professor
Regis University
Past President and member of the board of International Thomas Merton Society
Certainly, the story of Merton's death is very straightforward...He touched a fan after a bath in the afternoon...I don't think that Merton, no matter how prominent he was, was done in by the CIA. I think that's a little bizarre.
I did ask the monks at Gethsemani, Patrick Hart his secretary most prominently, about what they thought of his death...Hart said, Most of us are amazed that he didn't kill himself in the hermitage. He was unbelievably klutzy. He never learned to drive a car. We kept expecting he was going to be found dead electrocuting himself in the hermitage. No, no, no. This fits in with Merton."
Anthony Podavano
Professor Author
While at a conference in Bangkok, Merton was accidentally electrocuted and died on December 10, 1968.
Steven P. Millies
Professor
Catholic Theological Union Chicago
...Merton's tragic accidental death — he was electrocuted by an electric fan near Bangkok...
Heidi Schlumpf
National Catholic Reporter
I also concluded that, contrary to Mott’s dismissal of Merton not having had a circumstance in which to take his life, he did so while participating at a conference in a village in Samutprakarn, 20 miles from the Thai capital of Bangkok,
John Cooney
The Irish Times
...a faulty fan electrocuted him as he emerged from the bathtub.
Margery Eagan
Radio host / colummnist
In Bangkok, Merton stepped out of his shower, slipped on the floor, reached instinctively for support, grabbed an electric fan, and died.
Alan Jacobs
Distinguished Professor of Humanities
Baylor University
He had taken a bath and with wet feet walked across a terra cotta floor to pull an electric fan over to his bed. The fan had a faulty wire, it shocked him, then fell over him…
James T. Baker
Professor (Emeritus)
Western Kentucky University
For he went back to his room, took a shower and in doing so accidentally electrocuted himself.
A Retreat with Thomas Merton
September 4, 2023
Esther de Waal
Scholar
UNIQUE among history’s great spiritual writers, Thomas Merton is also the only one whose death certificate reads that an electric fan killed him as he stepped out of the bath...Most would say that he simply needed to be more careful in bringing together water and electricity.
Sister Janet Fearns, FMDM
Author
A faulty electric fan fell on him as he was coming from the shower, and he was electrocuted.
Robert Waldron
Merton scholar
It is somehow touching that the room in which Merton died not only has no marking or plaque, but in a sense does not exist anymore. The partition on the right side of Bungalow # 11, which had made it into private quarters, has been removed. Chairs and a table, sitting out in the center of the area, now form a sitting area. Why does it seem like a sitting area no one uses?
The bathroom at the rear contains a toilet and in one corner, a squared off area of ceramic tile forms the equivalent of a sink or small tub. Water from a spigot above fills the tub. With a pan, a person can bathe themselves -as Merton did-taking a sort of a shower. The water drains through an opening in the wall to a klong at the rear. The spigot has a faulty washer and drips constantly.
I walk out of the bathroom, tracing Merton's steps, across the dustless terrazzo floor and stand in the middle of the room ... I kneel down on the floor. I touch my hand to the terrazzo...But in that moment, my hand pressed to the spot where he fell, I feel as close to him as I know I may ever be in this life.
Paul Wilkes
Journalist
[Merton] emerged dripping from his shower and stumbled over an electric fan with faulty wiring; electrocuted at 53.
Virginia Spencer Carr
Professor
Columbus State University
[Merton] retired to his room for a shower and a nap. There he was later found dead, apparently electrocuted by the faulty wiring of a fan.
Robert Ellsberg
Editor in Chief
Orbis Books
...Merton received an electrical shock from a faulty fan while coming out from the shower in Bangkok...
Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes
Professor
Valdosta State University
It was on the afternoon of December 10, 1968 that Thomas Merton took an afternoon shower...Merton's death of course was unexpected.
Fr. Dan Horan, OFM
Professor
Chicago Theological Union
Past Member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
his untimely accidental death by electrocution in a hotel in Bangkok on December 10
Sarah Coakley
Professor and Emeritus Fellow
University of Cambridge
He was a klutz and accidentally electrocuted himself in the bathroom; not a heroic death, to be sure.
There were even rumors after he died in Bangkok that he wasn’t actually dead, but had faked his death in order to become a Buddhist monk and live in the East!
"He was electrocuted apparently after touching a fan with faulty wiring soon after emerging wet from the bathtub."
-Thomas Merton: An introduction to His Life, May 18, 2021
Jon M. Sweeney
Editor-in-Chief
Paraclete Press
Merton went to his room, where he took a shower. After this, while still not quite dry, he grasped a defective standing fan which sent 220 volts of direct current through his body.
Wyatt North Publishing
...Merton's chance encounter with a faulty electric fan caused a major heart attack from which he died.
Fiona Gardner
Professor
La Trobe University
Past Member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
He was electrocuted coming out of the shower in his bedroom, apparently slipping and grabbing onto a large, stand-up fan with faulty wiring.
Linus Mundy
Author
Joachim Viens
author
On his first major trip, after giving the talk, he went back to his cottage, took a shower, stepped out of the shower and somehow or other grabbed a floor fan and was electrocuted. That is a koan!
He died tragically in Bangkok of accidental electrocution due to faulty wiring...I saw Merton once for just a moment, as he (and Mother Teresa, believe it or not) walked by me while I was visiting the monastery in early June of 1961.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
author
Merton was accidentally electrocuted by an electric fan.
Thomas Merton’s Encounter with Buddhism and Beyond: His Interreligious Dialogue, Inter-monastic Exchanges, and Their Legacy - 2019
Jaechan Anselmo Park, OSB
Thomas Merton Award 2019
from International Thomas Merton Society
Merton was electrocuted by a fan after taking a shower.
Cyprian Consiglio, OSB
He died in a freak accident on Dec. 10, 1968, in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was electrocuted by an electric fan while stepping out of his bath.
Mary Ann Poust
Journalist
It is believed that Merton had returned to his room and took a shower before taking a nap. After he got out of the shower he touched the fan while standing on a wet tile floor and was electrocuted.
David Orberson
Bellarmine University
Officially, and as far as anyone can tell, it was an accident: he stepped from the shower, stretched his hand to start a large, electric fan only to find it live and falling, down, across his chest, killing and making him at last completely useless.
Noel Rowe
Australian Academic
…the manner of Merton's death—accidental electrocution caused by his grasping the frayed cord of an electric fan…
Sister Therese Lentfoehr
Academic
Rumors that Merton's death was not accidental, that he was a victim of the CIA or some other nefarious group, have circulated for years. There is absolutely no hard evidence for this. I have read the accounts of those who first examined the body (and I have seen pictures of the corpse), including that of one of the abbesses at the meeting who was also a medical doctor. An ungrounded fan was found across his body. Either he had a heart attack and fell against the fan or touched it and was electrocuted. Anyone who has lived in the less developed world will attest to, if not undependable electricity, at least “adventures” with electricity. Merton scholar Robert Grip has done extensive work on this issue and concludes the death was accidental.
Shaped by the End You Live For: Thomas Merton’s Monastic Spirituality, April 22, 2020
Rev. Dr. Bonnie B. Thurston
Past President and
Member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
Gregory Hillis
Emory University
Thomas Merton Award 2023
from International Thomas Merton Society
The circumstances of his death were strange, involving a fan with an apparent electrical short. And while suggestions have recently been made that his death was suspicious, there is no reason to believe that it was anything but accidental.
-Man of Dialogue: Thomas Merton's Catholic Vision - 2021
Mary R. Somerville
Member
The Merton Legacy Trust
I asked Brother Patrick to help with a tour when I brought a group of Protestant friends to Gethsemani...We ended up in a conference room where Merton's secretary, fielding questions, held forth with candor and a sly sense of humor...Then, from a savvy questioner, "Did the CIA kill Merton?" Brother Patrick: "Merton was always a klutz, never to be trusted with machinery. He was accident prone. His death was just that, an accident."
[Thomas Merton] was electrocuted in the shower.
Timothy Radcliffe, OP
Roman Catholic priest and Dominican friar
former Master of the Order of Preachers
Fintan Monahan
Bishop of Killaloe
County Clare, Ireland
There was all kinds of theories that there was a conspiracy to kill him, but there is no substantiated evidence to prove that. The general consensus is that it was accidental electrocution when he emerged from the bath, in a hotel, in Bangkok. And it was an air conditioner that was badly wired and he was electrocuted through that.
- November 12, 2020
Kathleen Tarr
Member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
"I will modify my description and explanations in the future to say, rather, that it is suspected Merton died from accidental electrocution." -September 2018
“He goes back to his bungalow and two hours later he is found dead in his room by accidental electrocution, on December 10, 1968, right after he came to Alaska. There is no evidence to show, to this day, that he might have been murdered or anything like that, it is still by accidental electrocution. He touched a fan, floor fan, and there is a faulty wire and he was killed instantly, at age 53, in his room.” -February 2020
Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon
former monk at the
Abbey of Gethsemani
Sophronia Scott
Member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
Thomas Merton Award 2021
International Thomas Merton Society
"Merton was only fifty-three when he died in Bangkok, Thailand, while attending a monastic conference. His cause of death is listed as accidental electrocution, the result of him touching a faulty fan after getting out of a shower." p.14
The Seeker and the Monk, March 2021
"He had given his talk in the morning at the conference in Bangkok and then went to his room to rest before the evening sessions. When he didn't return, his fellow monks opened his room and found him dead on the floor. Apparently, he had stepped out of the shower and had been electrocuted after touching a faulty fan." p.175
The Seeker and the Monk, March 2021
After lunch, he retired to his room. A few hours later, another conferee found Merton’s body with a fan lying on top of his body. He probably tried to move the fan. Perhaps he stepped on its faulty wiring. While it is impossible to be certain of the circumstances, the cause of Merton’s death was electrocution.
--from Thomas Merton by Paul Dekar, June 2, 2021
David Griffith
Academic
University of Notre Dame
On December 10, 1968, Thomas Merton stepped out of the shower in his Bangkok hotel room, reached to adjust the speed of a fan, and was fatally electrocuted.
Thomas Merton was accidently electrocuted by a malfunctioning fan in his bathroom.
David Ryan
Author
Deborah Kehoe
co-editor of The Merton Annual
Past member of the Board
International Thomas Merton Society
Although persistently controversial, it is a controversy that people persist in pursuing, the official cause of death remains accidental electrocution from stepping out of a bath and grabbing a badly wired electric fan. - June 28, 2020
Matt Labash
Journalist
Merton expired in 1968 at the age of 53. He was found dead in his room at a Red Cross retreat center near Bangkok — where he was lecturing at a monastic conference — with a short-circuited Hitachi floor fan atop his body, which some think he grabbed for after stepping out of the shower.
- April 7, 2022
Bill Morgan
Beat Generation author
After giving a lecture on the morning of December 10, 1968, he returned to his room and took a bath. By accident, he touched a fan that had faulty wiring and died.
- June 30, 2022
Ian S. MacNiven
Author
Merton was accidentally electrocuted outside Bangkok...
-The Merton Annual 2013
Abbey of Gethsemani
Merton died by accidental electrocution in Bangkok, Thailand.
-Abbey of Gethsemani website 2022
New Directions Publishing
Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution.
-New Directions website 2022
Robert Bonazzi
In 1969, the year after Thomas Merton's accidental death by electrocution, John Howard Griffin was invited by the Merton Legacy Trust to write the 'official biography' of the Trappist monk and author.
-Foreword to Follow the Ecstasy
John Howard Griffin
author of Black Like Me
Of course, he did not survive his journey to the East, but died of accidental electrocution in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, twenty-seven years to the day after he had entered Gethsemani Abbey (December 10, 1941).
-Follow the Ecstasy
…returning to his room in Bangkok for lunch after delivering a lecture on Marxism and monasticism, the wandering monk was found dead, apparently electrocuted by a fan. -The Half Known Life, Jan. 10, 2023
Pico Iyer
Journalist
The Thomas Merton Standard Account Quiz
"...Merton was fatally electrocuted by a faulty wire..."
- Encyclopedia Britannica
"...Merton died in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution, having touched a poorly grounded electric fan while stepping out of his bath."
- Find a Grave
"Staying in a retreat house in Bangkok where he was giving a lecture in 1968, he was found dead under an electric fan which he had apparently touched after stepping out of a shower.”
-Thomas Merton's Trappist Brothers and Sisters
Order of Cistercians Strict Observance at Trappist.org
"On December 10, he was found dead in his room, victim of an accidental electrocution."
- Greg Cook, Catholic Exchange, Feb. 27, 2023
Rev. Gerald S. Twomey
Academic - Priest
"...Merton's electrocution in Bangkok..."
- Thomas Merton: In the Belly of a Paradox
Rev. Gregory Pine, O.P.
Dominican - Priest
Fr. Patrick Briscoe, O.P.
Dominican priest
"[Thomas Merton] died of electrocution because, like some bathroom appliance fell in the tub"
- Fr. Patrick Brisco, O.P. and Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.,
Godsplaining | Catholic Podcast, May 25, 2023
Greg Cook
Catholic Writer
"While in Bangkok, however, Father Merton was electrocuted in a freak accident."
- Jim Graves, Our Sunday Visitor, May 27, 2015
Jim Graves
Catholic writer
I can imagine [Merton] stepping on a wet terrazzo floor, losing his balance, grabbing for the first thing he saw, which, unfortunately, was a floor fan that was plugged in, and that was the end of him.
-Tuesdays with Merton, February 12, 2023
Bob Grip
TV anchorman
Past President of the
International Thomas Merton Society
Merton received an electric shock from a faulty fan after coming out from his bath.
- January 8, 2021
Merton would die on December 10, accidentally electrocuted in his room...although evidence seems to point to faulty wiring in a fan, another possibility is that a heart attack preceded the electrocution, or caused it.
- January 2023
David M. Ordorisio
Scholar
"...all indications seem to point to the conclusion that he was killed accidentally, electrocuted by a defective fan."
- Thomas Merton, the Man and His Work
D.Q. McInerny
author of Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking
Robert Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publisher
...he apparently died of accidental electrocution...Merton’s body was found on the floor of his room, during one of the rest periods, with an electric fan fallen across his body. The fan’s velocity-control box lay right against his flesh (he had just taken a shower)...
America the Jesuit Review, Feb. 27, 2024, reprinted from an article by Robert Giroux on Oct. 22, 1988
"On December 10, 1968, after giving a lecture in Bangkok, Merton died in a freak accident in his hotel room, electrocuted by a defective fan after getting out of the shower.” April 9, 2024 Night Lights
David Brent Johnson
Host WFIU Night Lights