Afterlives

A piece prompted by my ongoing reading of Freud’s essay at reference 1, and what seems to be his vision of religion springing from a need for a powerful father figure. A vision I do not yet have much sympathy with, despite the example of the Abrahamic religions - but it has prompted me to inquire into the prevalence of belief in the afterlife, with what follows drawing on reference 2.

History

Elaborate systems of belief in the afterlife seem to be what you get in societies which are elaborate and rich enough to have an organised priesthood and which have writing in which to elaborate and record those systems. Plus supplies of affordable paper or equivalent. In short, in civilisations.

An echo here from reference 3: without writing, elaborate systems are not really on.

Places

Afterlives are often thought of as being in a special place, a special place which may be organised into various sectors, a special place which may be accessible from this world, either in body or in soul. The ancient Greeks, for example, had myths about people paying visits to the underworld.

Good sectors were often associated with being high up, perhaps up in the mountains or somewhere in the heavens above. Bad sectors were often associated with being low down, underground, in the nether regions.

Populations

Supposing that the afterlife took the form of some kind of spirit, these spirits might take their place among a regular menagerie of supernatural beings. Some of them more or less unpleasant takes on our worldly forms, some of them more angelic. One or two of them supreme and all-powerful in the way of the god of Christianity and the god of Islam. 

With jealousy being a feature of both of these last, with both religions having a history of intolerance of others, of infidels.

Some of these spirits might be bound up with long-lived features of the natural world, for example trees or mountains. 

Worldly goods

A lot of people, either not believing in the afterlife or not quite sure about it, make alternative provision for continuation of a sort in this world. This might take the form of children, elaborate funerals, elaborate mausoleums, good works or works of art. Warriors, for example, seem to be quite keen on having people sing about their exploits, both during life and afterwards. People in more sedentary roles might want all their papers to be preserved in some museum or library. In which case it is polite to ask first: some of these places can be a bit strapped for room or cash or both.

What form does the afterlife take?

Most of the big religions in the world go in for some form of afterlife, albeit often in the limited form of a spirit. Some of them go in for full bodily resurrection, with residence in the Paradise Hotel for the elect. Although, as I think John Donne pointed out, the deity might be kept busy reassembling the body parts of pirates and such like, scattered around the globe.

I think rather more religions go in for rebirth, whereby one is born again, possibly as a plant or animal, possibly on some other plane of existence. The newborn usually has no conscious connection with his predecessor, so it is not clear to me in what sense this is a rebirth, rather than a common or garden new birth. Some religions allow a soul to move on from one host to another. Superficially at least, rather more plausible.

And there are people in the novels of Agatha Christie, active at a time when there was a lot of spiritualism about, who claim to know who their predecessor was. Perhaps some eminence of Ancient Egypt. I have not checked whether such predecessors are constrained to preserve sex. Rank certainly not. Who wants some overworked slave in a hot quarry as a predecessor?

Conclusions

I conclude that most people live in places where belief in some form of afterlife, most commonly as some kind of spirit, is common. Exactly how many of them are true believers is another matter: I dare say there are always plenty of cynics – probably more men than women – who think that it is all twaddle, without troubling themselves much about the matter.

However, it is odd that, despite not ever having believed in the afterlife and while at the same time taking some considerable interest in such matters, I had never got around to painting myself a big picture before.

Interest which manifests itself, for example, in visiting lots of Christian churches and even attending the odd service. And in my ownership of a very grand prayer book – bought, as it happens, from the closing-down sale of a second-hand bookshop in Sunbury-on-Thames.

PS: the snap above is to be found at reference 4 and is, I think, to do with the six varieties of rebirth available to adherents of one of the Buddhist sects. But you have to sign up to get the story, which I did not care to do.

References

Reference 1: Civilization and its discontents – S. Freud – 1930. Book_227. This version appears to be a digitised version of the Strachey translation.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife. 

Reference 3: The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present – Eric A Havelock – 1986.

Reference 4: https://tricycle.org/. Why tricycle I have no idea.