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surviving_death.mgt_2.pptxSociology of Death and Dying
SYA 4930
Surviving Death
Defining Your Afterlife – Mental Exercise
Take a few minutes to write down what you think will happen to you after you die
What happens at the moment of death?
What about after? (i.e., nothing, a journey, a heaven/hell)
What do you think led you to these conclusions? (science, religion, spiritualism, the way you grew up)
*Note* These thoughts...and writing them down....will be useful to you in the next assignment!
Survival in Historical and Cultural Perspective
Hindu tradition regards birth and death as illusion; the spirit/soul is always in process
Buddhist tradition holds that we die and are reborn while our consciousness remains
Chinese and Taiwanese believe unmarried dead can haunt the living
Some men include their “hauntings” in their living wills
Hauntings: Jeremy Bentham in London – in his will, said he would look ‘as much like himself as possible, have his walking stick, attend faculty meetings, etc.)
Clayton Frank Stoker and Johnny Joslin (Godley Texas) testing whether heaven or hell – one would die and come back to tell the other – Johnny was the experimentor
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Important Points Surrounding Death
People differ in their interpretations of the afterlife as either literal or metaphorical
A dualistic philosophy is associated with most afterlife beliefs
The conservation theme has been a powerful influence on survival beliefs
The final exam theme is common, but not universal
State of mind v. state of being
Body and soul are temporary companions with different purposes and fates
Status and privilege should be preserved—as you are, so you shall be
Moment of judgment: salvation or damnation v. All souls enter the same pit in early Judaism
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The Journey of the Dead
Souls undertake perilous journeys after death
Societal rituals to aid in transition
Mythological examples:
Gilgamesh and the mortality of humans
Orpheus and Eurydice and the permanence of death
The land of the dead
Judgment
Gilgamesh – mighty warrior who went to the underworld seeking mortality: failed and remained mortal
Orpheus – allowed to have his dead wife back if he doesn’t look at her until they cross the border: he fails and she remains
Lands: Charon ferries the dead across river Styx to Hades
Entering the underworld: initial tests- demons had to be persuaded the person had not sinned…then the heart was weighed against a feather (truth, order, justice) if the heart was heavier (with wrongdoings) it was fed to the Devourer and the spirit cast to darkness
v. elite, heroic, lovable who traveled far to lands of perpetual sunshine with ripe fruit, pure water, and vacation [in far east or west]
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Polytheistic Approaches
Ancient Egyptian Beliefs
Most widely recorded afterlife beliefs
Body and organs fully prepared; coffins inscribed with magical charms
[preservation = soul survival]
Papyrus role in sarcophagus to guide dead to Egyptian heaven (Paradise of Aalu)
Became Egyptian Book of the Dead
Belief that the body, soul, spirit were interconnected
Led to reanimation after death
Otherworld journey:
Interactions with goddess of the sycamore tree; Seth; Turnface;
End up at Great Hall of Justice with Anubis; “measured” by Thoth, Horus, and Maat; Osiris passes final judgment
Goddess: drink the water she gives at the tree to continue on the journey, symbol of indebtedness/servitude to the gods
Seth: evil god in the form of a huge monster with camel’s head and hound’s body (like the boss fight in video games) – need to drive him back to proceed to the banks of a wide river
Turnface: ferryman who takes souls across river after they answer a series of questions about the construction of the boat (answers are in the papyrus) – need to answer the questions and invoke sacred formulas, then cross the river
Osiris: kingdom on other side of river (god of dead and judge of all) :: soul enters Great Hall of Justice
- to enter, you must pay homage to god and recite a ritual confession proclaiming the innocence of possible offenses [Anubis leads soul to Osiris]
- Osiris stood before the scales of justice – heart weighed and measured by Thoth, Horus, and Maat against an ostrich feather
- soul would beg heart not to condemn it :: needed to be of EQUAL weight to the feather (not too light or heavy) to be acquitted and the heart would be restored – would be free to pass through to the Paradise of Aalu
- if NOT acquitted, the 42 animal gods would pounce on the soul and officially kill them
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Polytheistic Approaches
Tibetan Buddhist Teachings
49-day period after death when the mind/consciousness experiences a series of events in bardo (the ‘in between’) before achieving new birth (reincarnation)
Bardo Thodol Chenmo – manual for dying and the dead
Moment of death
Experiences between death and new birth
Mind’s experiences during new birth
8 phases of dying (See Dying lecture)
Dissolution of 4 basic elements
Dissolution of consciousness
Clear Light State
Subtle consciousness of reality (approx. 3 days)
Body no longer functioning, but mind is aware – no bodily decay
Mind can travel anywhere in world
Encounter 42 peaceful deities; 50 wrathful and 8 semiwrathful
Karma influences samsara until enlightenment
Earth (body); water (fluids); fire (heat); wind (energy or movement)
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Monotheistic Approaches
Jewish Survival Belief: Ancient World
Three main tenants
Yahweh is the God of life and this life is all there is
The faithful among the dead will arise to participate in a new and improved society
There is a spiritual rather than a physical afterlife, in which the individual soul contemplates God
Heaven and Hell in Christianity
The boundary between life and death can be crossed in either direction
Necromancers
Ghosts
Jesus and Lazarus
Heaven as abstract—hell as concrete
Hell as dark, sulfur, chains, impalement vs. flash and festivity vs. sulfur and brimstone
Deserts of Mesopotamia’s three enduring religions
Life this life as it’s the only one – scriptures hold no promise of afterlife
Primary interest in life on earth :: only the right kind of person will live again
Purified existence on another plane
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Desert Religions and Their One God
Islamic Paradise and Jahannam
Life as a spiritual struggle between good and evil (jihad)
Living in preparation for the “appointed hour”
Paradise for the virtuous
Jahannam for the damned
Death as sleep that is either permanent or temporary before reincarnation
Current Alternative Beliefs
People 50 and over
70% believe in afterlife (women more so)
There is a heaven; they will be there
40% believe there is a literal Hell
Many report beliefs in ghosts and spirits (23%)
25% believe death is the end-all
The United States
Belief in the afterlife has increased since 1980
Consensus that afterlife is comforting, includes loved ones, and avoids physical problems from life
71% believe Hell is a real place; 88% believe Heaven is a real place
25% Americans have left their initial religion for either a new religion or no religion
Spirituality is rising (25%) over religious affiliation
Current Alternative Beliefs
Interesting findings from Beliefnet
Christians are most likely to believe that at death the soul/spirit moves on to eternal afterlife and that the souls protect the living
Muslims are most likely to believe there is an in-between stage between death and the afterlife
Buddhists, Hindus, and Wiccans are most likely to believe in reincarnation
Wiccans have most often dreamed about and felt the presence of the dead
Jews and atheist/agnostics are most likely to say “I don’t know what happens after death”
Proving the Afterlife
Some form of afterlife has been assumed by most (if not all) societies
How do we “prove” it?
Can science and scientific method really help us understand whether there is life after death and what it might be like?
Proving the Afterlife
Ghosts
Firm social reality in many cultures
Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Scottish, Welsh
Ghosts heavily associated with nightmares
Widespread belief that a spirit version of one’s self wanders off during dreams
Visible or not; mischievous or not; present without presence
Ghosts as everyday occurrences
Purposes: comfort, warnings, mischief
India [mad neighbors can become troublesome ghosts]; Ghost Month in China
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Proving the Afterlife
Deathbed Escorts
Guides who escort the living across the border to death
“gray lady” or comforting spirits
Study on observations from over 2,000 physicians and nurses in U.S. and India
Patients observed interacting with unseen individuals – patients not drugged, confused, or delusional
Visitations usually came to the dying but also to those who surprisingly died shortly thereafter
Visitations were not always welcome
Escorts varied
Rarely, physicians or nurses could witness
Proving the Afterlife
Reincarnation
Becoming increasingly more popular
Stimulated by past-life research (Stevenson)
Child described way they died in past life
Child had a birthmark or defect consistent with that form of death
Deceased person whose identity matches the story is identified
Medical records are obtained
There is a very close match
Leads to questions of plural death
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Proving the Afterlife
Spiritism/Spiritualism
Fox sisters 1848 and Ouija boards
Four major developments
American civil war leads to widespread and profound grief
Emphasis on mediums/psychics/channelers and séances
Spirit communication becomes a scam business
Séances become concern for church and science
Debunking spiritism and its downfall
Today TV and other media outlets fuel and/or showcase a continuing human interest in mediums and spirit communication
Strangers come to home, raps=yes, silence=no
-- societies for the study of physical research
‘spirit photography’ = photoshopping historically
Automatic writing; séances, etc. can’t be proved or disproved - - maybe due to lies, living aid, etc.
**Fox sisters admitted to faking the noises with cracking toe and finger bones; people still believed in ghosts regardless & the stories they told
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Proving the Afterlife
Near-Death Experiences
Major features:
Sense of serenity and well-being
Sensation of being “lifted up”
“Out-of-body” experience
Sense of a journey
White light or turning point
Evidence favoring NDEs
Survivors change their outlooks
Saw waking as “proof” of afterlife
Biomedical attempts to verify NDEs
Tests verify suspension of brainwaves and heartbeat, but cannot account for “afterlife”
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Proving the Afterlife
Near-Death Experiences
Distressing Near-Death Experiences
Media less likely to portray these
Dominated by tormenting feelings of horror, anger, extreme loneliness, sense of isolation, overpowering guilt
Four ‘types’ of DNDEs:
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Proving the Afterlife
Near-Death Experiences
Eliminating other explanations
NDEs are not caused by nor are they necessarily symptoms of mental illness
NDEs are not related to levels of education
There is no evidence NDEs occur mostly among people fascinated by music or other unusual phenomena
NDE does not have much similarity to dreams—it is a different kind of mental state
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Proving the Afterlife
Near-Death Experiences
Eliminating NDE as proof:
Many people return with no recollection or only vague, dreamlike fragments
Some survivors return with nightmarish experiences
NDEs occur sometimes In situations in which the individual is not in physical peril
Many people who report NDEs did not actually come close to death (50%)
People in severe pain were more likely to experience bodily distancing
We only hear NDERs from survivors
http:// documentaryaddict.com/Dead+and+Back+Again-11150-documentary.html
http:// iands.org/publications/journal-of-near-death-studies.html
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Should we Survive Death?
Do we deserve survival?
The prospect of survival encourages the worst side of human nature
Types of possible survival:
Symbolic immortality
The self living on in the memories of others
Motivated by the desire to remain influential, even after death
Assisted immortality
Recorded images and sounds
Cryonic suspension
Cloning and the soul
Becoming a smart chip
Time capsules
