The question of whether or not there is some form of afterlife is an important question for many. It is therefore a question which deserves some examination.
For the Christian, it is obvious that afterlife must exist. It is an afterlife of either eternal happiness in heaven or eternal suffering in hell with an intermediate stage called limbo, where those not destined for immediate ascension to heaven and not evil enough to be instantly despatched to hell may do some form of "penance" until they are fit for heaven. Indeed, they believe that at the end of the world, all the dead will be physically "resurrected" in the eschatological event which they call the Final Judgement amidst great fanfare and spectacular natural explosions staged by the supernatural force of the almighty, all-knowing and all-good supernatural personal being which they call God, who will thereupon pronounce each individual man's eternal fate. The Muslims, who worhsip the same God as the Christians, share more or less the same spiritual cosmology and beliefs, except that if the men are properly behaved they will have 72 beautiful maidens as wives in heaven.
For the Buddhists, who took over their spiritual cosmology from the Hindus according to whom the human "soul" ( strictly speaking not a soul because it carries no personal traits as in the Christian understanding but is conceived of as just the spirit of the karma accidentally and temporarily working itself out upon the earth-body of a human being and is therefore an " impersonal" spirit ) is endlessly recycle-able and in fact will be recycled or reincarnated into human forms, the human soul will also be subject to an endless recylce, but not necesarily in human form: they can be recycled to six realms known as hells (of which there are 8 big and 8 small) , hungry ghosts, beasts, asuras, humans, and heaven. Tibetan Buddhist leaders (called the Dalai Lamas) are believed to be the reincarnated souls of the previous incumbents of such an exalted position. But the Buddha himself classified the question of whether man has got a soul in the sense then understood by his disciples as one of the undetermined questions.
Quite apart from believers of various religions, there have been in human history of all kinds of different civilizations, great or small, countless reports of sightings of and communications with God, the Virgin Mary, the saints, gods, various personifications of the Buddhas in his many forms, ancestral spirits, sprites, fairies, ghosts, angels, aliens, the Devil, and other demons and strange encounters and experiences with the world of the spirit like pre-cognition, near-death experience, out-of-body experience, telepathy etc. There are also numerous reports of strange behavior of living human beings otherwise inexplicable except in terms of spirit possession and miraculous cures from otherwise "incurable" diseases.Of course, there have also been people generally called mediums, or in more primitive societies, shamans who claim or are apparently able to communicate with the souls of the departed and all kind of spirits and recently there has been a form of psycho-therapy called past life recall hypnotic therapy designed to help living people to trace the causes of certain otherwise inexplicable personal traits which are causing them trouble in this life.
Like many ordinary people and especially as a Catholic, I am naturally interested in the question of whether I have got a soul and if so, whether that soul can survive my physical death and if so, what kind of possible form it will take after the decomposition of my body and if there really is some form of spiritual existence after my bodily death or afterlife, how such form of existence is consistent or inconsistent with the laws of physics as we now know them. For me, I have an extra reason to be curious about the nature of any "spirits", if they exist at all, because of some rather strange personal experiences which I had during certain summer nights about two years ago. I do not think that I am alone in being curious about such questions. These are questions of some importance to people who care about what is normally referred to as our "soul". But what kind of knowledge do we have about them? Needless to say, there are a huge number of books on such subjects.
For the benefit of those who are interested, I will set out below some of the books that I have read on such questions and on related topics and also the names of the other books referred to in those that I have read but which I have not personally read:
1. Alice Bailey Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle NY: Lucas Trust 1950
2. Alan E Berstein The Formation of Hell Ithaca: Cornell U Press 1993
3. Alfred D Bertholet The Transmigration of Souls tr. H J Chaytor London & NY: Harper & Brothers 1909
4. Deepak Chopra Life After Death: the Book of Answers NY: Three Rivers Press 2006
5. Kimberley Clark The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas 1984
6. W. J Crawford Experiments in Psychical Science NY: E P Dutton 1919
The Psychic Structures at the Goligher Circle ditto 1921
7. J Alan Danelek The Case for Reincarnation: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Soul Woodbury MN: Llewellyn Publications 2010
8. David Fontana Is there an Afterlife? A comprehensive overview of the Evidence. Ropeley, Hampshire, England: O books 2006
9. James Arthur Findlay Looking Back: the Autobiography of a Spiritualist London: Psychic Press 1955
10. Joe Fisher The Case for Reincarnation 1984
11. J. G. Fuller The Ghost of 29 Megacycles London: Souvenir Press 1985
12. Jacques Le Goff The Birth of Purgatory Chicago: U of Chicago Press 1983
13. Harry Houdini A Magician Among the Spirits NY: Arno Press 1972
14. Pat Kubis and Mark Macy Conversations Beyond the Light Boulder, Colorado, Grrffin Publishing & Continuing Life Research 1995
15. Ervin Laszlo Science and the Askashic Field Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions 2007
Quntum Shift in the Global Brain ditto 2008
16. Mark Macy Spirit Faces: Truth About the Afterlife Newport, Mass.: Weiser Books 2006
17. Raymond Moody Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones NY: Ballantine Books 1994
18. Harry Price Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship London: Nat. Lab of Psychical Research 1931
19. Mary Roach Spook: Science tackles the Afterlife NY. LondoN W W Norton 2005
20. Kenneth Ring & Sharon Cooper Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind Palo Alto, CA: William James Center for Consciousness Studies 1999
21. Luisa E Rhine Hidden Channels of the Mind NY: William Sloane Associates 1961
22. Guru Rinpoche The Tibetan Book of the Dead: the Great Liberation through Hearing of the Bardo according to Karma Lingpa Boulder: Shambhala 2003
23. Jeffrey Burton Russell The Devil Ithaca NY Cornell U Pess 1977
Mephistopheles ditto 1996
A History of Heaven ditto 1997
24. Gary E Schwartz The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death NY: Attica Books 2003
25 Ian Stevenson Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation Charlottesville: U Press of Virginia 1980
26. Brian L Weiss Many Lives, Many Masters NY: Simon & Schuster 1988
27 Colin Wilson The Occult, a History London Grafton Books 1971, 79, 1988
Afterlife: An Investigation of the Evidence of Life after death ditto 1985
Beyond the Occult ditto 1988
28 Ian Wilson The After Death Experience 1987
For those who ask themselves from time to time the question of whether there is a purpose in life and whether the question of whether there is afterlife may or may not affect how we live our life here on earth, it may be worth their time to read some of them and come to their own conclusions. For those whose minds are closed and have already formed unalterable conclusions, obviously, they will consider it a complete waste of their time to spend further time in such explorations. Which of these categories do you fall into?
For me, I don't really care about if there is afterlife or not. Because no one knows the answer. Actually we should care for our life being in here, this time, this moment, in this present world. We born here not only following the rules of our ancestors, our surrounding societies, the natures but also our creative developments in order to bring a brighter tomorrow world for the new born human. How to develop a good education or more completed education for all the people to have a pleasant life and can be united together happily and bring into hamony?
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/17/2010 14:40:00]I share your views too. What is important is what we do or fail to do in the here and now and how within the constraints of our own genes, our own education, our own social circumstance, our energies, our talents, our weaknesses, we do what little we can to make this world a slightly better place than when we first entered it or at least to stop it from going from bad to worse.
The pastor shocked the congregation when he announced that he was resigning from the church and moving to a drier climate. After the service, a very distraught lady came to the pastor with tears in her eyes, "Oh, Pastor Bob, we are going to miss you so much. We don't want you to leave!" The kind hearted pastor patted her hand and said "Now, now, Carolyn, don't carry on. The pastor who takes my place might be even better than me". "Yeah", she said, with a tone of disappointment in her voice, "That's what they said the last time too . . . "
回覆刪除The Pope is visiting town and all the residents are dressed up in their best Sunday clothes. Everyone lines up on main street hoping for a personal blessing from the Pope. One local man has put on his best suit and he's sure the Pope will stop and talk to him. He is standing next to an exceptionally down-trodden looking bum who doesn't smell very good. As the Pope comes walking by he leans over and says something to the bum and then walks right by the local man. He can't believe it, then it hits him. The Pope won't talk to him, he's concerned for the unfortunate people: the poor and and feeble ones. Thinking fast, he gives the bum $20 to trade clothes with him. He puts on the bum's clothing and runs down the street to line up for another chance for the Pope to stop and talk to him. Sure enough, the Pope walks right up to him this time, leans over close and says "I thought I told you to get the hell out of here!"
[版主回覆09/17/2010 16:22:00]If the two jokes above are supposed to be a gentle reminder to me about my weekly portion of fun, you don't have to worry. They will be duly delivered tomorrow. The jokes are good though!
I prefer spend the time on watching the film such as "the ghoast" instead of looking out the answer.
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/17/2010 18:24:00]Ghosts are certainly more interesting and definitely more enjoyable especially when you got a nice looking girl at your side holding you for comfort, provided you don't pee in your pants!