After Life

By Leon Bari

Man has always asked, "is our lifespan of three score years and ten our only expectation for all eternity, or is there something else?"

This book has revealed much of the current information available to allow us to rea

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leon Bari
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781915730091

Book preview

AFTER LIFE

LEON BARI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE: THE ANCIENTS—THE AMERICAS

CHAPTER TWO: THE ANCIENTS—AFRICA

CHAPTER THREE: THE ANCIENTS__EUROPE AND_THE VIKINGS

CHAPTER FOUR: THE ANCIENTS: HINDUISM BUDDHISM AND ANCIENT CHINA

CHAPTER FIVE: PRE-HISTORY MYSTERIES

CHAPTER SIX: REINCARNATION

CHAPTER SEVEN: NDE AND REGRESSION

CHAPTER EIGHT: GHOSTS AND MEDIUMS

CHAPTER NINE: THE PARANORMAL

CHAPTER TEN SPIRITUALISM

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE SCIENCE

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE AFTERLIFE BELIEFS.....REVIEW

PREFACE

Having reached that certain age when looking back is a far greater distance than looking forward, it is quite reasonable that I should be contemplating the shedding of this mortal coil.

This personal contemplation leads me to the question of the finality of death. It seems so unfair that life is given on the one hand and then snatched away, for all eternity, on the other. Nevertheless, death as the ultimate finality is the belief of many.

Humankind is constantly evolving, learning more about the Universe and how it works, with every generation. Whether we will ever be able to understand its complexities fully is a conundrum that may never be answered. However, the idea that human life is merely nature’s way of continuing the species—with no further meaning—is constantly being challenged.

The ancients and modern religions both believe that the soul goes to a better place when we die. This is, of course, a simplistic explanation originally created for a largely uneducated audience. However, the thought of living in spirit, in a place that represents paradise, for all eternity, is almost as horrifying as eternal death; it cannot be contemplated—unless, of course, time itself has a different meaning—when experiencing something beyond human understanding.

Scientists advise us that it is not possible to create energy without matter; they depend on each other. However, I have lived long enough to take with a very large pinch of salt, anything that scientists tell us today. I know without fear of contradiction that tomorrow scientists will have a totally different opinion and probably an opposite view. In fact, quantum physics is already changing the way we think. The investigation into sub-atomic particles is an evolving scientific journey that is leading, hopefully, to a greater understanding of the universe and the way it works. Whether it will completely answer all of the questions about the afterlife, or prove that it does not exist, is open to question.

My own personal view shared by others to whom I have spoken is that it is conceivable that there exists a life force—a force or energy that, to date, has been undetectable. A force that is unique to every individual, like a fingerprint. The existence of a life-force, a life energy, that does not require matter to continue its existence but does require a host to manifest itself, would explain all of the mysteries of the paranormal.

Just think; if more than one life-force were to inhabit one individual, then you would get multiple personality disorder. As a force, it could explain kinetic energy, the ability to temporarily leave its host, i.e. astral projection, or even make connection with another life force, i.e. telepathic ability. It would explain the mysterious movement of solid objects. Obviously, there is no evidence or laboratory proof of the possibility of a personal life force as yet, but some quantum scientists are actively examining the energies or forces that exist or may exist at sub-atomic levels. They may uncover the very force of which I speak.

However, I trust you will agree that it is both an interesting and comforting thought.

PROLOGUE

From time immemorial, man has searched to discover the meaning of life and death. We have all asked the question Why? a question that so far remains unanswered.

The central theme of most religions is the post death experience of the soul; and, therefore, they are greatly devoted to the afterlife, with an emphasis on how each individual conducts himself or herself, whilst living impacts what happens to them in the afterlife.

Almost all religions preach that, following death, there is a judgement by a deity, where our deeds and characteristics in life will determine either punishment or reward when we die, or as they would prefer, when we pass to the other place.

Throughout the planet, the earliest of civilisations have sought a reason for human life and a reason for death, which is to say, a reason beyond the fact that everything organic decays naturally given time.

Almost all civilisations have believed that man is special; he/she is capable of thought and understanding beyond that of any other species. In consequence, man must have some sort of existence beyond physical death. Of course, animals may also have the same existence beyond death; however, they are incapable of understanding the idea of an afterlife. The problem with this argument is the simple fact of the extinction of certain species. If they have an afterlife, how does it manifest itself? It cannot manifest itself in the continuation of the species and this, one could argue, is the only explanation that would make sense. Still, what makes sense in the twenty first century may not be relevant in the future.

That is the question; if it were possible to provide an answer, then the question of life after death would be solved.

When I raised the conundrum of how ancient societies reached similar conclusions regarding the continuance of the soul without many ever being in contact with their distant cousins, (as far as we know), the response was: All animals have a survival instinct, a sixth sense, if you like, both to protect them from danger, and to ensure that the species continues. This instinct is present in all animals, even though they exist on different continents. Therefore, is it not possible that mankind, who has developed a more sophisticated brain, may have similar functional analytical reasons for reaching the conundrum of death, even though there is no contact? Is it not just nature’s way of providing man, not perhaps with a survival instinct, but with a brain that provides reasons that remove much of the fear of death, without actually preventing the total finality of death?

A reasonable train of thought it may be, but this argument does not provide an answer for our individuality. Our sense of self, what makes us who we are as individuals? I therefore concluded that the nature or natural argument was too simplistic, there had to be more.

There have been countless books written about ancient civilisations, about religions, about religious beliefs of an afterlife, about reincarnation, about spirits and ghosts, and so on. This book attempts to bring all of these matters together so that, at the end, the reader may have sufficient information to decide for himself. However, the book is not an encyclopaedia of all of the books written or all of the knowledge gained; therefore, I apologise if there are any omissions that any reader may feel are important. Most of the information used to write the book has been researched from the written word and from the internet.

As each religion is designed to provide both a social structure for its followers, and also an explanation of the continuance of the soul; then the beliefs of many of the religions will be explored, together with their individual teachings of an afterlife. This book will examine much of the evidence of life after death, together with recorded examples. It will look at many matters connected with the possibility that the very thing that gives us individuality and a sense of being does not totally disappear when the body ceases to exist.

At Rutgers University, in 2010, a course called Soul Beliefs: Causes and Consequences was launched. The course generated a great deal of interest. However, there was a shortage of reading material to support the lectures. This book has not been written to recreate the information and discussion that took place in the lectures. It will, I trust, cover a wider area of international belief, both past and present. The final chapter, however, will look carefully at the Rutgers lectures and the response thereto.

As a prelude to the nitty gritty of the subject matter of this book, it would be appropriate to provide a timeline of religion. Religion being the basic concept that mankind has created to explain the afterlife, no matter what form the afterlife takes. This timeline is the chronological catalogue of important and noteworthy religious events in pre-historic and modern times. Written history is only approximately five thousand years old. A lack of written records results in the fact that most of the knowledge about pre-historic religion is derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources and suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate.

A) The pre-historic period covers the dates: 300th to 34 century BCE.

B) Ancient History covers the dates: 33rd century BCE to the 3rd century AD.

C) Middle Ages cover the dates 5th to the 15th century.

D) Early modern and Modern era cover the dates 16th to the 20th century.

There is also an examination of civilisations that apparently existed many thousands of years ago but, for one reason or another, have been lost.

CHAPTER ONE

THE ANCIENTS—THE AMERICAS

Ancient civilisations viewed life, in most cases, as a journey; it was the pathway to the hereafter, the afterlife. Ancient civilisations existed in all corners of the globe, often with no means of communication with other cultures that were, in many cases, thousands of miles away. This opening chapter briefly examines many of these ancient cultures, and in particular, their explanation or belief in the hereafter, that is to say, life beyond the grave.

There were many civilisations recognised in the prehistory of the Americas. It would appear that they begin with the migration of peoples from Asia during the height of the ice age.

The ancestors of today’s American Indigenous peoples were the Paleo-Indians. Experts have theorised that migrants came to the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, the land mass now covered by the ocean waters in the Bering Strait. Other migrants may also have travelled into North America on sheet ice along the northern Pacific coast.

The influx of these first migrants brought in various cultural traits which later developed into civilisations. These cultures later evolved with similarities of the cultures from whence they came. Many of these developed cultures may be considered civilised and they include, Norte Chico, Cahokia, Zapotec, Toltec, Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Purepecha, Chimor, Mixtec, Moche, Mississippian, Puebloan, Totemic, Teotihuacan, Izapa, Mazatec, Muisca, and the Inca.

The religious beliefs and cultures of only some of these peoples will be examined, as examples of the acceptance of Gods and belief of life’s journey, even in ancient times. The question that the examination of ancient cultures raises is whether these ancient peoples, who many believe were closer to Mother Earth and her ley lines, have a greater knowledge of the aftermath of death. A knowledge that has somehow been lost as man has scientifically and educationally evolved.

Ley lines are hypothetical alignments of a number of places of geographical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths. They appear to connect both natural and sacred prehistoric structures together. Although there is little direct evidence for religious worship in the modern sense of the word at megalithic sites, there is evidence that funerary rites were involved at several locations. The burial of valuable goods alongside funerary remains, the placing of remains inside stone chambers underground, and the alignment of funerary structures, or their inhabitants, with the rising sun, all attest to the fact that funeral ley-markers were not placed according to scientific data. A number of rituals have been associated with the path taken by funerary parties. These paths are known as death roads, which are also called spirit paths and are traditionally straight and include the same markers as ley lines. Spirit lines are also invisible and are viewed as paths for the movement of spirits.

These invisible lines of force were recognised by the Chinese in the art of Feng-shui (which means, that which cannot be seen), and is associated with the earth’s natural magnetism. The acceptance of invisible forces and their importance both in life and in death may have relevance to the force or spirit that ancient culture believes survives the death of the body.

Norte Chico civilisation

The Norte Chico civilisation (also Caral or Caral-Supe civilisation) was a complex pre-Columbian society that existed around 3500-1800 BC. There were as many as thirty major population centres in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru. It has been established as the oldest known civilisation in the Americas.

The alternative name, Caral-Supe, is derived from the Sacred City of Caral in the Supe Valley, a large Norte Chico site. The society in Norte Chico arose a millennium after Sumer in Mesopotamia; it was contemporaneous with the Egyptian pyramids and predated the Mesoamerican Olmec by almost two millennia.

Archaeological evidence suggests the possible worship of common god symbols, which also occur in pre-Columbian Andean cultures. Although evidence regarding the Norte Chico religion is limited, an image of the Staff God, a leering figure with hood and fangs, has been found on a gourd dated 2250 BC. The Staff God is a major deity of later Andean cultures and the find suggests the worship of common symbols of gods. It has also been suggested that the architectural construction of the population centres may also have been a spiritual or religious experience, a process of communal exaltation and ceremony. It has been said that in Caral, the sacred city, the focus was on the temples, which were periodically remodelled with major burnt offerings associated with the remodelling.

The similarities between the Norte Chico population centres and the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures lead to the possibility that the worship of gods was also a prelude to a belief in the hereafter; a belief that the human spirit met the gods, perhaps on a different plane. The question on this occasion is then, why did these fairly primitive cultures believe that humans lived on after death? Did they have knowledge that has been lost? Did they have evidence that eventually died with the culture? We may never know, but the examination of all of the other ancient cultures may provide sufficient detail to form an opinion.

The Olmec Civilisation

Although there may be little available evidence in the belief that the Norte Chico civilisation accepted an existence for humanity after death, there is little doubt that the Olmecs believed in the hereafter, that is, life after death.

Like many ancient peoples around the globe, they explained the wonders that they saw around them by attributing them to gods, who were magical, mystical beings, with unlimited power that were the creators of those wonders. There is very little difference in their beliefs to that which many believe today. Most of the modern religions believe in just one God (not many), a magical, mystical, unexplained energy or force that created the universe. Man requires an explanation of everything that he sees, although he now recognises that he can only really see just ten percent of what actually exists. Man cannot see the air, he cannot see micro-organisms, he cannot see particles (that is the stuff of which everything is made), and so on. But still, just like the Ancients, he believes in a god.

The Olmec civilisation prospered from 1200 BC to about 400 BC and is generally considered to be the forerunner of subsequent Maya and Aztec cultures. It was centred in the Gulf of Mexico and traded as far south as Nicaragua. Features of the Olmec culture are the massive stone sculptures, ball games and the religious animal gods. The name Olmec means the rubber people, but this is a name given to them by the Aztecs, what they called themselves remains a mystery. Although their ethnic origins and the location and extent of many of their settlements are not known, the Olmecs did codify and record their gods and religious practices using symbols. The significance of these complex records does suggest some sort of organised religion involving a priesthood.

The Olmec religious practices of sacrifice, cave rituals, pilgrimages, offerings, ball courts, pyramids, and an apparent awe of mirrors, were passed on to subsequent civilisations in Mesoamerica. However, their most striking legacy is their colossal stone heads.

There is no surviving account of the Olmec’s religious beliefs, unlike the Maya or Aztecs; therefore, it has been necessary for archaeologists to reconstruct the various pieces of the Olmec religion. It is apparent that they had a particular reverence for natural places which connected with the junctions of sky, earth, and the underworld.

The names of their gods are not known, other than they often represented such phenomena as rain, the earth, and especially maize. In consequence, the identifiable gods, demonstrated in Olmec art, have been given numbers instead of names. They gave special significance to the animals present in the environment such as, jaguars, eagles, caimans, snakes and sharks, identifying them with divine beings. It is possible that they believed that powerful rulers could transform themselves, at will, into such fearsome creatures. The Olmecs also mixed animals to create weird and wonderful creatures, such as the were-jaguar, a cross between a human and a jaguar (which may have been their supreme deity). They also worshipped a sky-dragon and six other gods.

The Olmec gods explained the mysteries of the world around them and were the centre of their religion. Their belief that their rulers, priests, and shamans had links to the deities or supernaturals is not so far removed from the beliefs held today in regard to modern religious leaders.

The Maya

The Maya civilisation, which developed around 750 BC, was a Mesoamerican civilisation noted for its hieroglyphic script—which was the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas—as well as for its mathematical, calendar, and astronomical system. The Mayan civilisation developed in the area that is now southeast Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and the western parts of Honduras, and El Salvador.

The religion of the Maya, although it is not definitely known, much has been learned of their religious beliefs as archaeologists discover ancient books, pottery with texts or paintings on them, mural paintings, carvings, and other untouched treasures.

Their religion is complex with a web of beliefs, worshiped beings, and ceremonies. They held in awe various deities, and ancestors similar to the European Catholics and their saints.

Priests were responsible for carrying out rites and acting as a link between this world and the world of the deities and spirits. The Mayans had a very strong belief in nature, mythology, and the afterlife. It was an extremely complex religion, as complex as any religion in ancient and modern times.

The Mayan writings and other evidence that they left behind, indicate that they believed in demons, bush spirits, goblins, dwarfs, and hunchbacks. Each of these groups was worshiped through rituals, retelling of tales, sacrifices, and other religious ceremonies. Other forms of worship included purification (i.e. fasting, confession, and bloodletting), prayer, pilgrimages,