Page 16 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

xvi Introduction

served in many traditions that are still prac- another existence. The physical body is a tem-
ticed in the modern marriage ceremony. porary possession that a human has, not what
a person is.
The mystery of what happens when the soul
leaves the body remains an enigma in the teach-
Belief in an Afterlife ings of the major religions; however, as more
and more individuals are retrieved from clinical
Belief in the survival of some part of us death by the miracles of modern medicine, liter-
after death may also be as old as the human ature describing near-death-experiences has
race. Although one cannot be certain the ear- arisen which depicts a transition into another
liest members of man’s species (Homo sapiens world or dimension of consciousness wherein
c. 30,000 B.C.E.) conducted burial rituals that the deceased are met by beings of light. Many of
would qualify them as believers in an afterlife, those who have returned to life after such an
one does know they buried their dead with experience also speak of a life-review of their
care and consideration and included food, deeds and misdeeds from childhood to the
weapons, and various personal belongings moment of the near-death encounter.
with the body. Anthropologists have also dis-
covered the Neanderthal species (c. 100,000
B.C.E.) placed food, stone implements, and Prophecy and Divination
decorative shells and bones with the deceased.
Because of the placement of such funerary The desire to foresee the future quite likely
objects in the graves, one may safely conjec- began when early humans began to perceive
ture that these prehistoric people believed that they were a part of nature, subject to its
death was not the end. There was some part of limitations and laws, and that they were seem-
the deceased requiring nourishment, clothing, ingly powerless to alter those laws. Mysterious
and protection in order to journey safely in supernatural forces—sometimes benign, often
another kind of existence beyond the grave. hostile—appeared to be in control of human
This belief persisted into more recent histori- existence.
cal times. The ancient Egyptians had a highly Divination, the method of obtaining
developed concept of life after death, devoting knowledge of the future by means of omens or
much thought and effort to their eternal well- sacred objects, has been practiced in all soci-
being, and they were not the only early civi- eties, whether primitive or civilized. The
lization to be concerned about an afterlife. ancient Chaldeans read the will of the gods in

With all their diversity of beliefs, the the star-jeweled heavens. The children of
major religions of today are in accord in one Israel sought the word of the Lord in the jewels
essential teaching: Human beings are immor- of the Ephod. Pharaoh elevated Joseph from
tal and their spirit comes from a divine world his prison cell to the office of chief minister of
and may eventually return there. The part of Egypt and staked the survival of his kingdom
the human being that survives death is known on Joseph’s interpretation of his dreams. In the
in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the same land of Egypt, priests of Isis and Ra lis-
soul—the very essence of the individual per- tened as those deities spoke through the
son that must answer for its earthly deeds, unmoving lips of the stone Sphinx.
good or bad. Hinduism perceives this spiritual Throughout the centuries, soothsayers and
essence as the divine Self, the Atman, and seers have sought to predict the destiny of
Buddhism believes it to be the summation of their clients by interpreting signs in the
conditions and causes. Of the major world entrails of animals, the movements of the stars
religions, only Buddhism does not perceive an in the heavens, the reflections in a crystal
eternal metaphysical aspect of the human per- ball, the spread of a deck of cards, and even
sonality in the same way that the others do. messages from the dead. All of these ancient
However, all the major faiths believe that practices are still being utilized today by those
after the spirit has left the body, it moves on to who wish to know the future.

The Gale Enc y clopedia of the Unusu al and Unexplained