The afterlife or life after death is a speculation concerning existence after death, in which the essential part of an individual's stream of consciousness or identity continues to exist after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, which carries with it one's personal identity.
In some views, this continued existence takes place in a supernatural realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again in a process referred to as reincarnation, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism, and metaphysics.
Some belief systems, such as many pagan ones, hold that the dead go to a specific place (e.g., paradise or the underworld) after death, as determined by their god or gods, based on their actions and beliefs during life. In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those of the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in their ended life.
Different metaphysical models Theist immortalists generally believe some afterlife awaits people when they die. Members of some generally non-theistic religions believe in an afterlife without reference to a deity.
Religions, such as many various pagan belief systems, and some versions of Abrahamic religions, believe in the soul's existence in another world, while others, like many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, believe in reincarnation. In both cases, these religions hold that one's status in the afterlife is determined by their conduct during life.
Reincarnation
Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious conjecture that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each death. This concept is also known as rebirth or transmigration and is part of the Saṃsāra/karma doctrine of cyclic existence. Saṃsāra refers to the process in which souls (jivass) go through a sequence of human and animal forms. Traditional Hinduism teaches that each life helps the soul (jivas) learn until the soul becomes purified to the point of liberation. All major Indian religions—namely Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism—have their own interpretations of the idea of reincarnation. The human idea of reincarnation is found in many diverse ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by historic Greek figures, such as Pythagoras and Plato.see Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper, Philip L. Quinn, A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. John Wiley and Sons, 2010, p. 640, Google Books
For Plato, see Kamtekar 2016 and Campbell 2022.
Kamtekar, Rachana. "The Soul's (After-) Life," Ancient Philosophy 36 (2016): 1–18.
Campbell, Douglas R. "Plato's Theory of Reincarnation: Eschatology and Natural Philosophy," Review of Metaphysics 75 4 (2022): 643–665. It is a common belief of various ancient and modern religions, such as Spiritism, theosophy, and Eckankar. It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America.Gananath Obeyesekere, Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth. University of California Press, 2002, p. 15.
Although the majority of denominations within the Abrahamic religions do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Kabbalah, the Cathars, Alawites, the Druze,Hitti, Philip K (2007) . Origins of the Druze People and Religion, with Extracts from their Sacred Writings (New Edition). Columbia University Oriental Studies. 28. London: Saqi. pp. 13–14. and the Rosicrucians.Heindel, Max (1985) [1939, 1908] The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures (Collected Works): The Riddle of Life and Death . Oceanside, California. 4th edition. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era, as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of scholarly research.An important recent work discussing the mutual influence of ancient Greek and Indian philosophy regarding these matters is The Shape of Ancient Thought by Thomas McEvilley. Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teach reincarnation.
Rosicrucians speak of a life review period occurring immediately after death and before entering the afterlife's planes of existence (before the silver cord is broken), followed by a judgment, more akin to a final review or end report over one's life.Max Heindel, Death and Life in Purgatory —Life and Activity in Heaven
Heaven and hell
Heaven, the heavens, Seven Heavens, pure lands, Tian, Jannah, Valhalla, or the Summerland, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as gods, angels, jinn, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases, enter heaven alive.
Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a paradise, in contrast to hell or the underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith or other virtues or right beliefs or the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a world to come.
In Hinduism, heaven is termed Svarga loka. There are seven positive regions and seven negative regions to which the soul can go after death. After completing its stay in the respective region, the soul is subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its karma. This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (heaven, hell, or other) is referred to as otherworld.
Hell, in many religious and folkloric traditions, is a place or state of punishment for souls after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hell as eternal, while religions with a cyclic history usually depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically, these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the Earth's surface and often include entrances to hell from the land of the living. Traditions that do not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward merely describe hell as an abode of the dead, the grave, or a neutral place or state (for example, Sheol or Hades).
Ancient religions Ancient Egyptian religion
The afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion, and its belief system is one of the earliest known in recorded history. When the body died, parts of its soul known as ka (body double) and the ba (personality) would go to the afterlife, which is known to Egyptians as the "Kingdom of the Dead". To sustain the ka, the living provided offerings of food and drink, which were believed to nourish the ka's spiritual needs.
The ka would reunite with the deceased's spirit and enjoy eternal life in the Fields of Aaru, a paradise reserved for the righteous. However, Osiris demands work as restitution for the protection he provides. Statues were placed in the tombs to serve as substitutes for the deceased.Richard P. Taylor, Death and the afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2000,
Arriving at one's reward in afterlife was a demanding ordeal, requiring a sin-free heart and the ability to recite the spells, passwords, and formulae of the Book of the Dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, the deceased's heart was weighed against the Shu feather of truth and justice taken from the headdress of the goddess Maʽat. If the heart was lighter than the feather, they could pass on, but if it were heavier, they would be devoured by the demon Ammit.Kathryn Demeritt, Ptah's Travels: Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt, 2005, p. 82
Egyptians also believed that being mummified and put in a sarcophagus (an ancient Egyptian "coffin" carved with complex symbols and designs, as well as pictures and hieroglyphs) was the only way to have an afterlife. What are referred to as the Coffin Texts are inscribed on a coffin and serve as a guide for the challenges in the afterlife. The Coffin Texts are more or less a duplication of the Pyramid Texts, which would serve as a guide for Egyptian pharaohs or queens in the afterlife. Only if the corpse had been properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba could the dead live again in the Fields of Yalu and accompany the Sun on its daily ride. Due to the dangers the afterlife posed, the Book of the Dead was placed in the tomb with the body as well as food, jewelry, and 'curses'. They also used the "opening of the mouth".Glennys Howarth, Oliver Leaman, Encyclopedia of death and dying, 2001, p. 238Natalie Lunis, Tut's Deadly Tomb, 2010, p. 11
Ancient Egyptian civilization was based on religion. The belief in the rebirth after death became the driving force behind funeral practices; for them, death was a temporary interruption rather than complete cessation of life. Eternal life could be ensured by means like piety to the gods, preservation of the physical form through mummification, and the provision of statuary and other funerary equipment. Each human consisted of the physical body, the ka, the ba, and the akh. The Name and Shadow were also living entities. To enjoy the afterlife, all these elements had to be sustained and protected from harm.Fergus Fleming, Alan Lothian, Ancient Egypt's Myths and Beliefs, 2011, p. 96
On 30 March 2010, a spokesman for the Egyptian Culture Ministry claimed it had unearthed a large red granite door in Luxor with inscriptions by User, a powerful adviser to the 18th Dynasty Queen Hatshepsut who ruled between 1479 BC and 1458 BC, the longest of any woman. It believes the false door is a 'door to the Afterlife'. According to the archaeologists, the door was reused in a structure in Roman Egypt.
Ancient Greek and Roman religions
The Greek god Hades is known in Greek mythology as the king of the underworld, a place where souls live after death.F. P. Retief and L. Cilliers, "Burial customs, the afterlife and the pollution of death in ancient Greece", Acta Theologica 26(2), 2006, p. 45 (PDF ). The Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the gods, would take the dead soul of a person to the underworld (sometimes called Hades or the House of Hades). Hermes would leave the soul on the banks of the River Styx, the river between life and death.Social Studies School Service, Ancient Greece, 2003, pp. 49–51