Birth Death And The Afterlife

In a world filled with food, booze and a gazillion other distractions, Birth, Death and the Afterlife offers innovative approaches to living fully, peacefully, and loving unconditionally. "A wonderful book. Very comfortable and very deep. It's like having both your best friend and spiritual teacher sitting next to you on your couch, teaching you, reminding you of who you are and what's important in your life." --Robert Peterson, author of Out of Body Experiences "In my work both as a lawyer and a psychic, I have met with hundreds of people struggling with fears, addictions, and blocks, many of which stem from past life issues. Birth, Death and the Afterlife brings marvelous relief by teaching you how to remember your divine self and reclaim your personal power." --Kathryn Harwig, author of The Return of Intuition and seven other books "No matter where you are on your spiritual path, Birth, Death and the Afterlife meets you there and guides you to your next level of self-discovery. Designed for spiritual seekers of all types, it includes case studies and stories that awaken, enlighten and empower." --Nancy Fischer, author of Choices: Escaping the Illusion of Being a Victim "Dr. Kettler escorts you on the journeys of others, using fine-tuned regressive hypnotherapy skills to discover unremembered memory segments in the soul's life-cycle that validate your human and spiritual existence. It illuminates hypnotherapists, potential clients, and the general readership in multiple areas of personal growth and transformation." --Allen S. Chips, PhD, DCH, president of NATH and author of Killing Your Cancer without Killing Yourself

In a world filled with food, booze and a gazillion other distractions, Birth, Death and the Afterlife offers innovative approaches to living fully, peacefully, and loving unconditionally. “A wonderful book. Very comfortable and very deep. It’s like having both your best friend and spiritual teacher sitting next to you on your couch, teaching you, reminding you of who you are and what’s important in your life.” —Robert Peterson, author of Out of Body Experiences “In my work both as a lawyer and a psychic, I have met with hundreds of people struggling with fears, addictions, and blocks, many of which stem from past life issues. Birth, Death and the Afterlife brings marvelous relief by teaching you how to remember your divine self and reclaim your personal power.” —Kathryn Harwig, author of The Return of Intuition and seven other books “No matter where you are on your spiritual path, Birth, Death and the Afterlife meets you there and guides you to your next level of self-discovery. Designed for spiritual seekers of all types, it includes case studies and stories that awaken, enlighten and empower.” —Nancy Fischer, author of Choices: Escaping the Illusion of Being a Victim “Dr. Kettler escorts you on the journeys of others, using fine-tuned regressive hypnotherapy skills to discover unremembered memory segments in the soul’s life-cycle that validate your human and spiritual existence. It illuminates hypnotherapists, potential clients, and the general readership in multiple areas of personal growth and transformation.” —Allen S. Chips, PhD, DCH, president of NATH and author of Killing Your Cancer without Killing Yourself

For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. The nine essays in this volume, ranging chronologically from the tenth century to the present, bring to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. They also explore the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice. The idea that death, ritually managed, can mediate an escape from deluded rebirth is treated in the first two essays. Sarah Horton traces the development in Heian Japan (794–1185) of images depicting the Buddha Amida descending to welcome devotees at the moment of death, while Jacqueline Stone analyzes the crucial role of monks who attended the dying as religious guides. Even while stressing themes of impermanence and non-attachment, Buddhist death rites worked to encourage the maintenance of emotional bonds with the deceased and, in so doing, helped structure the social world of the living. This theme is explored in the next four essays. Brian Ruppert examines the roles of relic worship in strengthening family lineage and political power; Mark Blum investigates the controversial issue of religious suicide to rejoin one’s teacher in the Pure Land; and Hank Glassman analyzes how late medieval rites for women who died in pregnancy and childbirth both reflected and helped shape changing gender norms. The rise of standardized funerals in Japan’s early modern period forms the subject of the chapter by Duncan Williams, who shows how the Soto Zen sect took the lead in establishing itself in rural communities by incorporating local religious culture into its death rites. The final three chapters deal with contemporary funerary and mortuary practices and the controversies surrounding them. Mariko Walter uncovers a "deep structure" informing Japanese Buddhist funerals across sectarian lines—a structure whose meaning, she argues, persists despite competition from a thriving secular funeral industry. Stephen Covell examines debates over the practice of conferring posthumous Buddhist names on the deceased and the threat posed to traditional Buddhist temples by changing ideas about funerals and the afterlife. Finally, George Tanabe shows how contemporary Buddhist sectarian intellectuals attempt to resolve conflicts between normative doctrine and on-the-ground funerary practice, and concludes that human affection for the deceased will always win out over the demands of orthodoxy. Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism constitutes a major step toward understanding how Buddhism in Japan has forged and retained its hold on death-related thought and practice, providing one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of the topic to date. Contributors: Mark L. Blum, Stephen G. Covell, Hank Glassman, Sarah Johanna Horton, Brian O. Ruppert, Jacqueline I. Stone, George J. Tanabe, Jr., Mariko Namba Walter, Duncan Ryuken Williams.

Suppose you knew that, though you yourself would live your life to its natural end, the earth and all its inhabitants would be destroyed thirty days after your death. To what extent would you remain committed to your current projects and plans? Would scientists still search for a cure for cancer? Would couples still want children? In Death and the Afterlife, philosopher Samuel Scheffler poses this thought experiment in order to show that the continued life of the human race after our deaths--the "afterlife" of the title--matters to us to an astonishing and previously neglected degree. Indeed, Scheffler shows that, in certain important respects, the future existence of people who are as yet unborn matters more to us than our own continued existence and the continued existence of those we love. Without the expectation that humanity has a future, many of the things that now matter to us would cease to do so. By contrast, the prospect of our own deaths does little to undermine our confidence in the value of our activities. Despite the terror we may feel when contemplating our deaths, the prospect of humanity's imminent extinction would pose a far greater threat to our ability to lead lives of wholehearted engagement. Scheffler further demonstrates that, although we are not unreasonable to fear death, personal immortality, like the imminent extinction of humanity, would also undermine our confidence in the values we hold dear. His arresting conclusion is that, in order for us to lead value-laden lives, what is necessary is that we ourselves should die and that others should live. Death and the Afterlife concludes with commentary by four distinguished philosophers--Harry Frankfurt, Niko Kolodny, Seana Shiffrin, and Susan Wolf--who discuss Scheffler's ideas with insight and imagination. Scheffler adds a final reply.

The remarkable story of one woman's journey to the other side of life. From the age of seven to the age of twenty-two, Kathie Jordan was visited by her deceased brother at night, pulled from her body, and guided to Heaven. During these night time journeys, she was taught about the purpose of life in the body, the meaning of death, and about the soul's progress in the afterlife. In these moments out of her body, Kathie was taken to higher and higher levels of Heaven, where she met great spiritual teachers, including Jesus.

Why does one die? How should one die? What happens after death? How do resurrection and reincarnation fit within various religious traditions? These are the four fundamental questions posed in Death and the Afterlife. The answers, from acknowledged authorities, give insights into the beliefs and traditions of these faiths and will help readers understand the similarities and differences among them. In this volume, Charles Hallisey presents the viewpoint of Buddhism, Jacob Neusner offers the perspective of Judaism, Jonathan Brockopp writes from the standpoint of Islam, Bruce Chilton discusses Christianity, and Brian K. Smith writes on Hinduism.

A comprehensive survey of how religions understand death, dying, and the afterlife, drawing on examples from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shamanic perspectives. Considers shared and differing views of death across the world’s major religions, including on the nature of death itself, the reasons for it, the identity of those who die, religious rituals, and on how the living should respond to death Places emphasis on the varying concepts of the ‘self’ or soul Uses a thematic structure to facilitate a broader comparative understanding Written in an accessible style to appeal to an undergraduate audience, it fills major gap in current textbook literature