What's after death?

[Kepler]

4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L.

To expound specifically toward a greatly reduced answer that is by no means definite, consider how consciousness is sustained through its organic body's atomic changes during its lifetime.

The least complex(by no means simple) with the fewest assumptions is that discrete consciousness arises(is defined) by the universe from the products of the universe. A result of external natural elements and systems interacting in a pattern.

When including hidden spacetime dimensionality, where all points of energy matter and their discrete organizations have and form consciousness, it's possible to expand the philosophy into an afterlife model where the pattern or soul of organic life is anchored to celestial and atomic patterns that can reappear across the universe. This idea leads to intentionally directed reincarnation on this planet and other worlds in harmonizing with the celestial relationships that give rise to one's incarnation. It could be poetically said that one's soul is carried throughout the universe by egregores that reappear and are recognized by their celestial relationships. From this there's the possibility of substantive new funerary rites in line with a modern understanding of the universe.

What it's like in the afterlife is intriguing to consider and try to penetrate. One of my favourite descriptions that aligns with the above is one I read into from the opening paragraphs of Berenice:

Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before — that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it. Let us not argue the matter. Convinced myself I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of ærial forms — of spiritual and meaning eyes — of sounds musical yet sad — a remembrance which will not be excluded: a memory like a shadow, vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady — and like a shadow too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it, while the sunlight of my reason shall exist.

In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking, as it were, from the long night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity at once into the very regions of fairy land — into a palace of imagination — into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition — it is not singular that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eye — that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie — but it is singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers — it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life — wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my common thoughts. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, — not the material of my every-day existence — but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.

The reading of the bold/ul for me describing an inversion after death where consciousness is held, cohesive by the result of its incarnate thoughts and alignment with the celestial and truth. The book is wonderful through this lens, and Eureka!

 

[Yazata]

Why did you start with that line from Book of the Law without giving context, or an explanation / referencing it in the rest of your post? Now people will ask what it is and the thread will go off-topic. If you quote a text than include your reason for doing so please.

 

[Kepler]

Why did you start with that line from Book of the Law without giving context, or an explanation / referencing it in the rest of your post? Now people will ask what it is and the thread will go off-topic. If you quote a text than include your reason for doing so please.

It's perilous to comment directly on the Book. Centers of Pestilence(I don't want to be a cult leader), and other issues which you do correctly bring up. It's from investigating that specific line, with Berenice and experiences that the current understanding I posted was inferred.

 

[PinealisGlandia]

I'm not entirely sure there is an "after death" to speak of. I'll do my best to explain.

One day I performed the

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(not the link I learned it from, but the steps described starting on page 4 are essentially what I followed). While I was sitting there in the grass, picturing worms eating my corpse, it occurred to me: I have no memory of becoming alive. One day matter was arranged one way, another day it was arranged another way, and at some point in the latter arrangement, I became aware of myself. This realization sparked something in me that's hard to put into words. I realized that the thinking, the awareness, the consciousness, that was always there and has no attachment to the body I associate with myself. It will be there when the body is gone, because it was there before the body was there. It sounds so simple when I write it out or say it, but what I experienced was a knowing, not a philosophical thought. It was like a sudden childhood memory coming back to me in a flash, but it wasn't a visual memory, it was more like a lightbulb going off. "I was here before I was here, I'll be here after I'm here".

It's not so much a reincarnation belief as much as a sense that awareness is not contingent on the senses. You'd still be you without eyes, ears, a nose, nerve endings to feel through, etc. You'd still be you without a body.

 

[UnlikelySith]

It could be that a lot of those possibilities are simultaneously true. Not claiming this as absolute, just how I've personally felt/seen it to be.

• If you don't reach your goal but weren't necessarily a bad person, rebirth as human and try again.
• If you were a really good person, maybe ascend to guide or some sort of higher level "position". I think practitioners of magic who helped humanity also fall into this category. It's not uncommon to see spirits/deities etc that held a status as magician.
• If you die in tragedy/shame/unexpectedly, the weight of your soul or whatever exact mechanic there is prohibits you from entering a possible rebirth or ascension, turning you into a wandering spirit.
• If you were a really nasty person, you "descend" to a "demon" type of entity which may be cool and all depending on your views, but I think there's a gimmick. It requires you to feed constantly to sustain that. And maybe, just maybe, that shit ain't easy or fun.

Again, this is not definite of course. My own observations over time and after lots of certain personal experiences and reading, etc.

I like this thesis. In Hinduism though, reincarnation would suggest that you respawn as a living creature: human, animal or plant depending on how you lived your previous life. Do we just keep repeating this cycle or is there an endpoint to all this?

 

[Konsciencia]

I like this thesis. In Hinduism though, reincarnation would suggest that you respawn as a living creature: human, animal or plant depending on how you lived your previous life. Do we just keep repeating this cycle or is there an endpoint to all this?

That's a good question, indeed. According to my Spirit. This may be my last incarnation. Perhaps, I will come back. Who knows.

 

[Lemongrass00]

I like this thesis. In Hinduism though, reincarnation would suggest that you respawn as a living creature: human, animal or plant depending on how you lived your previous life. Do we just keep repeating this cycle or is there an endpoint to all this?

One thing I’ve always wondered about reincarnation is if it’s really just an artistic way to describe atheism.

if you view it as you the individual completely die, but metaphorically you’re “reborn” in the sense that humanity continues after your death then is it really reincarnation?

it would definitely have to imply some part of “you” remains. But then again this could be a metaphor for the human instincts/ collective unconscious INHERITED in the genome of every individual and not us specifically, as we contribute to the greater whole.

So our contribution to the whole lives on through our offspring and those we interact with in life, although us as an individual is still extinguished from existence.

unless again the argument is that the next reincarnation of you is the sum total of all previous incarnations somehow which would mean that would be what you currently are.

it definitely messes with your mind to think about.

 

[JGVDRG]

What do you believe happens after death?

Whatever you have been crafting in this life.
If you have no plan and no (actual) knowledge about the post-mortem state, you get the NPC treatment. Fundamentally, if you have not worked on your astral body, true purpose, proper defense, liberating attachments, dealt with interferences from collective mentality and Archons' interference (which is another way of pointing out that it's extremely necessary to develop psychic abilities in this life and the whole process would be rendered useless without these faculties, because you would still be a hylic, hence, a complete slave of causality in practical terms)...you basically get a trip back to good ol' earth. You can't resist the hype, you have no resources, so it puts you wherever it wants.
Or, if you work together with an egregore that is aligned with the cosmic plan (light, demiurgic entities, RHP lores), you get to dissolve into this egregore. Let's say, you're devout of some sort of new age Spiritualism (without mentioning mainstream religious sects). You get to "fatten" this specific egregore with your own energy and gets drawn by it's lore, which is aligned with the process of the Cosmic evolution so to speak. You become one with x if you advance enough, giving up on yourself and surrendering to the given higher power, you continue to follow their lore without the same sense of individuality. And you may do this until you dissolve into broader spheres and become one with the creator, or whatever you like to call it.
So, in my perspective:
-> The liberation path (gets out of the cosmic lore)
-> The NPC treatment (keeps reincarnating)
-> The dissolution path (becomes part of the cosmic lore)

 

[therootbeersprite]

Do you believe in an Afterlife of some kind? What does that Afterlife look like? What informs your beliefs? What would be your ideal post-death scenario? Do you want for something different than what you believe to be true? If the two don't align, why not?

 

[Feywer]

I think whatever you imagine to happen is where you go. Christians go to the christian place, Buddhists go to the Buddhist place, and so on, whatever else. It is what you make of it in my opinion.

 

[WisdomAddict]

I have read couple of books about it so in this context I don't have my own original view...
If you like I can write the name of the books in here for you...

 

[therootbeersprite]

I have read couple of books about it so in this context I don't have my own original view...
If you like I can write the name of the books in here for you...

I have my own (sometimes conflicting, often shifting) views. I want to know what you think, even if it isn't "original".

 

[TheLastFlame]

My view aligns with Feywer about how belief shapes your designated afterlife. When I think about it I see a hallway full of doors and you get pulled into or can choose which door you go into when you die. I also believe that an afterlife can be a singular experience made by our own energy I guess instead of just a place that anyone ends up and that if thought about enough and formed you can make your own afterlife or at least have some choices in it.

 

[therootbeersprite]

My view aligns with Feywer about how belief shapes your designated afterlife. When I think about it I see a hallway full of doors and you get pulled into or can choose which door you go into when you die. I also believe that an afterlife can be a singular experience made by our own energy I guess instead of just a place that anyone ends up and that if thought about enough and formed you can make your own afterlife or at least have some choices in it.

I find that idea to be very comforting, that we have a choice about what happens.

So, what would your choice be?

 

[cherryaqua]

I personally believe that the energy and experience learned from this incarnation is absorbed into your higher self after physical death, and afterwards you would be in a state of astral projection and then depending on how "conscious" and able to direct your energy in this state you are, depends on what happens next. It could be an experience similar to what you would expect like Feywer suggested and then in my view you would eventually reincarnate into a new physical body.

So while I'm new to all of this, I believe that the goal of initiation and high magick, in some ways, is to be able to gain the continuity of experience within consciousness even after physical death. I believe this is part of the goal with buddhist dream yoga(a form of lucid dreaming) as well. Although at the same time, I get confused because death with no continuity seems necessary in a way to truly change, and while its extremely scary to think about sometimes that this form of me will not exist in the future, starting over and completely losing the "attachments" and habits you made in your life can be a blessing in disguise. But I'm just not at the level of understanding where I can completely understand the non-dual aspects of my higher self I think.

I don't believe in eternal damnation as a possibility for what it's worth.

 

[HoldAll]

There is this thread about the same topic if it's any help:

What's after death?

What do you believe happens after death? Rebirth on Earth as a new human? Rebirth on Earth as a different species? Rebirth on a different plane/dimension? Continuing on in a different plane/dimension? Like heaven or hell... Continuing on in a parallel universe where you never died... on and...

wizardforums.com

 

[Faria]

On the Afterlife, I believe that we cannot know, and that near-death experiences and so on do not reflect anything about an afterlife but are purely biological.

But I cannot really have disbelief as a belief, right? When I examine my heart, my true belief is reincarnation until the Shivadarshana, the Final Judgment as the summary of all possible incarnations. This is where my UPG has led me, but in my thoughts I must keep in mind that it is all speculative and I'll find out eventually anyhow.

 

[therootbeersprite]

I personally believe that the energy and experience learned from this incarnation is absorbed into your higher self after physical death, and afterwards you would be in a state of astral projection and then depending on how "conscious" and able to direct your energy in this state you are, depends on what happens next. It could be an experience similar to what you would expect like Feywer suggested and then in my view you would eventually reincarnate into a new physical body.

So while I'm new to all of this, I believe that the goal of initiation and high magick, in some ways, is to be able to gain the continuity of experience within consciousness even after physical death. I believe this is part of the goal with buddhist dream yoga(a form of lucid dreaming) as well. Although at the same time, I get confused because death with no continuity seems necessary in a way to truly change, and while its extremely scary to think about sometimes that this form of me will not exist in the future, starting over and completely losing the "attachments" and habits you made in your life can be a blessing in disguise. But I'm just not at the level of understanding where I can completely understand the non-dual aspects of my higher self I think.

I don't believe in eternal damnation as a possibility for what it's worth.

I appreciate your uncertainty, and I wish you well in your studies!

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I once saw a comedian who said "What happens after you die? Normally, I just get on a bus and go home..."

 

[TheLastFlame]

I find that idea to be very comforting, that we have a choice about what happens.

So, what would your choice be?

I believe I will hopefully end up in the norse hel since norse paganism is my main belief/practice and since the afterlife described is the one that would bring me the most peace in looking forward to it.