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By Root 2171 0

the afterlife is part of unchanging, revealed truth. The notion of the afterlife changes just as surely and even more radically in Israelite culture than it did in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The changes parallel the various uses of political power in the state. Sometimes the view of heaven dictates changes in the social circumstances; sometimes changes in the social circumstances dictate a necessary change in the notion of heaven. But there is always a tendency to bring the two realms into congruence. The notion of heaven and the afterlife always reflects what is most valuable to the culture. God may be sending revelations but we are talking to ourselves when we interpret our Scriptures. We are telling ourselves what the Scriptures must mean in the current circumstance; it is not God speaking to us directly. This is not comforting to the traditionally faithful. In fact, it is usually threatening. But it is just as true of fundamentalist doctrines as it is of liberal ones; both are innovations suited to the modern world. Neither is any better grounded in ancient Scripture.

Any simple determination of truth in matters of the afterlife becomes yet more elusive when one factors into the equation the differing and very contradictory beliefs of the religions of the rest of the world. Almost every view of the afterlife, worldwide, begins with an insight into what humans are, in and of themselves. Each has a deep perception of the nature of reality to tell us, to be respected, and understood. They cannot merely be ignored or dismissed. None lacks a belief in the continuance of life beyond the grave and none agrees in the slightest with any of the doctrines here described on the issue of the resurrection of the body. Some are flatly contradictory with each other as well.

This leaves a difficult and unattractive choice. Either we must view the beliefs selectively, taking seriously only the one that appeals most to us, convert, and become true believers of that religion-any religion-or we must face the surety that all are, at best, but approximations of what may await us. Or, maybe nothingness awaits all of us. Even if we remain within a canonical tradition, any canonical tradition, we must face the surety that it has changed radically over the centuries. Therefore someone in the canonical tradition must be wrong; even worse, we have no real ways of determining which one is right. From our inevitable social context within a specific culture, the best we can do is articulate what appeals to us most.

Looking in the Mirror of Our Souls, Do We Worship Ourselves?

HEAVEN is the mirror of our souls and our souls are the creators of the landscapes of heaven. Yet another trap lies in either believing or disbelieving our own ecstatic experiences. Such experiences have always traditionally been self-justifying: People who have them find them so transforming that they cannot doubt the authenticity of their own experience. They are neither unusual nor insane in human experience. Humans have been traveling to heaven to see what was there before heaven was a place where the beatified and sanctified dead went. But that is no guarantee that they are true.

Religiously altered states of consciousness surely brought the notion of afterlife firmly into Jewish culture, from whence it spread out to Christianity and Islam, whose mystics and teachers continued to seek and receive visions of the afterlife. Those who have them are convinced that their experience is valid and true, whether they be theophanies or Near Death Experiences or moments of enlightenment or unitive mystical experiences. Rudolph Otto suggested that these experiences of the numinous are the core of religion; holiness is defined by the feeling of awe that is surely behind every religious experience.5 Those who have never had them should stop reading about religion for they would surely never understand any analysis of religion. But can we really privilege our ecstatic experience in that particular way? Granting that seductive premise is essentially arrogating to ourselves