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The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence 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.
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. In most beliefs involving reincarnation, the soul of a human being is immortal and does not disperse after the physical body has perished. Upon death, the soul merely becomes transmigrated into a newborn baby or an animal to continue its immortality. The term transmigration means the passing of a soul from one body to another after death.
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which involves the same person or deity coming back to another body. Disappearance of a body is another similar, but distinct, belief in some religions.
In many religious and philosophical traditions, the soul is the non-material essence of a person, which includes one's identity, personality, and memories, an immaterial aspect or essence of a living being that is believed to be able to survive physical death. The concept of the soul is generally applied to humans, although it can also be applied to other living or even non-living entities, as in animism.
Spirit possession is an unusual or an altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors which are purportedly caused by the control of a human body and its functions by spirits, ghosts, demons, angels, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Haitian Vodou, Dominican 21 Divisions, Hinduism, Islam, Wicca, and Southeast Asian, African, and Native American traditions. Depending on the cultural context in which it is found, possession may be thought of as voluntary or involuntary and may be considered to have beneficial or detrimental effects on the host. The experience of spirit possession sometimes serves as evidence in support of belief in the existence of spirits, deities or demons. In a 1969 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, spirit-possession beliefs were found to exist in 74% of a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, with the highest numbers of believing societies in Pacific cultures and the lowest incidence among Native Americans of both North and South America. As Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian churches move into both African and Oceanic areas, a merger of belief can take place, with demons becoming representative of the "old" indigenous religions, which Christian ministers attempt to exorcise.
Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many Inuit follow Christianity ; however, traditional Inuit spirituality continues as part of a living, oral tradition and part of contemporary Inuit society. Inuit who balance indigenous and Christian theology practice religious syncretism.
A doppelgänger, sometimes spelled doppelgaenger or doppelganger, is a biologically unrelated look-alike or double, of a living person.
Spiritism or Kardecism is a reincarnationist and spiritualist doctrine established in France in the mid-19th century by writer and educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail. Kardec considered his doctrine to derive from a Christian perspective. He described a cycle by which a spirit supposedly returns to material existence after the death of the old body in which it dwelled, as well as the evolution it undergoes during this process. Kardecism emerged as a new religious movement in tandem with spiritualism, the notions and practices associated with spiritual communication disseminated throughout North America and Europe since the 1850s.
Ruth Shick Montgomery was a journalist with a long and distinguished career as a reporter, correspondent, and syndicated columnist in Washington, DC.
Spiritual evolution, also called higher evolution, is the idea that the mind or spirit, in analogy to biological evolution, collectively evolves from a simple form dominated by nature, to a higher form dominated by the spiritual or divine. It is differentiated from the "lower" or biological evolution.
In Scientology, the concept of the thetan is similar to the concept of self, or the spirit or soul as found in several belief systems. The term is derived from the Greek letter Θ, theta, which in Scientology beliefs represents "the source of life, or life itself." In Scientology it is believed that it is the thetan, not the central nervous system, which commands the body.
The evil twin is an antagonist found in many different fictional genres. The twin is physically nearly identical to the protagonist, but with a radically inverted morality. In films, they may have a symbolic physical difference from the protagonist—such as a goatee beard, eyepatch, scar, or distinctive clothing—which makes it easy for the audience to visually identify the two characters. Sometimes, however, the physical differences between the characters will be minimized, so as to confuse the audience. Both roles are almost always played by either the same actor or the actor's actual twin.
In philosophy and religion, spirit is the vital principle or animating essence within humans or, in some views, all living things. Although views of spirit vary between different belief systems, when spirit is contrasted with the soul, the former is often seen as a basic natural force, principle or substance, whereas the latter is used to describe the organized structure of an individual being's consciousness, in humans including their personality. Spirit as a substance may also be contrasted with matter, where it is usually seen as more subtle, an idea put forth for example in the Principia Mathematica.
Ikiryō, also known as shōryō (しょうりょう), seirei (せいれい), or ikisudama (いきすだま), is a disembodied spirit or ghost in Japanese popular belief and fiction that leaves the body of a living person and subsequently haunts other people or places, sometimes across great distances. The term(s) are used in contrast to shiryō, which refers to the spirit of those who are already deceased.
Preta, also known as hungry ghost, is the Sanskrit name for a type of supernatural being described in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion as undergoing suffering greater than that of humans, particularly an extreme level of hunger and thirst. They have their origins in Indian religions and have been adopted into East Asian religions via the spread of Buddhism. Preta is often translated into English as "hungry ghost" from the Chinese and East Asian adaptations. In early sources such as the Petavatthu, they are much more varied. The descriptions below apply mainly in this narrower context. The development of the concept of the preta started with just thinking that it was the soul and ghost of a person once they died, but later the concept developed into a transient state between death and obtaining karmic reincarnation in accordance with the person's fate. In order to pass into the cycle of karmic reincarnation, the deceased's family must engage in a variety of rituals and offerings to guide the suffering spirit into its next life. If the family does not engage in these funerary rites, which last for one year, the soul could remain suffering as a preta for the rest of eternity.
The Hallowed Hunt is a fantasy novel by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold, published in 2005. It placed fourth in the annual Locus Poll for best fantasy novel, and the series it is a part of, World of the Five Gods, won the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2018.
Steel is a superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. He is a genius engineer who built a mechanized suit of armor that mirrors Superman's powers, and initially sought to replace him after he was killed by Doomsday. After Superman was resurrected, he accepted Steel as an ally. His real name is John Henry Irons and he wields a sledgehammer—this is a reference to the mythical railroad worker John Henry. He has a niece named Natasha Irons who is also a superhero in a similar mechanized suit of armour.
The body of light, sometimes called the 'astral body' or the 'subtle body,' is a "quasi material" aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual, posited by a number of philosophers, and elaborated on according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings. Other terms used for this body include body of glory, spirit-body, luciform body, augoeides, astroeides, and celestial body.
Reincarnation is regularly mentioned in feature films, books, and popular music. The similar concept of transmigration has been used frequently to the point of cliché in the sense of people "switching bodies", in which the identity of a character transfers to another's body, either unilaterally or by exchange, or to an animal or object. This concept has been used many times in various films, particularly in Indian cinema and television.
Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement known primarily for the mass suicides committed by its members in 1997. Commonly designated a cult, it was founded in 1974 and led by Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985) and Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997), known within the movement as Ti and Do. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle.
References
- 1 2 3 Lewis, James R. The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions. Prometheus Books, 2002. p. 382.
- 1 2 Lewis, James R. Legitimating New Religions. Rutgers University Press, 2003. pp. 130–131.
- 1 2 York, Michael. The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-pagan Movements. Rowman & Littlefield, 1995. p. 72.
- 1 2 McClelland, Norman C. Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland, 2010. p. 276.
- 1 2 3 Bjorling, Joel. Reincarnation: A Bibliography. Taylor & Francis, 1996. pp. 141–142.
- ↑ Partridge, Christopher. UFO Religions. Routledge, 2012. pp. 114–115.
- ↑ Stern, Roger. The Death and Life of Superman (novelization of the Death of Superman storyline). Random House Publishing Group, 1994. p. 365. "I knew all along that Superman would return, and now he has. Not necessarily in the form people might have expected, but it was him. Listen, have you ever heard of a walk-in spirit? When a body has been abandoned by one spirit but is not yet uninhabitable, then another spirit can move in. Anyway, whatever he is, the cards tell me for sure that the man who saved me today is definitely the Man of Steel. For sure."