Books on the afterlife

[Anonymous No.18460076]

What are the best books you've read on the subject of what happens after death? Preferably western authors. The previous thread (>>18444347) had some good suggestions and information, I'm hoping for more interesting discussion

[Anonymous No.18460099]

god i miss t e l e p a t h so much :(

[Anonymous No.18460212]

>>18460099
I rarely listen to vaporwave but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFJwxtFfKf0 is really good

[Anonymous No.18460370]

The Catechism of the Catholic church.

Your thread will derailed by the mentally ill guenonfag. Enjoy!

[Anonymous No.18460384]

Reposting this passage from Filoramo's History of Gnosticism

>What happens to the person in a coma? Is it possible to photograph (or, in more fortunate cases, to interview those who have experienced) the moments before the great irretrievable step and to understand the state of mind and the thoughts that accompany them? Reduced to arid scientific curiousity, or worse, to the publicity hype of a new 'bestseller', it may appear simply as a further act of cruelty to an invalid who has become a guinea pig. But in terms of religious history it takes on a more human light and a different cultural dimension. It is the theme of the Zwischenzustand, the twilight zone, those eternal moments, the fine bridge between time and its cessation, an area explored and wonderfully described by so many religious spirits. It is enough to glance through that extraordinary volume, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, to detect some surprising aspects, of relevance to the contemporary situation. The central theme is that of the bard: a minute, lucid, almost obsessive, analysis of the representative states violating inexorably and mercilessly the aseptic moment of transition. Buddhist meditation has rigorously analysed them and ordered them hierarchically in a sort of spiral; and it is necessary to ascend this spiral, with all its menace, in order to reach the desired goal: the final abandonment of those illusions (however vivid and resistant) against which humans are called to fight and the resulting dissolution of those representations (menacing, but captivating) that, in the Renaissance Books of the Dead, are translated into endless struggles between devils and angels on the bed of the dying and the lost and the helpless.

>Even our Gnostics recognized this singular challenge. Their ascents of the soul, the celestial journeys awaiting the souls immediately after death, are the most illuminating example of how they experienced the intermediate stage.

[Anonymous No.18460419]

>>18460384
There's a pervading theme in depictions of the state that comes immediately after death, which is that the individual has to face trials and overcome them in order to ascend. Are these trials personal, based on the person's shortcomings during life on the material plane, or are they universal? What happens following either success or failure in overcoming them?

[Anonymous No.18460432]

>>18460212
bandcamp for snobs: https://catsystemcorp.bandcamp.com/album/building-a-better-world

[Anonymous No.18460485]

>>18460419
I think what's tested is your ability to give back/relinquish the organs or "weight" that magnetize you to earthly life. If you fail, you get spat back out here.

[Anonymous No.18460490]

>>18460370
Obsessed

[Anonymous No.18460499]

The Timaeus

[Anonymous No.18460536]

>>18460490
Prove me wrong.

[Anonymous No.18460551]

>>18460490
>>18460536
Don't start another shitfest please.

[Anonymous No.18460553]

>>18460485
>your ability to give back/relinquish the organs or "weight"
This means attachment to earthly matters, but which exactly and to what extent? Do only hardcore ascetics get out, or does anyone who wants out?

[Anonymous No.18460566]

>>18460553
All of them, and completely.

[Anonymous No.18460627]

>>18460566
How?

[Anonymous No.18460659]

While the old religious arguments for the afterlife are strong in their own right, it remains still difficult for us moderns to be convinced by them in light of the scientism that grips our civilization and influences our thought processes whether we like it or not. Therefore I’ve found the field of parapsychology very interesting because it applies the scientific method to otherwise supernatural phenomena. The guys investigating this stuff are college educated phds, but when they stray from the orthodoxy they get predictably condemned. It’s seems though that science and spirituality are not irreconcilable, something of course many wise men of the past knew.

I’ve been checking out the work of Ian Stevenson lately, who did thousands of case studies regarding reincarnation. Reading some of pic related was for me proof that reincarnation is real.

[Anonymous No.18460693]

>>18460659
>the old religious arguments for the afterlife
What do you mean? Most religions in history believed in the transmigration of souls, incluting proto-orthodox Christianity.
The question is, what happens when souls exit this plane for good and don't reincarnate anymore.

[Anonymous No.18460755]

>>18460659
Reincarnation isn't really about an afterlife per se. Or if it is, it is equally about a before-life. I suppose you could posit that within some varieties, the afterlife is an intermediary stage of reincarnation after death and before returning to a new life.

[Anonymous No.18460771]

>>18460755
>the afterlife is an intermediary stage of reincarnation after death and before returning to a new life.
This paints it in a depressing light though. If it's just an endless cycle of reincarnations, and there is no true reality to look forward to, what's the point?
Unless you see it as a kind of sleep vs. waking life cycle, the former being material incarnation and the latter being existence in the world beyond, but even then, the question of purpose remains.

[Anonymous No.18460876]

>>18460485
I don't want to come back to this shithole

[Anonymous No.18460943]

>>18460771
>If it's just an endless cycle of reincarnations, and there is no true reality to look forward to, what's the point
Why assume the lived reality is false or not real?

[Anonymous No.18460957]

>>18460876
Good. Deepen that feeling in the right ways.

>>18460627
:^)

[Anonymous No.18460964]

>>18460943
Because I have no knowledge of another reality, therefore I must assume that the reality in which my frame of reference is so restricted is the false one.

[Anonymous No.18460975]

>>18460957
>in the right ways.
I'm too weak-willed to be an ascetic since indulging in simple pleasures give me respite from how unpleasant the world is. I doubt that being spiteful towards reality is a good way to ascend, if anything it seems like it'd anchor you to the material plane because it's a shitty emotion.

[Anonymous No.18461006]

>>18460964
But if you have no knowledge of another reality, how can you assume that there is another reality and that the one you know is false?

[Anonymous No.18461028]

>>18461006
If there is no higher reality then that means everything is meaningless, and I'm not an existential nihilist.
From a purely personal standpoint, and on a more intuitive rather than rational level, reality also feels fake or at least not truly real.

[Anonymous No.18461073]

>>18461028
Wouldn't it be more nihilist to deny life and speculate that there is another world superior to this one that can be neither contacted nor brought about?

[Anonymous No.18461084]

>>18461073
No, since it implies some kind of inherent and transcendental purpose to this existence.
And this world mostly sucks so I'd rather it not be the only one I'll ever experience, that would be disappointing.

[Anonymous No.18461262]

>>18460499
You mean Phaedo?

[Anonymous No.18461455]

Bump

[Anonymous No.18461515]

>>18461084
What if your purpose is to stay right here and suffer because Yahweh set things up that way? You're assuming that "getting out" of the world we live in is something that's even desirable (let's just assume that it's possible at all). How do you know that you'll be happier if you "transcend" the way that you're supposed to be?

[Anonymous No.18461632]

>>18461262
I mean phaeggot

[Anonymous No.18461639]

>>18461262
I mean Naegrus

[Anonymous No.18461844]

>>18461084
>this world mostly sucks so I'd rather it not be the only one I'll ever experience, that would be disappointing.
I don't see how you get out of being a nihilist then. You're devaluing the world you live in on behalf of one you wish for.
>>18461262
No I mean the Timaeus. Have you not read it?

[Anonymous No.18462552]

>>18460693
>The question is, what happens when souls exit this plane for good and don't reincarnate anymore.
You become one with God.

[Anonymous No.18462952]

>>18461844
>You're devaluing the world you live in on behalf of one you wish for.
That's not nihilism

[Anonymous No.18462985]

>>18460076
there is no afterlife you stupid cunt

[Anonymous No.18463291]

>>18462985
Wrong, NPC

[Anonymous No.18463366]

>>18460499
Who's that? Akhenaten the monotheist?

[Anonymous No.18463409]

hey OP, just drink some ayahuasca with a shaman in peru. then u won't have to read books, you'll get some firsthand experience.

[Anonymous No.18463591]

>>18463366
Hermes Trismegistus

[Anonymous No.18463664]

>>18462552
Ego death and dissolution is annihilation, no way around it.

[Anonymous No.18463859]

>>18463664
If the ego doesn't survive death how come people retain their egos when projecting out of their body or during NDEs

[Anonymous No.18464391]

>>18463409
bad advice

[Anonymous No.18464658]

bump

[Anonymous No.18464755]

>>18460076
Bhagavad-gita

[Anonymous No.18464763]

>>18463664
you got btfo in the last thread. don't make us do it again. ego =/= self, and if something remains at all, it's not annihilation.

[Anonymous No.18464770]

>>18464763
>us
Take your meds and fuck off, the OP states your nihilitic bullshit isn't welcome ITT. Go jerk yourself off about killing your soul in your own thread.

[Anonymous No.18464946]

I’ve recently watched THX 1138, George Lucas’ debut film. Essentially it portrays a collectivist dystopia run by technocrats and AI. Sort of what we’re heading towards IRL. But it’s not entirely communist-materialist, they have a sort of fake religiosity there for the proles. Their god has the face of Jesus but it’s called OMM 0000, and it’s very Buddhistic. I believe that Buddhist philosophy will be a major component in the religion of the New World Order (call it Reign of the Antichrist if you will) because it advocates for the ego death. In a collectivist technocracy, where all humans are seen expendable parts, with no difference with respect to race and gender, this kind of philosophy is a perfect fit.

As for what happens after we die, I believe, contra Buddhists, that we have an immortal soul, and as much as they can enslave and brainwash you, they can’t touch your soul. But they can make you forget it, via NPC philosophies such as nihilism, materialism, Buddhism, Marxism and the like. Don’t forget your soul OP.

[Anonymous No.18464986]

>>18464946
Based post
Don't forget not to agree to any contracts after death and to tell everyone to go fuck themselves until you're sure you're out

[Anonymous No.18465007]

>>18464946
interesting, I will have to check it out, thanks for the rec

[Anonymous No.18465015]

[Anonymous No.18465022]

>>18465015
best kind of threads, unironically

[Anonymous No.18465218]

>>18465015
Welcome to 4chan(nel)

[Anonymous No.18465420]

>>18465015
What's wrong with being a schizo?

[Anonymous No.18465482]

>>18464391
u are 100% wrong tho

[Anonymous No.18465500]

>>18465482
>just do drugs bro
No.

[Anonymous No.18465776]

>>18464986
>until you're sure you're out
How?

[Anonymous No.18465898]

>>18464946
>Buddhist philosophy will be a major component in the religion of the New World Order
Absolutely. Buddhism is perfect for the average bugman.
They're already doing it with those "amazen" cuck pods

[Anonymous No.18466576]

bump

[Anonymous No.18466722]

>>18464946
>everything I don't like is buddhism
>t. christer
Read a fucking book sheesh

[Anonymous No.18466913]

>>18466722
He's right though

[Anonymous No.18467050]

>>18466913
Right about what? I could make a post about watching the movie Brazil and argue we got there from Christianity (or its Hegelian stepchild) and that the logical consequence of separating divine from natural is that we all become NPCs of a malicious bureaucracy that claims to uphold divinity/order, and that this is happening now, that anyone who resists domination by their moralizing, pseudo-superior, bureaucratic betters is considered a terorrist, etc., that an endless litany of rules have been drafted to prevent sins of non-compliant thought, which ends up preventing us from affirming life and makes us live as if we were husks.

[Anonymous No.18467147]

>>18467050
>Right about what
Buddhism being the perfect NWO religion

[Anonymous No.18467149]

>>18465500
i never mentioned drugs bro

[Anonymous No.18467171]

>>18467149
>ayahuasca isn't a drug
Retard

[Anonymous No.18467189]

>>18467147
Christianity excelled at preserving serfdom if that is what you are getting at. But obviously it is very difficult to use theology to convince people to be servile anymore. So your bogeyman is now using atheology. That's as far as you can go in his analogy. Christianity was the perfect NPC religion for over a thousand years. Tastes changed and now your post-Christian corporations are trying to smuggle Christianity back in by warping Buddhism into a happy-cows productivity enhancer. On this very board people will complain Buddhism isn't hierarchical enough to be based and redpilled, but if there is an "NWO" it would very obviously rely on dominance and hierarchy and using some sort of mythology to encourage you to expend your energy in this live serving and servicing it.

[Anonymous No.18467224]

>>18467189
You're going through a lot of mental gymnastics to justify your opinion to yourself.

[Anonymous No.18467252]

>>18463664
Not exactly. Consider an incredibly saintly person. It is their aim to let God’s will guide their every action. If they do this they will not give into temptation, they will not make mistakes, no distraction will sway them from the path of God.

Contrast this with the person who shuns God. He is a slave to the material world, his passions. He has a strong sense of ego, rooted in his desires. This person has little free will for he is enslaved to the material world, the realm of Satan.

The materialistic man is caught in the flux of nature. His desires are chaotic and tug him in random directions. The saintly man on the other hand is able to fully utilize the free will given to him by God which he then uses to resist Satan’s temptation. The saintly man does not live a chaotic life like the materialistic man, he walks a straight path, because the power of God allows him to discern what is right and wrong.

The point of all this is to say that when we fully realize the power of self-consciousness (ego) our lives appear to become more deterministic, because we are living in truth. There is no variance from that truth, and this is what free will allows us to do. In a sense this means the ego is destroyed, but it’d be more accurate to say that the ego is operating to its fullest potential, by living in the truth of God, using our free will to realize the truth God embedded within all of us, but that some neglect.

[Anonymous No.18467275]

>>18467224
>You're going through a lot of mental gymnastics to justify your opinion to yourself
Oh you must be new around here

[Anonymous No.18467296]

>>18467252
This realignment of the ego towards God is not at all what is usually meant by "ego death" though.

[Anonymous No.18467314]

>>18460076
the bible says that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal Life is a free gift of God. if you want to receive it, watch this short gospel video.

it's very easy to get to heaven /lit/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJFOXC1S6cQ

[Anonymous No.18467346]

>>18465898
arhats are the ontological inverse of bugmen

[Anonymous No.18467362]

>>18467314
>Steven Anderson
If heaven is full of mulatto subhumans then send me to hell.

[Anonymous No.18467371]

>>18467314
Imagine thinking this "free stuff from the overlord" attitude isn't at the heart of being susceptible to domination
>>18467346
Exactly

[Anonymous No.18467378]

>>18467346
Arhats killed their soul, they are actual, literal NPCs

[Anonymous No.18467400]

>>18467378
The soul doesn't exist in the first place

[Anonymous No.18467401]

>buddhacuck shitposting and derailing again
Even the "preferably western authors" disclaimer wasn't enough huh

[Anonymous No.18467418]

>>18467400
Read phaedo and shut the fuck up with the annihilationist pajeet garbage

[Anonymous No.18467434]

>>18467378
>achieve absolute liberation from impermanence
>"EN-PEE-SEEZ!!!!"

[Anonymous No.18467443]

>>18467434
Yes yes you're a nihilist I get it, very edgy. You'll grow out of it

[Anonymous No.18467453]

>>18467252
What is the ego's relationship towards the immortal soul?
In the hermetic tradition, the ego is purified by the alchemical work and forms a diamond body. Does this mean that the ego is integrated by the soul? How does this work exactly?

[Anonymous No.18467479]

>tfw the author meets his dead guru resurrected and proceeds to blow his mind about the astral beings on the astral planet

[Anonymous No.18467485]

>>18465776
True reality feels realer than real

[Anonymous No.18467683]

>>18467479
Tell me more about that astral stuff

[Anonymous No.18468563]

>>18467296
Yea, I think ego death is an inaccurate term, and misses the point of spirituality

[Anonymous No.18468582]

>>18460076
The Bible is the one that tells the truth on that matter. I recommend the KJV

[Anonymous No.18468759]

>>18467453
The way I divide man is body, soul, and spirit. Body is the material form we inhabit. Soul is more our emotional self, and spirit the higher faculties of our mind that allow us access to the eternal. The way most people conceptualize “ego” is roughly synonymous with how I’ll use soul here. Because it is the spirit that is interacting with the eternal it is what reincarnates. Through different incarnations the spirit works on the ego, it is the mediator between the soul and God. The spirit completes its work when the ego fully reflects the eternal truth of God. Then the ego and the spirit leave earth. Our vital, animalistic energies are also tied up with the soul, but I think those probably stay behind.

All this I’m getting from Rudolf Steiner, he explains it in this work https://sys.4channel.org/derefer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwn.rsarchive.org%2FBooks%2FGA009%2FEnglish%2FRSP1965%2FGA009_index.html

[Anonymous No.18469160]

>>18467171
its ok. you're not there yet. one day you will understand what i said

[Anonymous No.18469440]

>>18469160
I'll never kill my soul so no

[Anonymous No.18469830]

>>18469440
the soul is eternal, nothing can kill it

[Anonymous No.18469921]

>>18463291
ironic, you're the one that can't cope with reality

[Anonymous No.18470068]

>>18469921
>says the guy who deny he exists
buddhists are so pathetic

[Anonymous No.18470079]

>>18469830
But you can render it inoperable or dysfunctional, which, for something eternal, is much worse.

[Anonymous No.18470671]

>>18467479
based book

[Anonymous No.18471256]

bump

[Anonymous No.18471674]

>>18463409
Drugs put you in contact with demons, I think

[Anonymous No.18471712]

>>18470079
Nice perversion.

[Anonymous No.18471742]

>>18471712
What do you mean?

[Anonymous No.18471759]

>>18471742
Suggesting that you can "do something" to your spirit equals to a perversion and you're just asking for mental troubles by doing so.

[Anonymous No.18471775]

>>18471759
Is it impossible to affect the spirit?

[Anonymous No.18471802]

>>18471775
The spirit is the screen through which life is projected, you can see fire and tornadoes but in the end NOTHING can hurt the screen or make it less complete.

[Anonymous No.18471964]

>>18471802
>The spirit is the screen
I don't get the analogy

[Anonymous No.18472831]

This thread didn't take off like the last one, too bad.