What Happens When You Die?

Why Bother Asking?

Sometimes I feel like it's a waste of time to contemplate the afterlife since it seems that nobody can ever truly know what happens until they are actually experiencing it. However, since it appears to be such a massive transition from physical life, many people including myself would like to prepare for it. This presents a problem: How can you prepare for death when you don't know what is going to happen? Even those who claim to have had near-death experiences or out of body travel cannot say with absolute certainty what happens after death because they survived! We are essentially limited to making a best guess and then basing our preparatory practices on this. My own current best guess is based on a variety of Western and Eastern sources (especially Hermetic, Gnostic, Tibetan and Taoist teachings) as well as my own gnosis and observations of the physical world.

Basic Concepts

Lets start by defining some terms and explaining some basic concepts that we can use as building blocks for our theory. The most fundamental Hermetic axiom is, "As below, so above; and as above so below." This comes from the "Tabula Smaragdina" (aka "The Emerald Tablet of Hermes.") This axiom also implies "as within, so without" and tells us that knowledge of one level of existence can inform our understanding of the other levels. This is also known as the "macrocosm and microcosm" theory. Another basic concept in Hermetic Alchemy is that everything is composed of three parts. These parts are usually termed Salt, Sulphur and Mercury and they can be compared to the common terms Body, Soul and Spirit (respectively.) This basic concept can also be described in terms of the three primary modes of experience: Awake, Asleep and Dreaming, and Deep Dreamless Sleep. These are the basic starting points I've used in developing my theory of the after-death process. Keep in mind that if these starting propositions are flawed, then the conclusions are suspect (at least.)

The Death Cycle

When the physical Body dies, it decomposes and it's components are redistributed and re-used to create other bodies. This is a simple observable fact about the physical plane and I don't think I need to say any more on that. I believe that for most people a similar process happens to their Soul, the part we usually refer to when we say, "me". On it's plane of existence it breaks down, it's components get redistributed and re-used to create other souls. In fact, I believe that the Soul already exists in a state of fragmentation during life, which the Taoists also believe and which is backed up by modern Western psychology. At the point of physical death, the relationships between the fragmented aspects of the Soul begin to weaken and dissolve. This is the "decomposition" of the Soul and is referred to as "The Second Death" in The Apocalypse of St. John the Divine (aka Revelation.) The process of Soul decomposition is described in the The Tibetan Book of the Dead as a kind of after-death dream which starts out mild and gets progressively more violent. After separation, the essence of these fragments get redistributed and go on to form other Souls. The Spirit, however, as the opposite end of the spectrum from the Body, already resides in unity rather than multiplicity, and doesn't really "die" but only appears to arises and dissolve in the unity of existence like a wave in an ocean. The Spirit, residing in Unity, is essentially the same Spirit for everyone. It can be argued that this is the case for the Body and Soul as well but until we fully realize our Unity, this can only be a theoretical concept.

Collective Reincarnation

If this theory on the death process is correct, then reincarnation for most people is more of a collective process. The souls of specific people typically don't reincarnate. The human race as a whole evolves a collective pool of soul shards. Interestingly, this same theory has been put forward by several people/groups (such as the Theosophical Society) as to what happens with animals. Basically, they say that the development of any one animal adds to the collective evolution of the species. They also have a provision for those members of a species that was lucky enough to have engaged in an exceptional amount of development. These individuals break off from the collective soul of their species and form independent souls, each with it's own evolutionary path.

It isn't exactly the nicest, most politically correct thing to say, but I believe that if you live like an animal, you will die like one too. The soul is not "immortal" simply by default any more than the physical body is automatically immortal. However, work can be done towards achieving both types of immortality. Click Here Now to check out my article titled, "Who Wants to Live Forever?"