About Death
1. V.: What is the world of the dead?
A: Death is one of the forces of Existence, which is inextricably linked with Life and continuously accompanies it. Therefore, the question of Death and what happens to a person after he leaves his physical body has always worried and continues to be a burning issue for people. To the question: “Is there life after the death of the physical body?” religion answers yes, science no, at best, maybe. What is this life like after the death of the physical body, i.e. What awaits a person in the afterlife, different religions answer differently. The journey of a person after leaving the physical body is described most fully in Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism. These religions implement the principle of posthumous retribution for a righteous or unrighteous life in the physical world. If a person led a righteous life, then he is destined for a place in Heaven in paradise. If a person led an unrighteous life, then he will have to go through one of the circles of hell in order to be cleansed of the accumulated defilement before his next incarnation in the physical world. The Incarnation, however, will be for both the righteous and sinners. The only difference is in what physical body and under what conditions. To get out of the series of incarnations, you must follow certain rules. And then there is the opportunity to dissolve in nirvana, achieving your ultimate happiness. In Christianity and Islam there is no series of incarnations. Or rather, there are, but only two. The first is when a person was born in the physical world, and the second is at the Last Judgment, when God rewarded each of the people according to his merits. The righteous receive Paradise and eternal life in it. Sinners receive Hell and eternal torment in it. Until the Last Judgment, people are in a state of waiting without physical bodies.
When we talk about the world of the Dead, we mean something else. Namely, that part of the egregor of humanity that was built by the Personalities and Egos of people who have lost their physical bodies. The egregor of humanity can be represented geometrically in the form of two pyramids on the surface of the Earth, connected by their bases. One pyramid looks with its top into the Sky and is part of the egregor, which was built by the Personalities and Egos of people who have a physical body. This part of the egregor of humanity can be called the egregor of the World of the Living. The second pyramid, the top of which is directed towards the center of the Earth and which is located under the surface of the Earth, is the World of the Dead.
The peculiarity of the World of the Dead is that it exists only due to its close connection with the egregor of the World of the Living, i.e. The world of the dead “hangs” on people who have physical bodies and feeds on their life force. The world of the dead exists illegally. If people did not have Personalities and Egos, then the World of the Dead could not exist.
People experienced a legitimate evolution of Consciousness, the highest level of which on Earth is the evolution of the physical body. However, Personalities and Egos, having made people biorobots, involved humanity in the process of degradation, which is most clearly manifested in the involution of the Consciousness of people and the destruction of their Morality. The world of the dead plays one of the leading roles in this process. He needs the vital force of people's physical bodies to exist. And to obtain it, the World of the Dead has invented many ways:
1. lethal nutrition, in which people strengthen and expand their connection with the World of the Dead several times a day;
2. destruction of the physical bodies of people through wars, economic, social and political methods and means;
3. worship of dead gods, relics, authorities, etc.;
4. keeping people in egoistic states.
The most terrible thing for the World of the Dead is the development and improvement of people with physical bodies, because... it leads to the annihilation of Personalities and Egos. This is a direct path to the liberation of humanity from the World of the Dead by destroying it. Therefore, the main task of the World of the Dead is to prevent people from developing and improving, to prevent them from annihilating the matrix of egoistic states, to prevent the restoration of human Morality and to prevent the resumption of the evolution of Consciousness. Looking at people, it’s quite easy to understand that those who do not develop and improve are the zombies of the World of the Dead.
2. V.: How do our past lives influence us?
A: Speaking about past lives, we should remember that our main concern was and remains our present life. Everything we relate to is contained in it. Seeking revelations about past lives just out of curiosity is, at best, self-indulgence, and at worst, a sign of inferiority.
A: Most of the situations in this life have roots in past incarnations. But it doesn't matter who you were in the past. Main, who are you now from a moral point of view. By and large, a person does not really control anything, including his physical body. The only thing that depends entirely on a person is his behavior. And the most important thing for a person is the ability to remain a human being in any situation.
3. V.: If my husband's mother died, does the connection remain?
O.: Of course, it remains, moreover, it is consolidated by the World of the Dead. Do you think the dead don’t exist? When they began to bury the dead in the Earth, they thereby tied people to the World of the Dead, and these connections exist and actively influence the lives of living people. To prevent these connections from drawing you into the World of the Dead, it is necessary to neutralize them with the energies of Love. Only Divine Love is capable of enhancing Life and transforming the World of the Dead.
4. V.: How to treat old grandmothers, sometimes you feel so sorry for them?
O.: Adequately. We must remember that old women are close to the World of the Dead. Through pity shown towards old women, the life force of the pityer is actively consumed. If the excess of egoistic energy disappeared from grandmothers, they would become healthier, younger and more feminine, i.e. the energy that made them old would leave their bodies. But the influx of pure female power would increase. To interact harmoniously with grandmothers, you need to have an open Heart and a sober head.
5. V.: Does the Personality have a connection with the world of the Dead?
A: Personality is closely connected with the world of the Dead. The dead receive free food for themselves through it. It is beneficial for them to have such zombie cows who, worshiping the world of the Dead, voluntarily give up their power.
6. V.: Where does the consciousness of dead ancestors go?
A: It manifests itself in a new incarnation in the physical world.
7. V.: Can a person be immortal, i.e. Can there be immortality in the physical body? Or should we still strive to go to heaven after death?
A: If the Divine Spirit is Immortal, and the physical body is created from emanations of the Divine Spirit, then the physical body must also be immortal. This means that in order to make the physical body immortal, it is necessary to build it in the image and likeness of the Immortal Universal Spirit. Strengthening the connection with the Divine Spirit is accompanied by the emergence and development of new qualities and properties in the physical body; a sharp decrease in egoistic, inhuman tendencies; the gradual spiritualization of the physical body and the projection of its Divine states onto the surrounding world. Man’s task is to make Paradise from the World given to him by God, and not to go to a better place after death, leaving behind a trash heap. By the way, we still need to figure out what “paradise” the souls of consumers go to after death, if consumers have them, these souls?
8. V.: What happens to a person after physical death?
A: The result depends on the way of life. Anyone who has not developed and improved is subject to forced purification and recovery. He must be ready to work through his egoistic behavior in the next incarnation, if, of course, he still has at least some part of consciousness left. Whoever has no consciousness left, Dust awaits him. Those who consciously developed and improved will continue to do so under the guidance of God.
9. V.: Is it possible to feel sorry for the dead?
A: We must understand that Death is the Will of God. To regret means not to accept the Will of God, to oppose it, worsening the condition of the living and the deceased himself.
10. V.: What laws apply in the world of the Dead?
A: In the world of the Dead, which we are talking about, the consumerism of the living operates as long as the living allow it.
11. V.: I feel that I am already too old for development, what should I do?
A: Nothing in the world is fixed, and everything is possible. Modern psychologists have tried to determine the age level at which a person stops developing. The limit was not found. Therefore, allow your life to unfold and become what it wants.
The attitude of the living to the world of the dead in archaic cultures is usually determined by the concept of ancestor cult, which implies various mental, ritual and verbal forms of veneration, worship and deification of the dead. Meanwhile, the relations of the two worlds do not fully fit into this concept: in addition to the cult, fear is clearly present in them before the dead, the consciousness of dependence on them, the desire to maintain a certain balance between the two worlds, which is seen as a guarantee of the preservation of the entire world order. The Serbian word insurance post is more applicable to this type of relationship, i.e. reverence turning into fear. Ideas about the “other” world and its influence on earthly life, which play a cardinal role in the traditional worldview, are not limited, so to speak, to the ideological sphere - they find expression in a whole system of ritual forms, in specific prohibitions and regulations, in language and folklore. In a sense, the entire traditional culture is oriented towards an otherworldly perspective, each rite and each specific ritual or ritualized act of behavior (and in this type of culture everything is ritualized) provides for communication with “that” world, a legalized interruption of the border separating the living from the dead; the true recipient of the ritual (personified or non-personified) always belongs to another world.
No matter how the relationship between the two worlds is conceived - mirror or “isomorphic”, their autonomy, “separateness” is never questioned, and the border between them, separating the spheres of influence, is always a subject of special concern. How do these worlds relate - in space, in “volume”, in mutual assessment? How do they perceive each other? What do the living want from the dead and what do the dead expect from the living? The relations between them cannot be established once and for all, they are constantly subject to testing, revision, violation - they are violated by every event of death and every event of birth - and require periodic restoration. In this case, we will be interested in those specific forms of relationship between the two worlds that developed in ritual practice and were reflected in the folk beliefs of the Slavs, in their languages and folklore.
Let's start with how ideas about another world fit into a person's everyday life. Here we must distinguish two sides of the issue. The first concerns the future posthumous existence of a specific living person, the subject of beliefs and actions. In this regard, worthy of attention, first of all, are some prohibitions (less often, prescriptions) and ideas about sin, which are based on the conviction that everything a person does in earthly life will one way or another be reflected in his afterlife. For example, it is considered dangerous to leave a piece of bread uneaten - according to Ukrainian beliefs, it will chase you in the “other” world; It is dangerous to drop crumbs of bread on the floor - Slovenians believe that a person’s soul will suffer for as many years in the “other” world as the number of crumbs he dropped and trampled. Polesie peasants, having taken bread out of the oven, hurried to put a log there, “so that there would be a treasure (passage, bridge) in the next world when you die.” Popular ideas about sin, formed largely under the influence of Christianity (for more details, see:), include a whole register of corresponding earthly sins and posthumous rewards for them (cf. Russian Smolensk. “Whatever you deserve in this world, in this world you will receive "). According to these ideas, women who kill their children are doomed to eat their body (bloody meat) in the “other” world; witches who took milk from cows spew it out of themselves in hell; those who left a hall on the field in order to damage the owners are spinning straw in the “other” world; a drunkard will carry tar in a barrel and drink it; the one who stole will carry everything stolen on his back in the “other” world, etc. According to East Slavic (Belarusian, Polesie) beliefs, in the “other” world his “good deeds” are displayed on the table in front of everyone - what he gave to others during his life (including giving to the poor) or did for others. Thus, compliance with rules, regulations and prohibitions allows one to ensure a prosperous afterlife existence during one’s lifetime, and, conversely, violation of prohibitions and rules dooms a person to torment and punishment after death.
The second aspect of the topic concerns not ways to ensure personal well-being after death, but the “impersonal” orientation of the entire life structure of society and the behavior of each of its members towards meeting the needs and conditions of the inhabitants of the other world. Here we can also point out many examples when prohibitions and regulations of earthly life are motivated by the interests of otherworldly recipients. In the same example with bread, a sign can work: if a piece of bread falls from the table, it means that in the “other” world someone (perhaps a relative) is hungry, left without bread, etc. Belarusians considered it necessary, after taking the bread out of the oven, to quickly pour cold water on it, so that in hell they would not spare water for souls. It is well known that women and mothers are prohibited from eating apples before the Savior (Transfiguration), popularly motivated by the fact that their deceased children in the “other” world will be deprived of this treat. There are known prohibitions on memorial days and some holidays to whitewash the walls of the house for fear of “covering the eyes” of the dead or spinning, carding wool, sweeping the floor, etc., otherwise you will “clog the eyes” of the dead; scurry around, otherwise “you’ll sleep on the way to your grandfathers”; sew so as not to sew up the eyes of our ancestors; pouring water into the yard, as you can douse the “guests”, dancing and trampling your parents” and many others. In Polesie, when they were going to whitewash the house for the first time after a funeral, they went to the cemetery and covered the grave with a tablecloth so as not to “drip the eyes of the deceased” (Rivne region). Particular concern for the vision of the dead (manifested in memorial rituals) is explained by the idea of “that” light as the kingdom of darkness or gloom.
However, the main regulator of relations between worlds is, of course, ritual, primarily the funeral rite itself and special memorial rites, in which each act is aimed at providing for the needs of deceased relatives and all the dead in general, in order to thereby protect the living from the troubles that threaten them from outside. the afterlife. Already at the funeral, the deceased is provided with the necessary clothing in which he will remain in the “other” world, food (pies or bread, eggs, apples, nuts, sweets, etc. were placed in the coffin; the southern Slavs often left wine in the coffin or grave) , money (to pay for moving or crossing by water) and other items he needs (old people - a cane, smokers - a pipe and tobacco, children - diapers and toys, etc.); a candle is certainly lit for the deceased to illuminate his path to the “next” world, his legs are untied so that he can move (those who forgot to do this have to jump in the “next” world like tangled horses). The human soul is surrounded with special care: water is placed at the head of the dying person or on the windowsill so that it can wash itself, a towel is hung out so that it can dry itself, a door or window is opened so that it can fly out, vessels with water are covered with a lid so that it does not drown. in the water and does not stay in the house, the mirror is covered so that she does not stay in it, etc. Peasants of the Smolensk region. within 40 days after death, they left food for the deceased at night and “made the bed”: they covered the bench on which he was lying with a towel, put water on the towel and put bread, and hung a ribbon or rag on the house outside, by which the soul had to find its house .
Special measures were taken to prevent the deceased from returning to the house outside the established time: for this purpose, the coffin was taken out through a window, returned from the cemetery by a different route in order to “confuse the road,” etc.
On memorial days and many calendar holidays, many prohibitions are observed, explained by the interests of the deceased, and special rituals addressed to them are performed. Failure to comply with these prohibitions and rituals entails family feuds, loss of livestock, crop failures and other punishments and misfortunes. According to the beliefs of Belarusians, “in the spring, along with the revival of nature, with its awakening from winter sleep, the souls of the dead come to life and emerge from cramped coffins into the free world. It is believed that they need food and drink, that they eat and drink, but rarely: three or four times a year is enough for them. To satisfy this need and as a sign of respect for the ancestors, memorial tables are periodically organized, in Belarusian - dzyady.” For the dead on memorial days, they prepared lunch or dinner with many dishes (sometimes their number was prescribed, for example, 12), they were invited in a special ceremonial way (going out to the gate, onto the porch, going to the window or door, holding out refreshments to them and calling them high voice), they left a place for them at the table, placed a glass and a separate utensil for them on the table (or on the window, near the icons), put aside or poured them a little of each meal on a plate, on the table or under the table; they did not remove food and dishes from the table at night so that the dead could use them; hung out a towel for them so they could wash their hands before eating; they did not close the doors in the houses; they took them out into the yard and hung clothes, etc. for the dead. In the Russian North, at wakes on the day of the funeral, a device for the deceased was placed on the stove, “so that he [the deceased] would warm up.”
The Belarusians prepared a bath for the dead for their grandfathers: before dinner, they washed themselves in the bathhouse and, when everyone had washed, they put a bucket of clean water with a broom on the shelves - for the grandfathers; This absolutely must be done, according to the peasants, because the dead wash only four or five times a year and only for this time are they released; If any of those washing in the bathhouse these days linger too long there, they are simply kicked out of there, saying: “Let the dead go already,” or they took a pot with the remains of kutya, backed away to the door and said: “Grandfathers, grandfathers! You’ve eaten kutya, go home,” after which he opened the door, threw the pot into the yard and quickly slammed the door. “Parents” were also invited to Christmas dinner, to “make a fast” at Maslenitsa (the first baked pancake was placed on the window or on the shrine, hung from the roof) and on other holidays.
All these preparations and rituals are performed in the belief that on these days the dead come to the living, to their homes, to their relatives. According to the beliefs of the Russians of Zaonezhie, the “personal” angel of each deceased delivered him home for the funeral within a year, after this period the souls did not come home. The ancestors who came to their home could be seen using various magical techniques. To do this, according to Belarusian beliefs, you need to sit on the stove and sit there all day, not eating anything and not talking to anyone, then in the evening you will see how the dead sit down at the table, and you will even find out that they stole during their lifetime, so how they will drag all this along with them. You can sit on the floor at night after dinner, not sleep and not talk, then you will see those who were remembered. You can also see the dead at the table if you look from the courtyard through the window; however, the one who does this will not live more than a year. The Russians, in order to see the deceased on the fortieth day, also climbed onto the stove in advance and from there looked through the collar or, dressed in a fur coat with the left side up, looked through a sieve at the place prepared for the deceased: if they managed to see the deceased, this meant that the relatives had prayed well for him . According to Ukrainian beliefs, in order to see your dead parents, you need to harness yourself to a horse harness. The Bulgarians of the Plovdiv region, in order to see souls, held a mirror above the water until a reflection appeared in it, or hung a mirror over a well, but this was considered dangerous for both the dead and the living. Ukrainians believed that the ability to see the dead could be acquired if, at midnight before Navskaya Easter (Easter of the Dead, Thursday of Easter week), you put on a shirt woven from waste from carding fiber, and according to the stories of a Smolensk peasant woman, in order to see the dead who came to the funeral in the fortieth the day after the death of her mother-in-law, she was advised to put on the deceased’s shirt, which had not yet been washed, according to local customs, and stand quietly, not responding to anything. In the Russian North, at the wake of the fortieth day, small children were carried around the table and asked if they “see the tattoo, uncle, aunt, etc. If children repeat the last words, it means they see an invisible guest." In Polesie, in the Zhitomir region, we were told that more than once on memorial days they saw how the dead in the evening, in the dark, slowly descended from the cemetery hill in a sprawling procession to the village, their movement could be observed by the lights of the candles they were holding, fluctuating in time with their steps in hand. There are also beliefs that on Easter days ancestors gather in church for services, and there they can be seen using special techniques (usually at night). Except for memorial days, only those who are on their deathbed can see the dead, hear their voices and speak with them.
The dead visiting their homes on memorial days can not only be seen, but also heard. Belarusians have popular stories about how grandfathers “take revenge” on those relatives who did not prepare a funeral dinner for them - they walk around the house at night, knock on the window, etc. In some areas of Bulgaria, on Trinity Saturday, when the dead were supposed to return to their places after being among the living, women brought walnut leaves to the church, covered the floor with it, knelt or lay on it (sometimes face down), believing that the dead were under leaves or walking on them; it was impossible to look up, so as not to frighten the dead, who, having seen their relatives, might not have time to return to their graves; one had to remain silent to hear the dead walking. The Eastern Slavs have beliefs about the mythical land of the Rakhmans, where eggshells are floated down the river to announce the coming of Easter; If you put your ear to the ground on the day of Rahman Easter, you can hear the bells ringing in the country of the Rahmans, but only the righteous can hear this. The dead could detect their presence by footprints left on the sand or on scattered flour in the house; their arrival was judged by whether the bed they had prepared the day before was rumpled, etc.
On other memorial days and holidays, communication with the dead occurs, so to speak, on their territory, when the living come to the dead, visiting cemeteries, bring food, spread tablecloths on the graves and arrange a meal, leave food for the dead, bury eggs, pancakes and other things in the graves food, water the graves with water and wine, light candles, fumigate the graves, decorate them with flowers, leaves, among the Eastern Slavs also with towels, aprons, etc. According to beliefs, deceased ancestors in the “other” world see only thanks to the light that reaches them from funeral candles, and eat only what their relatives prepare and bring to them on funeral days. Serbs believe that in front of every deceased person in the “other” world there is a table on which lies only what his relatives brought to him for his soul’s wake. On memorial days, Belarusians, however, are afraid of ending up in the cemetery at midnight, since, according to their beliefs, at this time all the dead “get up and come out of their graves; If any of the living had remained in the cemetery at this time, the dead would certainly have crushed him and carried him to the grave.”
In addition to “feeding” the ancestors, other forms of communication with them are also known. Thus, among the southern and eastern Slavs, as well as in some places in Poland, there is a known custom of “warming the dead,” i.e. light fires, burn shavings or straw to warm the dead. This could be part of a memorial ritual or a calendar holiday (in spring or Christmastide). Sometimes the lighting of bonfires could be motivated by the need to illuminate the path for the dead coming to earth from the “other” world.
Communication with the world of the dead can be carried out not only for the well-being of the dead, but also in the interests of the living, who seek help and protection from the inhabitants of the afterlife from misfortunes and troubles. The dead, especially the drowned and the hanged, are asked to remove the hail cloud from the village or to end the drought. Even the names of the dead have, according to popular belief, magical powers. So, according to Polesie beliefs, when meeting a wolf, you must name the names of three (or nine) deceased relatives, then the wolf will not touch you. When meeting a mermaid, you also need to “read prayers and remember the dead.” In the event of a fire, it is recommended to run around the house three times, shouting the names of the twelve drowned people, then supposedly the fire will not spread, but will go upward.
One of the most important channels of communication between “that” and this light is sleep, which is interpreted in folk culture as temporary death. In a dream, the border between the worlds becomes permeable on both sides, the sleeper can meet his deceased relatives in two ways - either they are transported to the earthly environment by the power of sleep, or the sleeper is transported to the “other” world, and communication takes place in the territory of the dead. The latter is especially characteristic of so-called extinctions, i.e. lethargic sleep or deep fainting, when, according to legend, the soul of the sleeper remains in the “other” world and observes the afterlife, meets his relatives, etc. (for more details see: ). Often a living person who finds himself in the “other” world receives some kind of supernatural knowledge and abilities, which he uses in his earthly life after awakening. Sometimes (especially among the Eastern Slavs) in stories about extinctions, a person who accidentally and prematurely finds himself in the “other” world is told the exact time of his death or other important information, which, however, upon returning to earth (upon awakening) he is not allowed to reveal under threat of death . In an ordinary dream, the deceased (especially those who have recently died) often express their claims, complaints, requests and wishes to their surviving relatives. According to Polesie stories, the dead may complain that they were not given some things they needed (for example, clothes) in the coffin, that they were buried in a damp place and they are lying in water, that they were not given the proper wake, etc. In such cases, the living always responded to the needs of the dead, for example, they went to the cemetery, tore up the grave and made sure that, indeed, the coffin was floating in the water. If it was necessary to transfer something to the “other” world at the request of the deceased or at the request of the living, then this could be done during the burial of a new deceased; it was enough to put the required object in a coffin or bury it in the grave. Another channel of communication with the dead could be a tree: according to the beliefs of the peasants of the Rostov region, if you throw something into the hollow of an old, revered oak tree in the area, it will “straight go to the next world”; if they wanted to get rid of something for good, they threw it into a hollow (recorded by T.Yu. Vlaskina). A reliable way to transfer something to a deceased person is universally considered to be a gift to a beggar (cf., for example,).
In many traditions, it was customary during the funeral to convey greetings, wishes and messages about the most important news of family life to the deceased relatives to the “other” world. Such “correspondence” to the next world could be oral or written, but often it was contained in lamentations and lamentations of the deceased. For example, in a Russian Vologda lament for her mother, the daughter asks her to say hello to her previously deceased sister and tell her about how her orphans live without her: “Oh, you’ll go, Mommy, / Oh, you’ll go, darling , / Oh, in that white world. / Oh, you’ll see, mommy, / Oh, you’ll see, darling, / Oh, you’ll see my dear sister - / Oh, tell me, mommy, / Oh, tell me, darling, / Oh, from me, from goryushitsi, / Oh, the fans are low! / Oh, about my dear sister, / Oh, I was very sad, / Oh, I was very sad! / ... Oh, you, dear sister, / Oh, you don’t know, sister, / Oh, about your little children! / Oh, your little children, / Oh, they all live without their mother, / Oh, they live without their dear one! / Oh, they’ve seen enough of everything, / Oh, they’ve had enough of everything, / Oh, they’ve got to be barefoot, / Oh, they’ve had enough to eat, / Oh, without their dear mother!” .
An interesting way of communicating with another world and exchanging information was, for example, the Pskov ritual “crying with the cuckoo”, not timed to the funeral rite: according to local beliefs, in the guise of a cuckoo, the soul of the deceased flies home from the “other” world to visit his relatives, and messages are passed on to her for the inhabitants of “that” world. A woman who wants to talk to her deceased husband, son, mother, waits for the summer, the arrival of the cuckoo, goes into the forest, into a swamp, into a field and, hearing the cuckooing, begins to lament: “My pitiful sharaya, / sharaya cuckoo! / What are you doing, buddy? / What did you bring me, what news? / Ti ‘t my little cuckoo daughter, / Ti ‘t my parents-mother?” .
Until now, we have been talking about forms of communication between the world of the living and the world of the dead, directed mainly in one direction - from the living to the dead. But the other world also has its own ways and channels of communication with the earthly world. On earth there are “representatives” and loci of the “other” world. “Agents” of the afterlife among the living, in addition to the souls of deceased ancestors who legally visit them on appointed days, are representatives of the so-called lower mythology, demons, who are also genetically dead, but differ from souls in that they belong to the dead “not by their own”, but by violent death , or come from suicides, unbaptized children, dead people whose burial ritual was violated, etc. Unlike souls localized within another world, observing the demarcation of borders and crossing it only at a set time, demons reside on this very border, finding no permanent refuge either in the space of the living or in the space of the dead. This type of “agent” also includes the so-called walking dead who visit their loved ones - mothers who come to breastfeed their children, husbands who visit their wives at night, etc.
The locus of another world on earth is, first of all, the cemetery, where the dead live and where they “wait” for new inhabitants (the soul of the last person buried in the cemetery sits or hangs on the cemetery gate and waits - the forest stands on wart, i.e. on guard, - when she will be replaced by another new resident). From here the dead periodically, at certain calendar dates, make their forays into the space of the living, and here they then return.
The boundary between worlds, which is the subject of special care and constant attention of the living, has not only topographical, but also temporal content. If in locative expression a border is, first of all, water, water barriers and springs, rivers, wells, even vessels with water that are closed or emptied at the moment of death (for more information about water as the border of worlds, see:), as well as boundaries, intersections, road forks, roads themselves, etc. (in ideas about the afterlife, the boundary is often also a mountain, and among other “vertical” boundaries, a tree), then the time boundary is designated in both the daily and annual (calendar) cycles. The mythological understanding of midnight and night in general, midday, sunrise and sunset is known; Also known is the understanding of points and periods isomorphic to them in the annual circle (Kupala, Christmastide, etc., see:), the spring period, the interpretation of major holidays with their characteristic prohibitions and their motivations, etc. In the folk calendar, these periods (especially Christmastide and the spring period from Easter to Trinity) are marked with special rituals, designed to avoid incurring the displeasure of the “guests”, to appease them, to enlist their support or to divert their attention. Time restrictions related to funeral and memorial rites are also worthy of mention, for example the requirement to bury before sunset, before noon, etc. It was customary for Russians in Zaonezhye to go to the cemetery only before noon, and this was explained by the fact that “the deceased only waits until lunch,” “from lunch they have their own holiday there.” The boundary between worlds is broken every time a new person is born and every time death occurs. According to one Tambov certificate, if a child does not show signs of life at birth, then the midwife begins to buzz him, i.e. says: “Ours, ours, ours,” thereby magically confirming that the child has overcome the dangerous border between the “alien” and “his” world and belongs to the space of life.
Thus, the “formula for coexistence” of the two worlds provides for their independent existence and strictly defined ways of interaction between them, compliance with time and space restrictions, and the performance of necessary rituals aimed at maintaining the border and ensuring the well-being of both the living and the dead.
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Tolstaya Svetlana Mikhailovna - Doctor of Philology. Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
2000 S.M. Fat
There is no death - life is also in full swing in the next world. This is evidenced by numerous messages from the afterlife - the voices of the dead are received on the radio, on computers and even on mobile phones. This is hard to believe, but it is a fact. The author of these lines was also rather a skeptic - until he witnessed such contact with the afterlife in St. Petersburg.
We wrote about this in three June issues of the newspaper “Life” this year, 2009. And calls came from all over the country, responses on the Internet. Readers argue, doubt, are surprised, give thanks - the topic of contacts with the afterlife touched a nerve in everyone. Many people ask for the address of scientists who are engaged in such experiments. That's why we returned to this topic. Here is the website address of the Russian Association of Instrumental Transcommunication (RAITK) - a public organization that studies the phenomenon of electronic voices: http://www.rait.airclima.ru/association.htm
Through this site you can contact the head of RAITC, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Artem Mikheev and his colleagues. But I want to warn everyone - the research is still at the experimental stage. Keep in mind that RAITC is not a company providing occult services; its members are engaged in science.
And one more important tip. Do not rush to try to make contact with another world on your own using modern technologies; this is still the lot of few scientists. Believe me, the load on a psyche unprepared for such contacts is very great! Maybe it’s enough for you to go to church, light a candle and pray for the repose of your friends and relatives who have passed on to another world? Take comfort in the fact that the soul is immortal. And separation from people dear to you who have gone to another world is only temporary.
Revelations
The first targeted contact - that is, a connection with a specific person who has gone to another world - was a radio bridge established by the Svitnev family from St. Petersburg.
Their son Dmitry was killed in a car accident, but his parents found a way to hear their dear voice again. Candidate of Technical Sciences Vadim Svitnev and his colleagues from RAITC, using specially designed instruments and a computer, established communication with another world. And it was Mitya who responded to the questions of his father and mother! The son they buried answered from the other world: “We are all alive with the Lord!”
This amazing two-way contact continues for more than a year. Parents record all negotiations electronically - more than three thousand files of answers to their questions. The information that comes from the other world is amazing - much goes against our traditional ideas about the afterlife.
At the request of the readers of “Life”, I asked the questions you were interested in to Natasha and Vadim Svitnev, Mitya’s parents. Here are their answers.
– By what exact phrases, facts, intonations do you identify your interlocutor from the Other World?
Answer: Don't you recognize your child's voice from billions of others? Any voice has intonations and shades that are unique to it. Our Mitya has a characteristic, recognizable voice - very soft, penetrating into the very heart. When we showed the recordings with Mitya’s voice to his friends, they asked when they were made, being absolutely sure that this was done before the tragic event that interrupted Mitya’s life. We communicate with a very large number of people from the other side. In conversations they introduce themselves to us by name. Among Mitya’s friends there are Fedor, Sergei, Stas, Sasha, and Andrei was once mentioned. And friends on the other side sometimes call Mitya himself by his “nickname” on the Internet, which he chose for himself a long time ago - MNTR, a mirror image of the name Mitya. Vadim and his colleagues welcomed him to the contact. For example, one of Vadim’s managers who switched to the “other side” got in touch with congratulations: “Vadyusha, I congratulate you on Fleet Day!” And to the question: “Who am I talking to?” came the answer: “Yes, I am Gruzdev.” Moreover, except for this man, no one ever called Vadim “Vadyusha.” And sometimes they address Natasha by her maiden name, Titlyanova, jokingly calling her Titlyashkina, Titlyandiya.
– How does a person feel in the Other World – in the first seconds, days, weeks, months?
Answer: As we are told on the contacts, there is no interruption on that side. The gap exists only on our side. The transition is absolutely painless.
– What does what is happening on Earth look like from there?
Answer: From the other world, this question is answered like this: “Your life is a huge anthill. You constantly hurt yourself. On Earth you are in a dream."
– Is it possible to predict certain events from the Other World?
Answer: Events distant in time from the present moment are seen less clearly from the other world than nearby ones. There were many predictive or anticipatory messages, such as a warning about a gang attack on a neighbor's boy three months before the incident.
– What needs do humans retain in the Other World? For example, physiological - breathe, eat, drink, sleep?
Answer: As for needs, everything is very simple: “I am completely alive. Mitya is the same.” “It’s a stressful time for us, we’ve barely slept for three months.”
Once Mitya said during a communication session: “Now, mom, listen carefully,” and I heard him sigh. He breathed carefully loudly so that I could hear his breathing. These were real, ordinary sighs of a living person. They tell us that they never have time to eat - they have a lot of work.
Native
– To what extent are family contacts maintained there?
Answer: Mitya often tells me about my mother - her grandmother, that she is there, and my mother, like my father, were also present at the contacts several times. Moreover, when I began to really miss my mother, Mitya invited her, and since she was Ukrainian by origin, she spoke to me in pure Ukrainian. Vadim also talked with his mother. Of course, family ties remain.
– How do they live and where do they live – are there cities, villages?
Answer: Mitya told us that he lives in the village and even explained how to find him. And one of our best contacts heard his address when they called him: “Lesnaya Street, northern house.”
– Is the date of departure of each of us predetermined or not?
Answer: There is no talk of a departure date during our contacts. We are constantly reminded that we are immortal: “You are eternal in our eyes.”
– Were there any clues from the other world in everyday things?
Answer: Once Vadim was told by a contact that he had 36 rubles in his pocket. Vadim checked and was surprised to see that it was exactly 36 rubles.
Egor, our youngest son, was repairing a bicycle and could not determine the malfunction, and Vadim was conducting a communication session at that time. Suddenly Vadim turns to Yegor and says: “Mitya said that your axle is damaged.” The diagnosis was confirmed.
– Are there animals in the afterlife?
Answer: There was also such a case: the guys from the other side brought a dog to the communication session. We heard and recorded her barking.
The belief that with the onset of death a person’s life continues in another world is inherent in many people. The concept of the other world, in which the immortal soul continues to exist after the death of the physical body, is inherent to varying degrees in all religions of the world.
Are they actually dead or is it just an influence mechanism developed by the clergy and those in power to gain control over society.
From time immemorial
The knowledge of the existence of the other world is not new. Mention of this mysterious place can be found in all cultures of the world. Ancient people believed that in the afterlife they would also have a physical body and the needs associated with it.
They believed that just like during earthly existence, they would hunt, eat, fight and rest. Objects that might be needed in the “next” world were placed in the graves of the deceased. These could be clothes, weapons, food, horses and jewelry. Human sacrifices were widely practiced. It was believed that servants and wives buried with their master would serve him in the other world.
The Other World in Ancient Times
Depending on the challenges of the era, under the influence of various factors, people's idea of the afterlife changed. So, in ancient times, in freedom-loving and intellectually developed Greece, people saw the afterlife as a nondescript place, a haven of dark shadows. During life, all residents of the country were equal, and in the afterlife, the same existence awaited everyone.
In ancient Egypt, unlike Hellas, the cult of submission to the pharaoh as an earthly deity was cultivated. Society was divided into classes. The poor segments of the population and representatives of the nobility stood out clearly. The priests acted as guardians of knowledge about nature, and ordinary Egyptians were ordered to serve as their weak-willed instruments.
Therefore, in the afterlife of the Egyptians, a terrible judgment awaited, at which the supreme deity Osiris, surrounded by monsters, judged the sins of the deceased. The soul of the deceased reported that during his life he was faithful to the pharaoh, made the required amount of sacrifices to the gods and fulfilled all the instructions of the clergy, and therefore deserved a posthumous existence.
If a person did not violate the commandments of the pharaoh and the priests, he was allowed to live in the kingdom of Osiris, and he received all the benefits that were not available to him during his life. Otherwise, the soul of the unfortunate man was devoured by the crocodile-headed monster Amamat, and it ceased to exist forever.
Later beliefs
In Christian religions, clergy refined the concept of the other world and began to actively use it for their own purposes.
Thus, early Christians cultivated belief in the existence of heaven and hell. Moreover, if a person was poor during his life, led a righteous lifestyle and obeyed his master and the church, then in the afterlife he went to heaven. On the contrary, the rich, who during their lifetime indulged in carnal pleasures, abuse of food and alcohol, and who were aggressive towards their subordinates, went to hell.
This state of affairs corresponded to the interests of the Roman aristocrats, who were followers of Epicurus and carnal pleasures. For the most part, they had little interest in the afterlife and posthumous existence. At the same time, the ideas of Christianity were widely propagated among slaves, making them submissive.
Later, Catholic priests took the idea of the Last Judgment to its highest point of culmination. For a small monetary payment, any sinner could buy an indulgence that would free him from all past and future sins. The presence of this paper guaranteed a person to go to heaven after death. This practice significantly enriched the charitable institution - the church.
Why do people believe in the afterlife?
Naturally, the desire for justice at the Last Judgment, an innate human quality - fear of change and suffering associated with the loss of a loved one, contributed to the spread of faith in the other world. But if the other world did not really exist, then this idea would not survive millennia and would not occupy the minds of modern people.
People not only believe in the other world, but reliably know about its existence. Everyone is able to look into the abode of spirits and the dead. Most often, this experience occurs in a dream. At the same time, almost every person living on earth can report their own contact with otherworldly inhabitants.
The whole difficulty lies in the fact that these inhabitants cannot be seen with your eyes or touched with your hands. The only way to communicate with them is through human consciousness. At this stage of the development of science, there is still no device capable of recording vibrations or radiation coming from the other world and generally determining whether that world is the habitat of the souls of the dead.
In matters of studying the “other” side, one has to rely on eyewitness accounts, which vary depending on the education and life experience of the contactee - the psychic. Since the other world is different from ours, due to different physical laws, it can be very difficult to understand and decipher the messages received.
However, the likelihood that the mystery of the afterlife will be finally solved is very high. Modern scientists have come close to unraveling the mystery of the human brain and consciousness. When a device is built capable of reproducing vibrations emitted and received by the brain, the gates to the other world will open for the living.
Probably every person at least once in his life wondered whether there is an afterlife after death or whether the soul dies along with the body. Many people are afraid of death, and this is largely due to the unknown that lies ahead. Thanks to the achievements of modern medicine, resuscitation of the dead is not uncommon, so it has become possible to find out the feelings of people who returned from the other world.
Is there an afterlife?
According to numerous testimonies of people who experienced clinical death, it was possible to calculate a certain scenario. First, the soul leaves the body and at this moment the person sees himself from the outside, which causes a state of shock. Many noted that they felt incredible lightness and peace. As for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, some actually saw it. After its passage, the soul meets with relatives or with an inexplicable light creature that evokes warmth and love. It is worth noting that not many were able to see such a wonderful future afterlife, so some people ended up in creepy places where they saw disgusting and aggressive creatures.
Many people who died after clinical death said that they were able to see their whole life, as if it were a movie. Moreover, emphasis was placed on every bad deed. Any achievements during life are unimportant, and only the moral side of actions is assessed. There are also individuals who have described strange places that are neither heaven nor hell. It is clear that it has not yet been possible to obtain official evidence of all these words, but scientists are actively working on this issue.
How our dead live in the afterlife according to different peoples and religions:
- In ancient Egypt, people believed that after death they would go to judgment before Osiris, where their good and bad deeds would be taken into account. If the sins outweighed, then the soul was eaten by a monster and it disappeared forever, and respectable souls went to the fields of paradise.
- In Ancient Greece, it was believed that the soul goes to the kingdom of Hades, where it exists as a shadow without feelings or thoughts. Only those chosen for special merit could be saved from this.
- The Slavs, who were pagans, believed in. After death, the soul is reincarnated and returns to earth or is sent to another dimension.
- Adherents of Hinduism are sure that the soul is immediately reincarnated after a person’s death, but where it ends up depends on the righteousness of life.
- The afterlife, according to Orthodoxy, depends on what kind of life a person leads, so the bad go to hell, and the good go to heaven. The Church denies the possibility of soul reincarnation.
- Buddhism also uses the theory of the existence of heaven and hell, but the soul is not permanently in them and can move to other worlds.
Many are interested in the opinion of scientists about whether there is an afterlife, and science has not stood aside either, and today research is being actively carried out in this area. For example, English doctors began to monitor patients who experienced clinical death, recording all the changes that occur before death, during cardiac arrest and after restoration of the rhythm. When people who experienced clinical death came to their senses, scientists asked about their feelings and visions, which allowed them to draw several important conclusions. People who died felt lightness, comfort and pleasure, but no pain or suffering. They see loved ones who have passed away. People claimed that they were enveloped in a soft and warm light. In addition, later they changed their perception of life and no longer felt fear of death.
