The afterlife

[jules]

One of the riddles that I had a hard time coming to terms with as a witch, was the afterlife...heaven and hell. What's waiting for me behind the veil. It has been my darkest fear, and the goddess made me face it and overcome it, and then I observed this universe we all live in, and realized that it's nothing but a matrix. A matrix that was designed by the demiurge, so i started wondering...am I ever going to break free from this slavery!? Why would I bow to a god who requires consistent worship?

My journey was long and full of ambiguity, but in the end, I've come to realize that the goddess will make sure her children are well taken care of in the afterlife.

What about yourselves....what do you think??

 

[art-vark2323]

I used to worry a lot about what would happen when I died, but I found that it was better for me not to focus on it. It's not something I'm likely to find answers to in this lifetime, although I have certainly tried. If my spirit persists, I like to think it will join in with a ghostly horde led by Hekate, sort of like the Wild Hunt in European mythologies, and wander the earth, or it will haunt a bookshop. My body's matter, on the other hand, will get recycled back into nature. Maybe someday, someone will dig up my bones and study them! I think our afterlife will not be a place of punishment nor will it be a place of reward, it will just be what you make of it, much like our minds.

 

[jules]

I really love your perspective. Thank you for sharing this with us

 

[HoldAll]

This thread may also prove enlightening:

What's after death?

What do you believe happens after death? Rebirth on Earth as a new human? Rebirth on Earth as a different species? Rebirth on a different plane/dimension? Continuing on in a different plane/dimension? Like heaven or hell... Continuing on in a parallel universe where you never died... on and...

wizardforums.com

 

[jules]

This thread may also prove enlightening:

What's after death?

What do you believe happens after death? Rebirth on Earth as a new human? Rebirth on Earth as a different species? Rebirth on a different plane/dimension? Continuing on in a different plane/dimension? Like heaven or hell... Continuing on in a parallel universe where you never died... on and...

wizardforums.com

Thank you for sharing

 

[HocusPocus]

At the end of the day, just do your best.

I struggled with this alot as well, we're all blind like a previous poster said. We don't know what the true powers of the Universe are just don't make any permanent decisions.

 

[Leviathan]

This was a very tough one for me, spending years in a career field where death could be right around the corner. The potential it could be nothing at all but black emptiness as your will and works are slowly forgotten still haunts me from time to time. I still haven't found a solid answer, as there doesn't seem to be one until you can gain first hand experience, at which point it's too late.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I find the idea of just switching off at the end of life quite comforting; saves me having to worry about what the afterlife might be like. I still want to go on for as long as possible of course

As Woody Allen said "Death is just like going to sleep. Except when they yell 'everybody up!', it's harder to find your slippers..."

 

[HocusPocus]

I find the idea of just switching off at the end of life quite comforting; saves me having to worry about what the afterlife might be like. I still want to go on for as long as possible of course

As Woody Allen said "Death is just like going to sleep. Except when they yell 'everybody up!', it's harder to find your slippers..."

If only life could be so simple, I personally don't really believe most of us had choices in how we lived our lives, maybe only the illusion of it.

The end would be the best for all of us, but reality is anything but simple and forgiving.

 

[Khoren_]

The potential it could be nothing at all but black emptiness as your will and works are slowly forgotten still haunts me from time to time.

The way I've looked at it is not a "black emptiness" but a coming to understanding. Released from your "material" bonds, you finally find a way to process the vastness of totality, and come to a peace with the way things are. I've always preached that "heaven and hell" are merely states of mind for the material realm, and that it is up to you to specify which one you live in while you trudge through the tar and molasses of individual experience. Like, sure, you as that specific "individual" will be eventually "forgotten", but your ripples that you caused during your life will forever be expanding and reaching further and further out. You don't live in a vacuum, and every action, utterance, or lack there of, changes the world in ways you could never understand - think of the butterfly effect - so, in a sense, you are never truly "forgotten". Once you return to the universe, every atom and molecule and energy deficit, you become other things, other beings, other experiences, transcending the individual to the many to the all.

 

[Xenophon]

Personally, I love books like, what'd the 'Gipshuns call it? "The Book of Coming Forth By Day"? Aka, "The Egyptian Book of the Dead." I mean, it's like GPS for the afterlife road network. It might do with updating, though.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

If only life could be so simple, I personally don't really believe most of us had choices in how we lived our lives, maybe only the illusion of it.

The end would be the best for all of us, but reality is anything but simple and forgiving.

If it's any comfort to you, my research has proved compatible with free will, in the sense of "I could have chosen otherwise". The entire multiverse is predetermined, but the path you take through it is not.

Reality is simple; WE are complicated.

 

[HocusPocus]

If it's any comfort to you, my research has proved compatible with free will, in the sense of "I could have chosen otherwise". The entire multiverse is predetermined, but the path you take through it is not.

Reality is simple; WE are complicated.

Agreed. The choices we face are often just a matter of the least painful. Free will is a loaded term in my opinion, all of us are built with certain habits, inclined towards certain things that are helpful to our survival. Often we have to pick between the most emotionally painful but the least physically painful.

You could put the blame on the perceived choice-maker but I don't know if I could blame a child-soldier for having to kill his own family to be allowed to live.

 

[Sabbatius]

Well, if we look at the plethora of practices we are currently aware of past and present, we have:

• We reincarnate until we achieve Transcendence
• We pass onto the Summerlands/Underworld/Hel or whatever blissful Paradise of existence we partly earn from our deeds while alive
• We are saved/doomed to an eternity in Heaven or Hell based on our religious devotion/acceptance of a supposed messianic/deific figure.
• We pass onto a place of testing until we eventually are led into a chamber of judgement wherein we weigh our earthly deeds and eventually either fade into existence or find ourselves in eternal bliss
• We sit in a state of purgatory where we our purged of our misdeeds and afterwards we enter into the gates of Paradise
• We die. The grave is it. Energy is transferred to the soil for plants

In any case, we are either transformed, judged on merits, wait, travel to someplace new or just die. The late Church tradition who were writing post-Apostolic Apocalyptic Literature had one text which was outright omitted, for good reason from the Christian books called the Apocalypse of Peter which stated that we would all eventually make it to Heaven regardless of what we have done on Earth. Considering most of the Christian literature is questionable to begin with, take heart that this may be true if you hold to such measures of faith.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

The late Church tradition who were writing post-Apostolic Apocalyptic Literature had one text which was outright omitted, for good reason from the Christian books called the Apocalypse of Peter which stated that we would all eventually make it to Heaven regardless of what we have done on Earth.

I don't want to be stuck with those clowns for eternity!

 

[Amur]

Well if we talk about quantum consciousness there could be somekind of marvelous afterlife or then not. But then again if we make a symbolic link and collapse the quantum world to become that symbolic link then I think talking about the afterlife is a bunch of gibberish and should as such not be symbolically linked to even if I have had an Near-Death Experience.

So the afterlife is something that we can't fathom and most really don't even think about it in life as life is meant to be lived by 'doing something' instead of coming up with fantasies. The 10th commandment is really 'Do Something' and it helps even for depression.

 

[Accipeveldare]

I'd say from the perspective of a chaos magician the afterlife is literally what you perceive it as. My belief is that the more you believe in something the more real it becomes.

 

[Khoren_]

I'd say from the perspective of a chaos magician the afterlife is literally what you perceive it as. My belief is that the more you believe in something the more real it becomes.

Someone has read discworld slash american gods

 

[Accipeveldare]

Someone has read discworld slash american gods

Nuh uhhhhhh

 

[WisdomAddict]

The point is the whole existence in this matrix has no purpose , some would still say we are here to learn!
I would say: learning what!?
The whole universe Makes no sense and full of imperfection and suffering
I'm searching for a non violent way to eject from this matrix and back to sources at will
There's no purpose for any of it to experience , period
I believe 'some' know the secret to doing it but kept it hidden , we will find it someday
Some would say we sign up for this by our own will
Then I would say In neo's voice: bulls**t