Afterlife

A History of Life after Death

Philip C. Almond

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781784534967
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857728951
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come? The end of life has never meant the extinction of hope. People perpetually have yearned for, and often been terrified by, continuance beyond the horizon of mortality. Ranging across time and space, Philip Almond here takes his readers on a remarkable journey to worlds both of torment and delight. He travels to the banks of the Styx, where Charon the grizzled boatman ferries a departing spirit across the river only if a gold obol is first placed for payment on the tongue of its corpse. He transports us to the legendary Isles of the Blessed, walks the hallowed ground of the Elysian Fields and plumbs the murky depths of Tartarus, primordial dungeon of the Titans. The pitiable souls of the damned are seen to clog the soot-filled caverns of Lucifer even as the elect ascend to Paradise. Including medieval fears for the fate of those consumed by cannibals, early modern ideas about the Last Day and modern scientific explorations of the domains of the dead, this first full treatment of the afterlife in Western thought evokes many rich imaginings of Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Limbo.

PHILIP C. ALMOND is Emeritus Professor of Religion at the University of Queensland. His previous books include The Witches of Warboys: An Extraordinary Story of Sorcery, Sadism and Satanic Possession (2008), England’s First Demonologist: Reginald Scot and ‘The Discoverie of Witchcraft’ (2011, paperback 2014), The Lancashire Witches: A Chronicle of Sorcery and Death on Pendle Hill (2012) and The Devil: A New Biography (2014, paperback 2016), all published by I.B.Tauris.

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In this concise and accessible account of the afterlife in the imagination of the Christian West, Philip Almond takes the reader on a remarkable journey. As we progress through the centuries, wrestling with the conceptual problems of post-mortem life – will our bodies as well as our souls enjoy paradise? what exactly is the soul? and what is the relation between time and eternity? – we marvel at the tenacity that has compelled human beings in all cultures to insist on this seemingly impossible idea. As Almond argues from the outset, our quest for the afterlife is rooted in the conviction that our existence must have some ultimate significance and our ineradicable desire that the ubiquitous injustice that we witness in our earthly lives be righted in the hereafter.

KAREN ARMSTRONG, bestselling author of The Case for God:
What Religion Really Means and Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence

As is true of all his previous books, Philip Almond’s Afterlife is thoughtful, perceptive, inquiring, accurate, wide-ranging, clear and engagingly written. It is a fine follow-up to his earlier biography of the Devil.

JEFFREY BURTON RUSSELL, Emeritus Professor of History,
University of California, Santa Barbara, author of A History of Heaven and Paradise Mislaid

Philip Almond’s cultural history of the afterlife is a fascinating – and frequently disturbing – journey through the Western imagination: its dreams, desires, fears and hopes. Erudite, lucid, the book draws us into an exhilarating current of eschatologies and final things that challenge any secular ideology because of their abiding relevance. Staring at death and finitude, humankind aspires to and tries to picture post-mortem conditions: a perennial occupation that cannot be erased. It is who we are. In his engaging book Almond offers us a roadmap to self-understanding.

GRAHAM WARD,
Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford

Philip Almond’s new book is a welcome and readable reminder that belief in life after death is not one simple set of convictions but a range of hopes and conceptions, including both the sophisticated and the simple, engaging in diverse ways with diverse models of what human life essentially is.

ROWAN WILLIAMS,
Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and former Archbishop of Canterbury

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Published in 2016 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com

Copyright © 2016 Philip C. Almond

The right of Philip C. Almond to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.

References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

ISBN: 978 1 78453 496 7
eISBN: 978 0 85772 895 1
ePDF: 978 0 85772 806 7

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Text designed and typeset by Tetragon, London

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To Winter

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Contents

• List of Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• Chapter One: The Destiny of the Dead
• The spirits of the dead
• Rewards and punishments
• Go directly to Paradise
• Paradise not quite regained yet
• Chapter Two: The Geography of the Underworld
• Dante’s limbo
• The Limbo of the Infants
• The Limbo of the Fathers
• ‘He descended into hell’
• Chapter Three: Souls and Bodies
• Composite creatures
• The origin of the soul
• Time and eternity
• Resurrected bodies
• Flesh and bones
• Sharks and cannibals
• Apocalypse soon
• Chapter Four: Purgatory and Beyond
• ‘Blessed be God’
• Particular judgements
• A fiery purging
• Praying for the dead
• Craving your indulgence
• Chapter Five: The Sleep of Death
• The dying soul
• ‘To sleep, perchance to dream?’
• Radical mortalists
• A sage from Malmesbury, a Leveller and a poet
• ‘Flying like an eagle in the air’
• Variations on an Arabian theme
• The resurrection of John Locke
• The triumph of soul-denying
• Chapter Six: The Saved and the Damned
• The finality of death
• Justified and predestined
• Purgatory revisited
• Hell’s torments
• Gnawing worms, unquenchable fires and abominable fantasies
• Annihilationists and torments temporary
• Universalists and torments reformative
• Chapter Seven: Heavens, Sacred and Secular
• The early modern heaven
• The visions of Emanuel Swedenborg
• The Gates Ajar
• Technologies of the afterlife
• Twentieth-century variations, new themes and old
• From here to eternity
• Utopias new and apocalypses old
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates Section

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‌List of Plates

‌1 The Spirit of Samuel Appearing to Saul at the House of the Witch of Endor (1668) by Salvator Rosa (1615–73). Louvre, Paris / Peter Willi / Bridgeman Images (PWI91401).

‌2 Figure of Charon, detail from fresco by Luca Giordano (1634–1705). De Agostini Picture Library / G. Nimatallah / Bridgeman Images (DGA514524).

‌3 Ms Fr. 143 f.136v: Hades and Persephone seated in the underworld on a throne in the form of an eagle’s head with Cerebus before them. French School (fifteenth century). Bibliothèque National...

Table of contents

• List of Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• Chapter One • The Destiny of the Dead
• Chapter Two • The Geography of the Underworld
• Chapter Three • Souls and Bodies
• Chapter Four • Purgatory and Beyond
• Chapter Five • The Sleep of Death
• Chapter Six • The Saved and the Damned
• Chapter Seven • Heavens, Sacred and Secular
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates Section