In my religious traditions, no one dies while yet his name is written.
I have often been on the receiving end of some rather dubious looks when making this claim, particularly as the details are a mystery -- in the oldest sense of the term, unavailable to the uninitiated -- but I have had direct personal experience of the existence of a life after death, and the invocation of the souls from the kingdom of the dead. Yes, I believe in the world thereafter, and that it is the obligation of those on this side of that undiscovered country to keep faith with those who have gone ahead, so that we may be reunited in the world beyond.
I would offer you some further reading, but my library is, alas, slightly scattered at the moment.
It is customary to ask the traveller to carry any messages one wishes to bear to those who have gone forth some time ago. Or to make any last petitions for forgiveness. Or simply to reassure them that their names will not be struck out and their spirits will not be forgot.
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I have often been on the receiving end of some rather dubious looks when making this claim, particularly as the details are a mystery -- in the oldest sense of the term, unavailable to the uninitiated -- but I have had direct personal experience of the existence of a life after death, and the invocation of the souls from the kingdom of the dead. Yes, I believe in the world thereafter, and that it is the obligation of those on this side of that undiscovered country to keep faith with those who have gone ahead, so that we may be reunited in the world beyond.
I would offer you some further reading, but my library is, alas, slightly scattered at the moment.
It is customary to ask the traveller to carry any messages one wishes to bear to those who have gone forth some time ago. Or to make any last petitions for forgiveness. Or simply to reassure them that their names will not be struck out and their spirits will not be forgot.