III. CELESTIAL IMMORTALITY. Widespread beliefs that souls rise to the stars, [91]—Unknown in ancient Greece, [94]—Pythagorism, [95]—Lunar immortality, [96]—Solar immortality, [100]—Combination of both, [102]—Stellar immortality, [103]—Combined with the other doctrines: three stages, [106]—Passage through the planetary spheres, [107]—Souls rise above the stars, [108].
IV. THE WINNING OF IMMORTALITY. Ancient conception of immortality, [110]—Eminent men gods on earth, [111]—Immortality of the few, [114]—Mysteries claim to procure “deification,” [116]—Lustrations, [118]—Unctions, [119]—Ritual banquets, [120]—The gnosis, [121]—Identification with a particular god, [122]—Illumination by the astral divinities, [123]—Philosophy also leads to union with God, [124].
V. UNTIMELY DEATH. Children not admitted to the Elysian Fields, [128]—Those who die violent deaths, [129]—Influence of astrology, [131]—Pythagorism, [132]—Magic, [134]—Philosophical reaction, [136]—Children initiated, [138]—Their souls rise to heaven, [139]—Different categories of biothanati, [141]—Soldiers slain in battle, [142]—Suicides, [143]—Executed criminals, [145]—Persistence of ancient beliefs, [146].
VI. THE JOURNEY TO THE BEYOND. Journey to the nether world, [148]—The Pythagorean Y, [150]—The two roads, [152]—How the dead reach heaven, [153]—On foot, by means of a ladder, [153]—In a boat, [154]—On horseback, [155]—In a chariot, [156]—As a bird, [157]—Carried by an eagle, [158]—Solar attraction, [160]—Physical theory, [161]—The air peopled with demons, [162]—The gates of the planetary spheres, [162]—Guide of the souls, [163]—Physical character of the dead, [164]—The shade and the soul, [167]—Distinction of soul and reason, [168]—Neo-Platonic “vehicle,” [169].
VII. THE SUFFERINGS OF HELL AND METEMPSYCHOSIS. Origin in Homer, [170]—Orphic theology, [171]—Resemblance to penal law, [172]—Apocryphal gospel of Peter, [173]—Oriental influence, [174]—Fire of hell, [175]—Metempsychosis, its animistic basis, [177]—Origin in Greece, [177]—Souls passing continuously through different kinds of beings, [179]—Reincarnation a punishment, [180]—“Palingenesis” or uncontinuous reincarnation, [182]—Transmigration from man to man, [183]—Purification of the soul in the air, [184]—by water and fire, [185]—Purgatory in the atmosphere, [186]—The purified spirit remains in heaven, [187].
VIII. THE FELICITY OF THE BLESSED. Rest in the tomb, [190]—in the nether world, [193]—in the light of heaven, [193]—Persistence of these ideas among the Christians, [196]—Repast of the dead, [199]—Repast in the nether world, [201]—The funeral banquet and the sacred meal of the mysteries, [203]—Banquet in heaven, [205]—Persistence in Christianity, [206]—The sight of the god, [207]—In the astral cults, [208]—Communion of man with the stars, [209]—Immortality a contemplation of the astral gods, [210]—Astral mysticism, [211]—Ecstasy of the Neo-Platonists, [212]—Last conception of eternal bliss, [213].
INDEX. P. [215].
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
The idea of death has perhaps never been more present to humanity than during the years through which we have just passed. It has been the daily companion of millions of men engaged in a murderous conflict; it has haunted the even larger number who have trembled for the lives of their nearest and dearest; it is still constantly in the thoughts of the many who nurse regret for those they loved. And doubtless also, the faith or the hope has never more imposed itself, even on the unbelieving, that these countless multitudes, filled with moral force and generous passion, who have entered eternity, have not wholly perished, that the ardour which animated them was not extinguished when their limbs grew cold, that the spirit which impelled them to self-sacrifice was not dissipated with the atoms which formed their bodies.
These feelings were known to the ancients also, who gave to this very conviction the form suggested by their religion. Pericles[[1]] in his funeral eulogy of the warriors who fell at the siege of Samos declared that they who die for their country become like the immortal gods, and that, invisible like them, they still scatter their benefits on us. The ideas on immortality held in antiquity are often thus at once far from and near to our own—near because they correspond to aspirations which are not antique or modern, but human, far because the Olympians now have fallen into the deep gulf where lie dethroned deities. These ideas become more and more like the conceptions familiar to us as gradually their time grows later, and those generally admitted at the end of paganism are analogous to the doctrines accepted throughout the Middle Ages.