This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 6, Issue 5, from 1992.
“You shouldn’t joke about death”, say some. Why not? A poor business if we can’t release our feelings in this way when reminded of the least attractive feature of our existence – its conclusion.
Dylan Thomas opined “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” That is going a bit too far, surely. I have passed my seventy-fourth birthday, and, while I hope to elude the Grim Reaper for some more years yet, it would seem rather peevish to stamp my foot when the time comes, yell how unfair the universe is, or fling the crockery about.
Not that I favour cringing. Even if you have had a dog’s life, why go out with a whimper? Kicking and screaming or adopting a posture of spiritual servility I regard as undignified modes of departure. Of course, life’s day for each of us will have been a unique and by no means necessarily a wholly, or even partially, enjoyable experience, for there are terrible sufferings and injustices in the world, and there are several ways in which we may react, depending on the kind of people we are and assuming that we are given the opportunity.
In that respect humanity may be divided into two main groups – those who acknowledge, albeit with varied emotions, that death is THE END and those who cannot bear this thought and prefer to suppose that, in some fashion, in some other order of existence, their lives are TO BE CONTINUED. Since their bodies will be incapable of providing means for sensation, locomotion and so forth, ‘life after death’ propositions have as their basis the notion of a physically invisible self, frequently referred to as a soul or spirit
When we glance through our family albums this may seem an appealing conjecture, the differences in size, shape and appearance of the same individuals at various stages of their lives being ludicrously obvious. However, unless we are victims of total amnesia, we know that the persistent impression we have of the continuity of a singular identity throughout life is somewhat misleading. For, as we reflect on what has happened to us, and how we have responded with regard to matters which photographs cannot record, we distinguish several selves. The latest of the series may be the least desirable candidate for perpetuation, but the others are no longer available and in any case are all muddled up with Oneself Right Now.
The trouble is, we are deluded by the dualism of mind and body with which popular thinking on the subject has been drenched. We are inclined to talk as if a self could be thought of as having a separate existence. John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave; his soul goes marching on.
Living intelligences free to dispense with some medium of corporeal expression, some association with a physical mechanism, are unknown. A correspondence exists between the efficiency of the equipment and the behaviour / consciousness / intelligence exhibited. Moreover, what we call our ‘selves’ (character / disposition / personality) relate to hereditary, environmental, social and cultural conditions and interplay with these aspects over a period of time. Selves might be described as customised products manufactured with built-in obsolescence.
True, it is John’s body which can be said to lie a-mouldering, not John. Not that John is marching on anywhere. John exists no longer. In life, something quite marvellous held John together, besides his belt and braces (or suspenders, as Americans say). In fact you could say it produced him, organized in a highly personal way all those physical constituents which may be described, less inelegantly, as being reprocessed.
We do not fully understand this power of organisation which we name ‘life’ but that is no excuse for allowing fear or sentiment of any kind to befuddle our thinking and lead us into self-deception. Our dreams make no difference to reality. What is certain is that this power belongs to nature just as molecules and atoms do. Whether or how (if such be required by the law of conservation) it is transmogrified on disappearing from our field of view, is simply speculation.
Many never tire of looking for some way to cling to belief in survival beyond death. The following is an interesting example. Although written by a modern mystic (now deceased), it has ancient parallels. He introduced his autobiography as follows: ‘This book is the record of an empirical ego who possesses no reality outside time, and only a fleeting existence in time. The story it attempts to tell is about the self of delusion and separation, which makes a fleeting appearance on the stage of life, and little or nothing is said about the Spiritual Self, which is forever one with the eternal.’ (H T Hamblin: The Story Of My Life)
The final clauses are vague religious statements quite unlike the forthright outline of our human condition, which up to that point seems to be what is being provided. Higher Selves are popular spiritual concepts, whose ‘reality’ may be proclaimed with great conviction, but which from a down-to-earth standpoint appear merely as aspects of the mundane self with which we are physically familiar.
Not to believe that one will somehow be reconstituted in Another Realm is no reason to be miserable. Indeed, it can be a relief. Think of those who have been frightened almost out of their wits by threats of damnation, having absorbed cruel doctrines as ‘gospel truth’. The good news they really appreciate amounts to a realisation that they have been gulled and need be so no longer.
Christians are often surprised to learn that the Hebrew people, of whom their Bible tells (but which they study in a devotional rather than a scientific manner), lived quite happily and purposefully without a belief in immortality until the period of the exile, when they came into contact with Persian mythology.
When I meet people who try too hard to make sense of life and death I am reminded of a stretch of road on the coast of Ayrshire, which is known as ‘the electric brae’. The interesting feature of this hill is that when you are travelling up it you appear to be going downhill. When you are travelling downhill, you appear to be going up. It is a weird sensation to be on a bicycle, say, gliding apparently uphill, with effortless ease as if drawn by some mysterious power. Conversely, on what appears to be a downward journey you must pedal hard in order to make any progress.
It is an optical illusion, of course, due to the peculiar lie of the land, and may be seen as such from a point out at sea. Nevertheless, whether by disregarding the facts, or simply through being unaware of them, some people have advanced all sorts of outlandish theories to account for the phenomenon.
Ages of Faith have bequeathed to us a type of mind that constantly seeks reassurance by means of fantasies, the bizarre nature of which is overlooked because they have acquired respectability in the course of a long tradition favouring credulity and opposing rationality. Such a mmd thinks it is going up, so to speak, when, from a scientific angle, it is going down. And vice versa. Death, however, is not an option we are in a position to decline. Nature has the last word, whatever we prefer to imagine.
But I simply must end on a lighter note. I was 58 when one morning my wife opened an envelope addressed to her and was clearly startled at what she read. “You had better deal with this, darling,” she said sweetly, passing the missive round the marmalade jar. When I saw what was in the letter, I thought her request was a trifle unreasonable, as I learned that I was dead. Interested, I went on reading, but the condolences, I felt, betrayed rather less regret at my decease than I should have regarded as fitting. Their expression was formal and conventional. Indeed the letter was sadly deficient when it came to the business of enumerating my qualities and talents. The writer must have had a bad day, and certainly wasn’t improving mine. Nevertheless I complied with my loved one’s wishes and was mollified by the swift arrival of a reply which expressed great joy at my resurrection.
I continue to warm both hands before the fire of life. Let’s face it. I am in no hurry to depart.
