A depiction of Idris visiting Heaven and Hell from an illuminated manuscript version of the Islamic text Stories of the Prophets (1577). Part of a series on the Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is already in the afterlife when we first meet her. She mysteriously disappeared in 1973, and her story hasn’t yet come to light. Linse P, Shermer M (2002). The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. pp.206–7. ISBN 978-1-57607-653-8.

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( November 2014) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) In this nonfiction work, Evidence of the Afterlife , Long presents one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of an afterlife yet. When one leaves the physical body at death he appears in the court of Lord Yama, the God of Death for an exit interview. The panel consists of Yama and Chitragupta – the cosmic accountant, he has a book which consists the history of the dead persons according to his/her mistakes the Lord Yama decides the punishment is and Varuna the cosmic intelligence officer. He is counseled about his life, achievements and failures and is shown a mirror in which his entire life is reflected. (Philosophically these three men are projections of one's mind) Yama the Lord of Justice then sends him to a heavenly realm ( svarga) if he has been exceptionally benevolent and beneficent for a period of Rest and Recreation. his period is limited in time by the weight of his good deeds. If he has been exceptionally malevolent and caused immense suffering to other beings then he is sent to a hell realm ( naraka) for his sins. After one has exhausted his karmas, he takes birth again to continue his spiritual evolution. However, belief in rebirth was not a part of early Vedic religions and texts. It was later developed by Rishis who challenged the idea of one life as being simplistic. Shushan, Gregory (2011). Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations: Universalism, Constructivism and Near-Death Experience. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.53. ISBN 9781441130884.a b Smith, Peter (2000). "burial, "death and afterlife", evil, evil spirits, sin". A concise encyclopedia of the Baháʼí Faith. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. pp. 96–97, 118–19, 135–36, 322–23. ISBN 978-1-85168-184-6. In this work of heartfelt fiction, Liz comes to grips with her new predicament, living in a place much like Earth but very different.

Anglicans of the Anglo-Catholic tradition generally also hold to the belief. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in an intermediate state between death and the resurrection of the dead and in the possibility of "continuing to grow in holiness there", but Methodism does not officially affirm this belief and denies the possibility of helping by prayer any who may be in that state. [55] Orthodox Christianity [ edit ] After death, humans will be questioned about their faith by two angels, Munkar and Nakīr. Those who die as martyrs go immediately to paradise. [72] Others who have died and been buried, will receive a taste of their eternal reward from the al-qabr or "the grave" (compare the Jewish concept of Sheol). Those bound for hell will suffer " punishment of the grave", while those bound for heaven will find the grave "peaceful and blessed". [74] Lemmon, Cheyenne (12 February 2023). "Hachiman, Japanese God of War | History & Symbol". Study.com. Susie relates the tragic event of her death in the intelligent voice of a teenage girl, speaking from a strange location that’s much like a school playground.Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Albany: State University of New York, 1984) p.32–36 says, Ōmiya Hachiman-Schrein| Ways to Japan (16 July 2015). "Ōmiya Hachiman-Shrine (大宮八幡宮) (Engl.)". Ways to Japan . Retrieved 30 October 2023. A study conducted in 1901 by physician Duncan MacDougall sought to measure the weight lost by a human when the soul "departed the body" upon death. [125] MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material, tangible and thus measurable. Although MacDougall's results varied considerably from "21 grams", for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass. [126] The title of the 2003 movie 21 Grams is a reference to MacDougall's findings. His results have never been reproduced, and are generally regarded either as meaningless or considered to have had little if any scientific merit. [127] Microsoft News. Near-death experience expert says he’s proven there is an afterlife ‘without a doubt’. Retrieved 1 Sept., 2023

The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the soul is brought for judgment. Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the Olam Haba or world to come. Most do not enter the world to come immediately, but experience a period of reflection of their earthly actions and are made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a "re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to come. Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept of eternal damnation is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders, either whose very evil deeds go way beyond norms, or who lead large groups of people to utmost evil. [33] [34] This is also part of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith. [35] Past life regression is a method that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations. The technique used during past-life regression involves the subject answering a series of questions while hypnotized to reveal identity and events of alleged past lives, a method similar to that used in recovered memory therapy and one that, similarly, often misrepresents memory as a faithful recording of previous events rather than a constructed set of recollections. Mitch Albom, the bestselling author of Tuesdays with Morrie , brings us this novel exploring the idea that heaven is more than just a place. Confucius did not directly discuss the afterlife. Nonetheless, Chinese folk religion has had a strong influence on Confucianism, so adherents believe that their ancestors become deified spirits after death [106]. Ancestor veneration in China is widespread.This moving book takes readers on an emotional yet lighthearted journey about grief, death, and accepting the inevitable. The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life at Project Gutenberg (Extensive 1878 text by William Rounseville Alger) The notion of purgatory is associated particularly with the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, all those who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven or the final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The tradition of the church, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of a "cleansing fire" although it is not always called purgatory.

The Catholic conception of the afterlife teaches that after the body dies, the soul is judged, the righteous and free of sin enter Heaven. However, those who die in unrepented mortal sin go to hell. In the 1990s, the Catechism of the Catholic Church defined hell not as punishment imposed on the sinner but rather as the sinner's self-exclusion from God. Unlike other Christian groups, the Catholic Church teaches that those who die in a state of grace, but still carry venial sin, go to a place called Purgatory where they undergo purification to enter Heaven. One should note there was a near consensus among Muslim theologians of the later periods that punishment for Muslim grave sinners would only be temporary; eventually after a purgatory sojourn in hell's top layer they would be admitted into paradise." [85] Prior to that, theologians of the Kharijite and Mu'tazilite schools insisted that the "sinful" and "unrepentant" should be punished even if they were believers, but this position has been "lastingly defeated and erased" by mainstream Islam. [86] Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands". Profezie3m.altervista.org. Archived from the original on 13 July 2014 . Retrieved 8 March 2014. This article uncritically uses texts from within a religion or faith system without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources, with multiple points of view. ( September 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

J. Mark, Joshua (2 April 2019). "Cathars". World History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 23 September 2022 . Retrieved 23 September 2022. Life After Death Revealed – What Really Happens in the Afterlife". Spiritual Science Research Foundation. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018 . Retrieved 9 March 2018. Philip C Almond, Afterlife: A History of Life after Death, London and Ithaca NY: I.B. Tauris and Cornell University Press, 2015. Gregory of Nyssa discusses the long-before believed possibility of purification of souls after death. [50]