Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 151

The opposite of life, ceasing to exist. Also a personification of the destroyer of life, typically represented as a skeleton holding a scythe. Dying, when all bodily functions cease, is the great unknown that neither religion nor science has been able to fully explain or understand. Because it is unknown and inevitable, death has always both fascinated and terrified the living. Some cultures, such as the Egyptians and the Christians of the Dark Age, have been absolutely obsessed by it. All cultures have had their own myths about it.

Most people see death as a time of sorrow and regret but some religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, see it as a blessed release for the soul that has gone. Funerals are a time for great rejoicing as to cry and mourn will literally hold the soul to the earth.

For psychics and mediums, who say they can communicate with the dead, and those who have had near-death experiences (i.e. they have technically died and have been revived to tell their story), death is almost always described as a beautiful process. However much pain the physical body is experiencing the moment the soul gets into the astral body this disappears and there is a feeling of lightness and peace. Typically a loving soul appears to tell them that their work on earth has not been completed and they need to go back. That marvellous feeling of peace and oneness, however, stays with them and the person is left with an understanding that death is not the end but simply the end of a cycle, for the soul goes on eternally learning lessons and seeking perfection.