A Wisdom Archive on Death

Introduction and links to related topics

Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.


Death - Death Death is not a thing in itself, but one of the phases or temporary events in the unending dramas of life, so that the opposite of death is birth rather than life. In other words, the opposite of manifested life is unmanifest life, pralaya and its aeonic rest.

Manvantara and pralaya are phases in the endless flow of the alternating current of cosmic motion, which is the immediate result of the life-breath of the spiritual essence at the heart of everything in manifestation. The same eternal motion which brings everything into objective existence has thereby caused the death of the same entity on the previous subjective plane of life. Then, when the lifetime of this manifestation ends, the reverse of this rhythmic motion causes the death of the entity from objective existence, and carries it back to be reborn into its subjective life.

This law applies universally to solar systems, planets, human beings, atoms, etc. The reincarnating ego is born and dies on each of the successive planes of existence through which it descends from spiritual realms to be reborn again on earth. The same rhythmic motion reversed spells death here, with the same repeated births and deaths on its ascending journey to its spiritual home.

Death occurs not from a lack of life, but because the ceaseless motion of the vital essence is wearing out the body. The senility of old age means that certain elements are already drifting in the reverse current that is setting towards the other side of the veil. With the last heartbeat, the dying person is vitally aware of a detailed panorama of his passing life as the field of experience which he is to harvest in the inner world he is about to be born into. The atoms of his body, freed from his spiritual cohering force, separate actively, each to find its appropriate field of action in nature''s kingdoms. The adept, while still living in the world, has so far conquered death by self-conquest that he can use his developed spiritual will to enter into and consciously function in the realms of spiritual beings. Paul''s mystical saying "I die daily," is true of the initiate who steadily transmutes some degree of his selfish personality to vitalize his higher nature.

There is a close connection between death, sleep, and initiation, sleep being an incomplete death and initiation being a conscious experience of the afterdeath states.

See also DEVACHAN; KAMA-LOKA; PRALAYA; REIMBODIMENT; SECOND DEATH

Death Star - (Sitra Achara as opposed to the Star of David.) Another term for "Universe B". Dr. Philip S. Berg in The Power of Aleph Beth informs us that the force of darkness constantly seeks to destroy Creation. Evil, for the Qabalist, is a necessity without which the Universe would revert to its former condition "which allowed no relief from the burden of ''Bread of Shame.''"

Death Posture - Austin Osman Spare''s (auto-erotic) trance-state, in the Zos Kia Cultus, for receiving the divine mudra of Death,
in which, says Grant, "the world of appearance ceases and its noumenal source is revealed." Normally this can happen only at the point of physical death itself.

Death Of The Righteous - (Mors Justi.) Death in union with orgasm - since the orgasm is the affirmation of the body and death is the rejection of the body, exact simultaneity is difficult. One will generally precede the other.

Deathbed Experience - A dying person''s awareness of the presence of dead friends or relatives.

See also Near-Death Experience .

Sex And Death - Death and the entry into the Abyss of Non-Being is the equivalent of the sexual act. As the orgasm is the ultimate affirmation of the body, so the death spasm is the ultimate denial of the body. On the common level we move in and out of Death and Life, in and out of the Void, from Manifestation to reincarnated Manifestation, endlessly. The Samsaric wheel of birth and death is the endless cosmic act of coitus until the final "orgasm" resulting in the bliss of Nirvana.

777
Reincarnation. We live 700 lives as an animal, 70 lives as a human being learning to overcome the Kama-Manasic levels and, finally, 7 incarnations as an Initiate.

Mystic Death - Mystic Death An experience at a certain stage of initiation, where the candidate undergoes the experiences of virtual death, differing from actual death in that his body is prevented from dissolution so that he may resume it when the trial has been passed.

Through its symbolic representation in the exoteric Mystery dramas, it has passed into the substance of religious creeds where it has been adapted to those formulas, as in the story or mythos of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is, among other things, a description of some of the experiences undergone by such a candidate.

Dwarf Of Death - Dwarf of Death. In the Edda of the Norsemen, Iwaldi, the Dwarf of Death, hides Life in the depths of the great ocean, and then sends her up into the world at the right time. This Life is Iduna, the beauti- ful maiden, the daughter of the "Dwarf".

She is the Eve of the Scandinavian Lays, for she gives of the apples of ever-renewed youth to the gods of Asgard to eat ; but these, instead of being cursed for so doing and doomed to die, give thereby renewed youth yearly to the earth and to men, after every short and sweet sleep in the arms of the Dwarf.

Iduna is raised from the Ocean when Bragi (q.v.), the Dreamer of Life, without spot or blemish, crosses asleep the silent waste of waters. Bragi is the divine ideation of Life, and Iduna living Nature - Prakriti, Eve.

Kiss Of Death - Kiss of Death. According to the Kabbalah, the earnest follower does not die by the power of the Evil Spirit, Yetzer ha Rah, but by a kiss from the mouth of Jehovah Tetragrammaton, meeting him in the Haikal Ahabah or Palace of Love.

Second Death - Second Death Adopted from its use by the ancients, such as the Greeks and Romans who wrote and taught of the second death even publicly (cf Key 98-9).

When a person dies the three lower of his seven principles (sthula-sarira, linga-sarira, prana) are immediately cast off, and the four higher principles (kama, manas, buddhi, atman) enter kama-loka, there to await the second death. The length of time that this fourfold entity remains in kama-loka is determined by the general characteristics of the life just ended on earth: if there has been during life but small attachment in the intermediate nature (kama-manas) to things of earth, there will perforce by little or nothing to hold the entity in kama-loka, which it will traverse relatively rapidly; and the preparation for the entry into the next state of consciousness or devachan proceeds normally and smoothly.

The sojourn in kama-loka will be longer if the deceased has strong and active attractions earthward, for in such cases the defunct is earth-bound, and the time before the second death occurs, after which follows the entry into devachan, is in all cases proportionate to the strength of the attraction towards earth and its affairs.

The second death takes place when the two highest human principles, atman and buddhi, free themselves from the fourfold entity, but such separation of the monad takes place only after it has assimilated all the higher intellectual and truly spiritual attributes which the manas principle has stored up during the last life on earth. The ego then is freed from all low attractions and enters into devachanic bliss for a period according to its richness in human spiritual qualities.

After the monad in the second death has abandoned the lower part of manas joined to kama, there remains the shell or spook (kama-rupa) which under normal conditions immediately begins to disintegrate in kama-loka. Thus after the second death the immortal triad -- atman, buddhi, and all the spiritual and intellectual aroma of the manas -- is freed, and the reimbodying ego or higher manas enters the devachanic state, and sleeps blissfully there till beginning its new cycle of descent towards reincarnation.

Angel Of Death - Angel of Death. See SAMAEL

Planet Of Death - Planet of Death.

See EIGHTH SPHERE