What happens after life? Is there an Afterlife?

Heaven, hell, return to the earth, the soul’s onward journey – it’s the subject of thousands of words on the web, in scholarly papers and the popular press, in debates and bar room musings. Even the strongest believer is likely to agree that really, it’s an agnostic issue: literally ‘unknowable’. This doesn’t stop people clinging fiercely to beliefs.

For many this rests on the issue that apart from a jangle of bones and a puddle of water and flesh, we’re mostly a big old bundle of unstoppable energy, and that’s got to go somewhere.

To save you any more time wondering, this book aims to balance story and metaphor with science:
Life After Death: The Book of Answers by Deepak Chopra

Here’s a quick vox pop on the subject:

Reincarnation

Belief in reincarnation and past lives give some hope that we have more than one shot at this life.

It is a serious and heartfelt part of most Indian religions – Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism. The concept of re-birth is around in Buddhism and Norse mythology features tales of reincarnation, as do local mythologies in West Africa.

Many people believe they have led past lives and some have undergone past-life regression using hypnotism to explore memories from a deeper level of consciousness.

There are lots of websites and books on this:
Past Lives, Present Miracles by Denise Linn

Psychics

For people who are open and curious about life and death, a psychic can provide a channel to people, messages, visions from beyond and from within.

Psychic abilities include astral travel, aura reading, channeling, dowsing, energy and faith healing, levitation, out-of-body experiences, premonitions. Spiritualists, mediums, people with second sight and clairvoyants may offer help ‘reaching the other side’. Many have experiences of seeing doppelgangers and other apparitions, sensing or seeing ghosts.

It’s all very intriguing. Some universities have a department of parapsychology, intrigued by the various phenomena and reported experiences. At the end of the day, one person’s deja vu is another’s tiredness; like many other aspects of life and death, it boils down to belief systems.

Joan Charles

The Sun newspaper’s popular Orcale columnist, Joan Charles, is a friend of Final Fling and was our expert advisor on developing ideas for Final Fling themes.

Joan first saw death passing by as a 4 year old and was terrified by her gift until she was an adult. Now she embraces and shares her gift. She runs leadership development sessions on intuition, runs workshops to help tap into psychic powers, coaches coaches, offers one to one readings for clients using Tarot, numerology, astrology, has ‘performed’ at shows and will do parties.

Joan is a believer in the Law of Attraction – that the right thing will come at the right time. This goes hand in hand with the Ask and It’s Given school of thought… knowing what you want being the first step to getting it.

Encouragingly, she believes you are your own magician – you can use your own intuition and develop your psychic powers to tune into your own life and make things happen.

Joan writes for the Scottish Sun and has written a book about her gifts, An Angel Walked Beside Me.