ETERNITY

1. People differ in their central nervous systems, as in their afterlife experiences. Not surprisingly, whole societies tend to reflect this in their methods of disposing of the dead, burial on land or at sea being flanked, as it were, by burning on the one hand and entombment (as in caves, vaults, mausoleums, etc.) on the other hand - this latter the preferred option of peoples and persons with a metaphysical bias.

2. Doubtless embalming is a strategy employed by such peoples to prolong the Afterlife, since an embalmed corpse is bound to decompose more slowly than one which is simply buried without reference to any preservative techniques, other, of course, than recourse to a coffin.

3. Traditionally, Western society has tended to emphasize burial, especially on land, as the Christian way of disposing of the dead - the inference being a physical rather than a metaphysical concept of the Afterlife such that attests to a vegetative - and sinful - mean.

4. Only the rich or exalted in rank would have had the option of entombment and embalming, whether in a private mausoleum or otherwise, while, at the opposite extreme, incineration of corpses would have conveyed a connotation of grave misfortune, punishment, and even damnation, as in the burning of witches, heretics, etc.

5. With the decay of Western civilization, however, and the spread of secular values, no such connotation would seem to apply to cremation, the modern equivalent of ancient funeral pyres; though one fancies that anyone who was still capable of religious self-respect, even if only physically, would shudder at the prospect of being cremated, and do everything in his powers to avoid it.

6. For how can one speak, in the Christian manner, of sure and certain hope of the resurrection to Eternal Life, i.e. of id into soul within the self, and permit that resurrection to be violated by raging fire, suffering the flames of Hell, so to speak, to ravage one's corpse in due process of it being cremated?

7. Those who voice Christian sentiments over a person destined for cremation or already cremated ... are guilty of the grossest hypocrisy and moral ignorance! While proclaiming their loyalty to Christ, they are effectively instruments of the Antichrist.

8. Be that as it may, death is still inevitable in the modern world, as indeed it has always been, though rarely has it been treated with such a callous disregard for Eternity as at present! Those who cynically disparage or dismiss the Afterlife show themselves to be completely lacking in self-respect; for the soul does not die the way the body and mind do, even if its existence in death is conditional upon due transmutation of the id, the self's instinctual will, and not on anything lying beyond the bounds of the self, or central nervous system.

9. Inevitably, the soul fades away in the course of Eternity, extreme bodily decomposition and self-consumption (by the in-turned id) being principal factors in its eventual demise. But while it existed it was - and remains - a permanent condition, this illumination of the undersoul - not intermittent like the sporadic joys of the oversoul, whether incidental to daily experience or consciously pursued via techniques like transcendental meditation. The undersoul is too deep, in short, to be anything but permanent, whether blissfully or otherwise, bearing in mind the different types of self.

10. However, if the modern world, with its Americanized materialism, is obsessed with death, death without hope of Eternity, or death, at best, with hope - barring Vampire-like resurrections - of only the most fleeting and meagre of eternities ... such that cultural and environmental superficialities condition and duly render compatible with cremation, then it is to be hoped that the future world, the next world more specifically of 'Kingdom Come' ... as defined by me in previous texts, will render deeper homage to Eternal Life, even to the extent of devising means whereby the inner lights of Eternity, purgatorial and earthly no less than heavenly, can be achieved synthetically in relation to what must surely be a greater emphasis on artificially sustaining life beyond the usual natural span - an emphasis, I mean, in which man achieves Eternity independently of bodily death thanks to his growing mastery of life-sustaining technologies.

11. In such an Other World, longevity would greatly expand Eternity, making it possible for people to experience their particular mode of inner light, their characteristic undersoul, on a basis that would rival if not outstrip the greatest mummified achievements of antiquity, not excepting ancient Egypt. For if, due to advanced technology, one can live longer, if, in fact, one can live virtually indefinitely, there would be no advantage to living were one to exclude afterlife-type experiences from one's life, effectively denying oneself the benefits of Eternity.

12. For if natural life has the benefit of an afterlife, an artificially-extended life without the benefit of Eternity would be no improvement at all, but probably a lot worse! Only when longevity was combined with Eternity, blending into Eternity, would it become truly meaningful, reducing natural life and its eternity to an inferior historical position. For what could be better than an Eternity that actually lasted, or had the potential to last, for ever?