Gathering the results of the author's eight-year, worldwide research into near-death experiences, a study also draws on excerpts from actual psychotherapy sessions to explore the timeless question of what happens to us after we die. 25,000 first printing.
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
Sound bites of ethnic beliefs and data from sessions with the author's psychotherapy clients are the material for this attempt to talk about what happens to us after death. Miller, founder and director of the Institute for the Study of the Afterdeath, sees herself as going beyond Elizabeth Kbler-Ross's theory of the dying process and Raymond Moody's study of near-death experience by posing the question of what actually follows death. She hopes to improve on the usual American diet of denial and bromides as she introduces the reader to funeral customs and post-mortem scenarios envisioned by groups in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Tibet, and West Africa. Miller is especially interested in the Afro-Brazilian Candomble religion and its cult of the Egun, or ancestral spirits, known as ``the living dead''; she believes that the spirits visited her while she was enduring a very high fever in her Manhattan apartment. The vignettes presented here are too brief for real discussion, and Miller does not explain her rationale for choosing them. Nor does she tell us what lies behind the persistent use of her neologism ``afterdeath.'' The reader is thus left with the impression that the author is insinuating an agenda rather than discussing it openly. Miller divides the ``afterdeath'' process into four stages: waiting, judgment, possibility, and return. This, together with her dismissive treatment of Islamic and Christian cultures, seems to beg the whole question of rebirth as a quasi-universal folk belief. Although Miller sometimes speaks of her vignettes as simply cultural data, she nevertheless treats them as veridical descriptions of life beyond the grave, without any apparent awareness of the logical problems this poses. Patchy and poorly thought through. Better to read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential, comforting work for anyone facing death or loss,
By A Customer
This review is from: After Death : A Geography of the Journey Beyond Death (Hardcover)
After Death is a book that can offer not only solace but meaning to anyone facing death, their own or that of a loved one. We are used to thinking of dying as an unalterably lonely experience, but with this book as a companion it need not be. There is great comfort in discovering the depth and range of how our fellow humans imagine, understand, and, in some cultures, even know the after-death.As important as the content, to me, is the author's voice-a voice of great warmth, compassion, and intelligence. As one reads this book, one feels more and more deeply the sense of human kinship in this journey-a profound antidote to loneliness and fear. I found this to be a truly transformative work.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breakthrough research on the dying process and beyond,
By A Customer
This review is from: After Death : A Geography of the Journey Beyond Death (Hardcover)
Original breakthrough research that crosses the barriers of anthropology, theology, psychology and cross-cultural views of the dying process and beyond. Dr. Miller is a gifter writer and researcher who provides the entree for both the skeptic and the inquisitive to explore the most profound issues that we will all eventually confront. She accomplishes accomplishes her goal while providing the reader with extraordinary insights into alternative perceptions of life and after death. I could not put this inspirational book down until I read the final words, "we can only imagine."
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fascinating and compelling look at where we go after death,
By A Customer
This review is from: After Death : A Geography of the Journey Beyond Death (Hardcover)
This readable, page turner engages the reader from the start in asking the fundamental question of life, what begins after death? The author is widely traveled and well-versed in comparative religions and belief systems. Written in an anecdotal and open style, the author states no positions but offers different views from Native American philosophies to Brazilian religious beliefs. A must read for anyone with the smallest sense of curiosity about how our global neighbors wrestle with the place/voyage after death. Great gift for New Agers to seniors to skeptics and saints
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