9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fechner's Musings on Life After Death., December 8, 2006
This review is from: The Little Book Of Life After Death (Hardcover)
_The Little Book of Life After Death_ is a republication of this small book by German psychophysicist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), first published in 1904, and republished by Weiser Books. This book also includes an introduction to Fechner and his book by American psychologist and philosopher William James. Gustav Fechner was a German experimental psychologist who began as a professor of physics. His works in physics and chemistry were important, but he is perhaps best known for his work in color and vision, and for his founding of the field of psychophysics. However, Fechner was also a philosopher and many of his philosophical works appear under the pseudonym of "Dr. Mises". Fechner's philosophy may best be understood in his contrast between the "daylight" and "night-time" views of the world. William James in his introduction to the book writes, "By the daylight-view as constrasted with the night-view, Fechner meant the anti-materialistic view, - the view that the entire material universe, instead of being dead, is inwardly alive and consciously animated." Thus, Fechner's philosophy may be termed a pan-psychism, the idea that the whole universe is a mind. As explained in another work of his the _Zend-Avesta_, Fechner maintains the idealistic notion that the inner experience is the reality and that consciousness and the universe are co-eternal aspects of the self-same reality. Fechner also maintained that the Earth has a soul (and that we grow upon the Earth as the leaves grow upon a tree) and that God is the totalized consciousness of the whole universe, and thus that God evolves in time. Fechner's ideas were to influence others including the psychologists James and Wundt. In addition, James also compares Fechner's ideas to those of the British Idealist F. H. Bradley (writer of _Appearance and Reality_) and the American idealist Josiah Royce.
In this short book, Fechner attempts to answer the question as to whether there exists a life after death and as to what form that life after death may take. While Fechner was an experimental scientist, this work does not include much empirical evidence, but rather consists of reflections on the nature of life after death. Fechner begins by noting that man lives upon the earth three times. The first stage is the "continuous sleep" (which occurs before man is born), the second stage is "an alternation between sleeping and waking" (which occurs during the life of man), and the third stage is "eternal waking" (which occurs after man's death). The passage from the first stage to the second stage is called birth, and the passage from the second stage to the third is called death. Fechner maintains that life after death may be known through "perception, faith, feeling, the intuition of Genius". Just as in the transition from the first to the second stage, man must leave behind the organ which allows for his needs, so in the transition to the third stage from the second, man must leave behind the organ (the brain) which leads his efforts on earth. Fechner maintains that one's actions in this life give rise to one's standing in the next. Thus in being remembered after their deaths, individuals such as Goethe, Schiller, Napoleon, Luther, and especially Christ, live on. Fechner maintains that there is no hell or heaven in the usual Christian sense, but that rather the deeds of the man in this life will determine the status of his spirit in the next. To illustrate the nature of human consciousness, Fechner provides a figure of six colored circles which are "harmoniously bound together". In like manner, Fechner contends that the human soul is similarly composed of parts. Fechner maintains that the spirits may become manifest in various abnormal instances (such as mental disorder and clairvoyance). Further, Fechner examines the role of good and evil spirits within us and their seeking of what is good and evil outside of us. Fechner also examines our desire to contact the spirits of those who have died. Fechner maintains that it is often possible for us to unconsciously meet them, but that it is really the "highest and noblest spirits, Christ, the geniuses, the saints" who are capable of reaching out to us and conveying to us the thoughts of God. Fechner considers both the interior and outer natures of man, and compares them to subtle waves on the surface of a pond (Fechner mentions "vibrations" as the source of "nervous energy"). Fechner mentions experiences which may occur "at the approach of death", such as near drownings, experiences with narcotics, or experiences of exaltation, which may provide recognition of the spiritual nature of things. Fechner further maintains that during life man has both spiritual and material relations to things, but at death with the destruction of his body, the spirit will be released into nature again. Fechner maintains that the spirits of the third stage (that of life after death) will each have its own share of the universal body, and he goes on to discuss a theory of consciousness and explains the "law of the threshold of consciousness". Fechner also discusses God and the seeking of God by the spirits. Fechner maintains that it is only through the divine life that the creature is capable of living at all, and again he makes use of the "law of combined thresholds" to explain this. Fechner also compares the relationship of spirit and body to that of the "law of conservation of energy" within physics. Fechner maintains that consciousness permeates everything, and that the soul when separated from the body results in death. Fechner also mentions "ghosts, phantasms, and hallucinations", and he notes the tendency of spirits to manifest themselves. Fechner maintains that such manifestations are incomplete and that the dead and the living should not try to communicate because it degrades the dead. Fechner also mentions the "Spirit of all the spirits", which is God, the protector of the spirits. Fechner further contends that the dead live on in memory. Fechner ends with a discussion of the importance of faith and perception in our understanding of God and spiritual matters.
This brief book provides an interesting discussion of the possibility of life after death by a philosopher and scientist. While Fechner did not often appeal to empirical methods of study in this work, his philosophical musings are nevertheless interesting for those who seek answers to the ultimate questions. Nevertheless, I believe that his system is faulty because it fails to take into account the revealed truth of the afterlife. However, Fechner's thoughtful discussion is certain to provide much to consider and perhaps some solace to those who seek a meaning to the life beyond this one.
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3 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Way out of touch with curent thinking on the subject -, August 27, 2005
This review is from: The Little Book Of Life After Death (Hardcover)
Originally published in 1904, this book has long been out of print. There are good reasons why books go out of print, and there has to be a great popular deamd to make them worth reprinting. It is this that makes me wonder why this book came to be reprinted. As the views than any society hold on life - as well as the views they hold on life after death, are always changing and in flux, this book is way out of date. The book covers those views current at and around the time of its original publication, 1904. That's just oevr a hundred years ago,and in that time we have passed through a period in which reincarnation and the Lords of Karma were briefly paramount, as well as returning to a more or less Christian view of the after life. The generally accepted views of heaven and hell that most people hold are not represented in this book, so it cannot be said to be biased toward thw Christian views on the subject. In fact, it is a nice kind of foksey morality lecture. Its the kind of lecture that over stuffed uncles often give and to which young nephews pay little attention. This book was undoubtably useful in its time, but its time is past.
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