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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Antidote to New Age Speculation, September 14, 2001
This review is from: The Soul After Death: Contemporary "After-Death" Experiences in the Light of the Orthodox Teaching on the Afterlife (Paperback)
It's difficult to place this book within the spectrum of books on life after death. It's even diffcult to place it in the spectrum of religious books. Basically it is a rebuttal of the usual New Age speculation on life after death - the "Great Light", the happy fields, etc., etc. Having said that, the author was not seeking to explain the life after death phenomenon in terms of mainstream Christianity. Fr. Rose was a convert to Russian Orthodoxy, and his deep commitment to beliefs that many Christians (including some Orthodox) would consider obscurantist, if not downright medieval, may throw off some readers as much as the New Age speculations he seeks to refute. He refers back to the ancient teaching about the "toll houses" that the soul encounters in the first forty days after death, and the spirits of the air that will attempt to ensnare and deceive the soul; in whatever sense that one understands all this, it is a difficult pill to swallow for the average American Christian of Protestant leanings. Having said that, the teachings that Father Rose draws upon deserve a serious hearing, if for no other reason than that they date back to an extremely remote antiquity in the belief and practice of the Church. The credentials of the original writers upon which he draws show sufficiently that the beliefs expressed are not just pagan holdovers from some obscure corner of the ancient Middle East, but rather were mainstream teaching at one time. The book shows that there is a another venerable body of teaching on life after death within the Christian tradition that can be frightening, and should give pause to most believing folk.
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Toll Houses (Custom Houses) Patristically based, January 13, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Soul After Death: Contemporary "After-Death" Experiences in the Light of the Orthodox Teaching on the Afterlife (Paperback)
Fr. Seraphim's timely and important book on what the soul can expect to experience after death should be read by all Christians -- Orthodox and otherwise. Since his discussion of 'Toll Houses' generated controversy (principally in American Greek circles), consulting Metropolitan Hierotheos' book, 'Life After Death,' may well serve to extend the discussion of Fr. Seraphim's excellent study. Met. Hierotheos provides important historical information behind what he calls 'Custom Houses.' He points out that the Fathers wanted to use something that the people of their day would readily understand in order to gain some glimpse of the mystery of death. He points out that various Fathers and Saints chose the image of a tax collector because the arrangement between the State, Publicans, and the Publicans' tax collectors was onerous enough on the people that it served as an excellent example (he sites St. Macarius of Egypt in this regard.) Met. Hierotheos' point -- and Fr. Seraphim's as well -- is that the Church teaches that when the soul passes on, it must 'journey through the air' and since as the Gospels note, fallen spirits inhabit the air of this world, the soul will confront them. That this is Patristically based is evident by what many Fathers have said either in their own writings -- St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, and St. John of the Ladder in his description of the repose of the hermit Stephen. Met. Hierotheos does such an excellent job in assembling sayings from the Fathers, Desert Fathers, and Saints that the idea that Fr. Seraphim's explanation of 'Toll Houses' is an innovation or not Orthodox, is simply incorrect. If one is interested in the Orthodox teaching of life after death, Fr. Seraphim's book is an excellent place to start.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fr. Seraphim Rose on the Orthodox Teaching of the Afterlife., January 4, 2005
This review is from: The Soul After Death: Contemporary "After-Death" Experiences in the Light of the Orthodox Teaching on the Afterlife (Paperback)
Fr. Seraphim Rose's _The Soul After Death_ is a significant work on eschatology. It addresses the eternally important question of what happens to us when we die. Fr. Seraphim (a Russian Orthodox monk) wrote this book in the late 1970s originally as a series in his periodical _The Orthodox Word_ in response to a wave popular books and research that was published on "after death" and "out of body" experiences. He makes frequent reference to the cases catalogued and examined in Dr. Kubler-Ross' work, _On Death and Dying_ (1969). These incidents were of particular interest to Fr. Seraphim who sought to interpret them in terms of traditional Eastern Orthodox theology.
Many patients in hospitals have reported seeing beautiful fields and "paradises" while they are either unconscious or "clinically dead" before they are resuscitated. These visions are often accompanied by experiences of beautiful light and a being that approaches them with "love." In contrast, Some reports on this "other world" are sinister, which may indicate a foretaste of hell. Other visions include individuals "floating" above their own bodies while they are unconscious and seeing doctors and loved ones around them. Some even experience talking to "angelic beings" of different sorts and visiting physical proximities familiar to themselves while they were still alive. In spite of all of the speculations about this mysterious realm, Fr. Seraphim affirms that it lies in a sphere of existence between the physical earth and heaven and hell inhabited by the demons/fallen angels. He notes how mystical occult adepts have been able to travel in this realm, as evident in the writings of Emmanuel Swedenbourg (a seventeenth century Swede) and the 19th century Theosophists and spiritists. These visions are caused by demons who attempt to deceive souls that are disembodied before they pass onto the "toll houses." The toll-houses are not encountered in most "after death" experiences recorded in medical and occult literature but are known though Orthodox Christian sources such as the Lives of Saints and various Patristic writings.
These toll houses are to be understood metaphorically, as Fr. Seraphim points out, because they illustrate the reality of the soul's need to overcome the temptations and accusations of demons that attempt to draw the soul away from God's love and the saving work of Christ. The demons accuse the soul of evil deeds but angels sent from God try to outweigh the demons by bringing up the soul's righteous works and faithfulness to Christ. If the person's soul has more demonic weight then it is cast into hell to await the Last Judgment while those passing the demons ascend unto heavens to be with God. Orthodox literature affirms the existence of these toll-houses, from St. Paul's teaching on a "struggle not against flesh but against principalities, etc." The realm of the air is where the demons are condemned to tempt human souls before they are in turn sent to hell at the Last Judgment. Demons are of course invisible to human senses but the fruits of their actions are shown in the human misery, chaos and sin enveloping the world. Even though both demons and angels are beyond general human sense perception, they still belong to the realm of creation and thus "to this world." Furthermore, these sprits have definite forms and are finite in their movements (any quality of infinity belonging to God alone), so therefore they can be said to have "bodies" in a similar manner to the way humans do, if not physical ones. Fr. Seraphim places special emphasis, citing a great many prominent Orthodox Fathers and spiritual writers, on praying for the dead after because prayers help some souls attain to heaven by calling upon God's mercy with fervor.
Fr. Seraphim includes two sections of appendix material after he wraps up his summary of the toll-house teachings as handed down in the Orthodox Church. One is written by St. Mark of Ephesus, a Byzantine theologian of the 1400s who defended the Orthodox teaching on the afterlife against Latin theologians who advocated the Roman Church's innovative doctrine of Purgatory. The second appendix addresses a set of critiques levied against Fr. Seraphim's book by a periodical published by St. Nectarios Church in Seattle, Washington when _The Soul After Death_ was originally serialized. Fr. Seraphim's critic is probably Fr. Michael Azkoul whose writings on this subject critical of Fr. Seraphim's theology are distributed by St. Nectarios Press, although Fr. Seraphim does not name the critic in print. Some of the charges laid against this book are that it promotes a superstitious, Gnostic and even pagan look at the afterlife. Fr. Seraphim answers this by citing the works of the Fathers on the subject, especially the 19th century Russian Bishops Ignatius Brianchaninov and St. Theophan (the Recluse). This is a very interesting book on the nature of the afterlife as it has been taught in the Orthodox Church and makes edifying reading to those previously not in the know.
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