That subject that is speculated upon, the wonderings of where it all leads, is there something after this mortal existence, is there a life after death? We’ve probably just grossly misnamed the term, because by doing that we separate the experience so completely, it is almost out of our comprehension to understand what it might be. Believing ‘life’ to end at death, and then ‘afterlife’ to begin, rather than it be a transitional phase, but we don’t give much time to ‘beforelife’ it seems. Thinking perhaps that we just spontaneously start at conception, or birth, although ones who lean towards reincarnation being real have given thought to that side of it, as discussed in Simulated, Again and Again, and Deja Vu.
Afterlife – but we do seem to spend time thinking about what comes next, we write about it, talk about it, make films and fictional representations of the ideas of it. Some quite dark and disturbing, others full of charm and brightness. Although not everyone is ok with the subject, or entertaining the thought of it, which could be a response to the idea of mortality and how they say it follows us throughout our life. I guess for some it is a companion accompanying you on your journey and will be with you to the end, and others maybe see it as an evil stalker waiting for its moment to strike and end your time.
Ghosts – Further to the thoughts of where we go after this life, it seems there are others that have already made it, or are trapped in between here and there depending on the context of their ‘haunting’. Discussed in Lost Souls, or Just Trapped?, giving examples of how we have created some rather sinister and morbid visuals to go along with the concept, which just might of led into people forming certain beliefs about their own trajectory.
Rent a ghost (TV series 1976 – 1984)- this was a strange and funny TV series I watched as a child, of bored ghosts and mishaps, with them ‘working’ as ghosts for rent if you needed a haunting. Things like this are what started to get me wondering about it all, and then many things I watched thereafter.
Flatliners (1990) – one of my favourites, not just because it’s a great film, but because it touched upon the idea that everyone’s experience is entirely personal, to who you were, what you did and how you thought. There is the theory that hell is only created in the mind, so if you believe it, you create it. See my article Creating a Nightmare Reality for a bit more on how our thoughts might just have more power that we realise.
Beetlejuice – mentioned a number of times in various articles, this film made quite an impact for its various ideas around the afterlife. With the surprised and newly departed lead couple, and seasoned afterlifers with their different reasons for being there. Like the receptionist said ‘It’s all very personal’ pointing out the shrunken head, the smoker, and then revealing her own fate of tied to civil service because of her own ‘little accident’ of suicide. Giving us an idea of judgement in some way depending on how we met our end, as if we are assigned certain fates based on how we lived. A spiritual credit score that you can’t escape.
Ghostbusters – another great film for many reasons, and has given me much food for thought over the years around this subject. But the recent ones, although not quite up the standard of the originals, still do hold a certain interest, especially because they focused more on what they do with them. Extracting them from objects, then putting them in holding cells, as well as obviously their overall containment facility. And another film comes to mind along that line of thought, and a film I should probably watch again for an updated view on it as it was many years ago I watched it, but it was quite freaky, and although I thoroughly enjoyed the idea and it was technically a good movie, I did not thoroughly enjoy watching it. But that film was Thirteen Ghosts.
If you’ve ever seen the old Victorian photographs of the paranormal spiritualist movement and time, you may have come across ones which appear to show faces and spectral shapes forming within contraptions of wires and frames. Trying to bring spirits through to this realm, and photograph them. You can see how we might have ended up at such films as mentioned above, with much thought clearly being given to what is next, what came before and what it all means. But the overall similarity in many of those themes, is that it isn’t separated from here and now, and isn’t ‘after’ life. That whatever happens to our energy doesn’t always go to or stay on that ‘Other Side’, that it can be here, watching or having its own existence with no care or concern of ours or even any knowledge of us, just as we don’t of them. Thinking all we can see is all there is to see, as discussed in Seeing is Believing, not realising that there is so much more around you. And you never know, even right at this moment something could be sat right next to you…
(c) MKW Publishing
