There are those who say there is nothing after the body dies. Others believe in some form of life, and there are some who believe that after having lived the earthly cycle we join the whole, therefore, losing our individuality. These questions, as well as the respective doctrinal, philosophical or even individual conclusions, are ancient. Dr. Raymond Moody, psychiatrist, psychologist, parapsychologist and philosopher, born in Porterdale, Georgia, United States of America, published in 1975 a best seller: Life Afterlife. It is a success to this day and it will always be because it is a matter of extreme importance for human ideals. In the first Chapter of the book, he asks, "What is it like to die? Humanity has been addressing this issue since ever. During the last years, I had the opportunity to make the same question before many audiences"...

His research about this matter was thorough and based on reason. In the same book the author says, "I cannot think in any other answer, except to once again emphasize Humankind's concern with the nature of death. I do believe that any light shed on the nature of death is for our good."

Spiritism has been addressing this issue since 1857 with great propriety. What happens after we have disembodied? Hell, Purgatory or Heaven? The majority is still used to this triad of good or evil. Although it is quite confusing, it was forced down the throats of the believers, since the early days of the Catholic Church. By stating this, it does not mean that there is any criticism. It is what one had at that time and what was accepted. Allan Kardec treated this matter thoroughly in his book "Heaven and Hell", with lucid comments and fruitful conclusions. This study is always included in the initiatory teachings of the great past civilizations. Each one addressed this matter in his way. Those, who believed in life after the body's death, celebrated their ancestors, asking them to help in the decisions they had to make. Moreover, many only decided about some matter, after they were sure they had been properly guided by the disembodied Spirits. Still today you find in homes or temples a place to worship the ancestors, thus confirming full conviction that they are still alive.  

The good Spirits' celebrations 

In ancient Europe, a curious ceremonial took place during the retinue that accompanied the disembodied to the grave or to be cremated. A group used to come by wearing masks that mimicked the faces of disembodied entities. As in a feast-day they came to meet the family in question and accompanied him to the new dimension. This theatrical manifestation is interesting because it represents the way they faced and lived with death at that time. Moreover, theatre copies life and that is why dramas and tragedies presented on stage may represent what is really happening with the audience in part or as a whole. The cleverness of the author and director of the show, coupled with vigorous interpretations of actors, may lead the public to think about their own lives. Considering this, the theatrical manifestation at the time the deceased was taken to his grave, could well have the meaning of reminding everyone that physical death is an irreversible process. However, it is not the end, for those who had died before him were there to receive him.

Complementing what we said above, we hereby mention the important comment of the Spirit Felicia, disembodied, and who, evoked by her husband, dictated, through Mrs. Cazemajoux in Bordeaux, France, the following message called "The good Spirits' celebrations". It is in May's, 1861 edition of the Spiritist Magazine, published by Allan Kardec. She begins by saying:  "We also have our celebrations and this happens often because the good spirits of the Earth, our beloved siblings, free from their bodies, open their arms to us and we go and receive them in quite a big group welcoming them at the entrance of the spiritual colony where they will, from that moment onwards, live with us". Felicia's message is beautiful and comforting. It gives us a sense of continuity and, more than this, it informs us of what really happens after death. Sometimes, at the final farewell, we see despair, convulsive weeping, lamentations... It is no doubt very difficult at that time. However, it could be milder, if we prepared ourselves for this moment.

Peace must reign in mortuary  

"Still today the respect for the dead has a veiled form of disgust and depreciation. Death transforms man in a corpse, separates him from those who are still alive, he has no action and, therefore, he means nothing for others. "The dead is dead", say the materialistic and ignorant people.  This text is in Chapter One of Professor Jose Herculano Pires' book called "Education for Death". Those, who do not believe there is afterlife, transform the funeral in a requiem, which kills more than it consoles. Felicia goes on, "In these celebrations (when we receive the disembodied arriving at the spiritual colony) you will not see, as you see in your celebrations, human passions under sweet faces and foreheads crowned with flowers, lurking envy, pride, jealousy, vanity, desire to please and to be more important than the rivals in those fictitious pleasures, which are not".

She gives us an extraordinary lesson. She tells us that there are celebrations to receive the disembodied, but contrary to ours in this Earth, they are based on truth, harmony, enlightenment coming from pure and loving hearts free from previous hardships. She mentions graceful faces and foreheads crowned with flowers. It is only appearance. And perhaps we are we not crying in despair before the coffin, and is it all a mask we wear just to impress? Felicia mentions this in her message possibly to alert us regarding the way we conduct ourselves in that place where the Spirit is departing from the body. Peace must reign in mortuary, and before the grief of the moment. There must be peace even considering the following days without the physical presence of the one who is leaving. Peace and harmony together give us the calmness needed to face any difficult situation. God allows them to happen for us to enrich our faith in His Wise Designs. 

God's will concerning us  

If on this side our hearts can be full of grief, let us see what our sister Felicia says about what happens on the other side: "Here, there is joy, and peace. Each one is happy with what he does and is happy for his brothers. So, my friends, with this perfect agreement among us, our celebrations have a special charm that we cannot put in words. Millions of musicians play in harmonious lyres the wonders of God's creation, with the most stunning melodies to which your sweetest melodies cannot compare. The Spirits move and fly like Zephyrs in long processions, which take place in the air, and throw clouds of flowers over the newcomers. These flowers have a scent and different colors, which you have never seen".

It is obvious that this only happens to those who bravely won the tests on this Earth. And here we discuss God's will regarding us. In the Lord's Prayer Jesus was emphatic when he said: "Thy Will be done on Earth as in Heaven". However, we repeat this prayer on a daily basis, but our will prevails. Our selfishness feeds our inner ego, our old fellow always with us during our journey and always to eager to remind us of our own wisdom. Is it wisdom or ancient texts, which we have kept in our intimate altars and which are already out of fashion? And what do we really know about life and death and about the spiritual plans? Andre Luiz opened the window for us in "Nosso Lar" (Our Home), but he, himself, said there are thousands of colonies, villages, groups, and each one of them aligned with the will and desires of its inhabitants.

The wise mentor still tells us that two thirds of mankind on Earth, approximately 20 billion Spirits are still in the lower levels of this planet claiming for adjustments, education, and changes in their paths to benefit from good itself. The old archetype, which exists in us from the beginning of reasoning, cannot see beyond its own cave. Therefore, you shout: I do not believe this! This story makes no sense! You die, you die, and that is all! So, enjoy while you are alive! And the popular sayings go on and on feeding ignorance, while God created us for the freedom contained by the infinite. 

The Spirits are not dead and neither corpses  

Those who think so, destroy themselves and the others too. They lie like children, engage in crude and primitive pleasures, and swear that they are modern and funky. They follow their own questionable rules of conduct in which materialism is the most important feature and thus form sticky psychic heaps difficult to eradicate. They think that life is this and we must do everything to live it according to matter. Earth is a place where beginners are sent to study. After the Earth, many other stars are ahead offering us their hospitality, teachings and working projects, increasingly amazing and with no need to accomplish them to survive. This only happens here because man would not progress if everything came free to him. Here man makes an effort to obtain progress. By Divine Law it is reached in the remaining Universe.

Felicia goes on with her explanation: "Then comes the fraternal banquet to which the ones who happily ended their tests are invited and go to receive the reward of their work". Yes, those who are free from earthly passions and clinging, start to become acquainted with new options, new good spiritual entities, new teachers, mentors, new premises of our Father's House. It must be beautiful! And those souls, who obtained success, must be very happy". Felicia ends her message by saying: "Oh, my friend, you would like to know more, but your language has not enough words to describe such magnificence. I have told you enough, my beloved friends, to awaken in you the will to reach this too..."

Let us think about this last sentence, our beloved Spirits, free from their bodies, are not dead, nor corpses. They are Spirits that are free and go on living their eternal lives. And they want us free too. They want us to be prepared for the reception celebration on the day when others will be sad, in grief, and we and them shall be happy for our return. How much do we still have to learn about the mechanisms of life!   

When I was a child, I spoke as a child...  

In "Education for Death", written by Professor Jose Herculano Pires, in Chapter 14, Dialectic of Consciousness, you will find an important statement: "The study of a subject such as education for death requires a difficult research into ancient, modern and contemporary thought, to establish guiding connections. You cannot enter the labyrinth without Ariadne's thread, because the Minotaur may be waiting for us. In a stage of cultural transition as this century the problem of death requires from all of us a mental effort often stunning. But we have to make that effort, so that life does not fail on us."

Once, as a child, I saw a much loved one being veiled in your living room. I looked at him. He was stiff, disfigured, like marble. Before, his face had been tanned and full of life with an easy smile and speaking gracefully and his eyes had a deep gaze. There he was still, and lying on wood, covered by flowers, which were more frightening than pretty.

- This is the reality of death, I thought, it all ends here.

I was just a boy. Today, I am an adult and remember Paul of Tarsus, when he said in his first letter to the Corinthians, in Chapter 13 - verse 11: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child and I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but as soon as I turned a man, I put away childish things". This is something man has to think about death. Gradually, this word will disappear. The word "death" comes from the Latin "mors", meaning death, which also comes from the Latin "abitus", which means to go away, to leave, passage to the outside. So, as we can see the word death already does not mean an end, even the origin of its word. What happens to most people, also happened to me. I saw a dead body and took it for the Spirit and thought it was also dead!

What comes after is in our hands to decide  

In issue number 27 of The Spirits' Book, Allan Kardec asks: "Is there two general elements in the Universe, matter and spirit?" Answering the Spirits say that above them is God, the Creator, Father of all things. Therefore, we must separate the two things: matter is matter, and what is Spirit is Spirit and this one never dies. In issue number 149 of the same book, Allan Karkec asks "In what does the soul transform itself after death?" and he receives the following answer: "It goes back to being a Spirit, i.e., it returns to the world of the Spirits, which he had left temporarily". In the next issue, number 150, the Superior Spirits clarify us by saying that the soul never loses its individuality and they make us think, when they ask: "What would happen to the soul if it lost its individuality?" Kardec insists and asks on question 150-a: "How does the soul prove its individuality, if it has no body left?" And he gets the following answer: "It has his own fluid, which he takes from the atmosphere of his planet and it represents his appearance of his latest incarnation: his perispirit ". The word perispirit comes from peri meaning "around" and Spirit. Therefore, we are all Spirits clothed with a fluidic representation that accompanies us after we have disembodied, and the physical body, which we use while we are incarnate. So, there is no death. The body is left behind and we return to the Spiritual world, from where we originally came.

So, we can answer to our own selves that what will happen afterwards is our own decision. In the book Education for Death, Professor Jose Herculano Pires ends with a question: "What is the information we have to reject our own survival? What counterproof can we present to oppose our own right to overcome death - the total destruction of a human being in a Universe in which nothing is destroyed?" Let us learn about death as this respected Professor proposes and let our will be guided to doing good, improving ourselves so that we can be received as our sister Felicia described. It will be very good, don't you think so? After all, there is life and it is in us and for us in the infinite of God!