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One thing that nearly every pagan has faced at one time or another during their life is the question of death and the afterlife. Many pagans, like Christians and other organized religious have some higher authority or tradition telling them what's out there. I would like to tell you a little bit about what other pagans believe. Then I'd like to tell you what I believe on the subjects of death, reincarnation, karma, heaven, hell, life after death, and souls.
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You've probably heard the phrase "Death is but a doorway." This pretty accurately sums up what most pagans feel. In fact, just about every religion in the world today has some teaching about how death is not the end of us. Human beings, for the most part, fear death and don't want to think that there is nothing else beyond the span of their life—that what, and who, they are will live on somehow. To this end they look to their faith to show them a light standing beyond death. I am much the same, except that I don't truly fear death, I just see it as "cursed inconvenient".
I believe that we live life after life, here on this Earth, each time attempting to live a better life than the last. I'll get into this all in more detail later on in my section concerning the soul. Some ancient peoples believed that as the wheel of time turned round your soul was born into the world of man over and over again. They believed that based on the actions of your life you would either advance to the next level of existence, which they knew nothing off, or be born again to try to get it right this time. This is, I suppose, very similar to the reincarnation believed of by many Eastern societies, most notably the Hindu religion. Reincarnation was governed, according to Eastern beliefs, by karma. Karma was the point system used to judge your life and worth. If you came out ahead you were born into your next life in a better situation or as a better being. If you came out behind you could very easily be born as a lesser individual, or even as an animal. I do not believe that this is possible for those of us not of the Hindu faith, but I will discuss that in greater detail later on.
In non-karmic systems you don't run the risk of being your great-grandchildrens' pet dog, thankfully. While a life evilly misspent will certainly necessitate your overcoming greater obstacles in your next incarnation, you don't have to worry about being knocked back further away from your goal—the journey is just harder from that point on. And so we live life after life, striving towards balance, until we finally achieve it. And then we...
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Every religion believes something slightly different from every other religion when it comes to the question of where our souls will go when our bodies die. Many of them teach the existence of another place, a place closer to the gods (or further from them), where we will spend eternity. To the Christians these places are Heaven and Hell. The Muslims believe in Paradise while the Asatruar (Norse-men) believe in Valhalla. I believe in them all.
The term "afterlife" essentially refers to a place other than this world that where we go when we die. Any concept of reincarnation refers to a next life, and therefore is not an afterlife. I believe that there is a principle of governance when it comes to those places beyond our universe. If you are a Christian and have lived a "good" life according to the twisted and contradictory rules of that religion then you will go to Heaven. If you have not obeyed Yahweh's numerous rules and strictures to the letter then you will go to Hell. As a Christian you run no risk of ending up in the Muslim Paradise, no matter that it is as real as your own locale. By giving your faith to one religion you have bound yourself to that religion's destination or destinations. A proper Muslim will go to Paradise. A hairy violent Viking will go to Valhalla. Their end resting place is governed by their beliefs and choices in life. A good Christian all your life, bound for Heaven in a pearly chariot, if on your death-bed you pledge yourself loyally unto Allah, then to Paradise you will go. This is not terribly likely, however, since most people cannot shuck off a lifetime of beliefs so easily and quickly. More likely the act of turning from your god isn't quite strong enough to get you to another gods realm, and you end up suffering the first god's wrath.
Many pagans have it a little easier if they want to change their ticket at the last possible moment. Since your average pagan is more likely to believe in the existence of other gods and afterlives, and because many pagans change their pantheon several times, they are more likely to be able to choose a paradise at the end of their life. Personally, I'm thinking of pledging myself to Odin in those last moments. I've always liked the sound of Valhalla.
For a better idea of how I look at the afterlife, read this story.
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That elusive and ill-defined quality which gives us the spark of life, intelligence, and divinity—the soul. Whether you choose to call it the soul, spirit or ka we're all talking about the same thing. It's that extra bit which makes us beloved of the gods and separates us from the animals (though most pagans, myself included, believe that animals have souls as well and are in no way less loved by the gods). Let's just say that it is the part of us, our true being, which connects us to the divine forces of the universe, and the part of us that lives on in one form or another after our death. In this last section I'd like to talk about what the soul is, what its nature is, where it came from, where it's going, and where it will stop along the way.
I believe that our souls are the core of our being, and that no matter how many lives we live and who we are in those lives, our soul retains its identity. This is not to say that we are always going to be the same person, life to life. We may be rich or poor, good or bad, male or female. There is no limit in the scope and range of humankind upon what we might be. I do believe, though, that our souls are meant to be born into human bodies, for at our basest level we are humans. I do not believe that it is impossible for us to be born anything other than a human. However, should we born into something other than a human body then somewhere along the paths of light we took a wrong turn and ended up where we were not meant to be. Fortunately this will most likely be corrected in our next incarnation. It may be that those people who seem to have a great affinity for, or much in common with a certain animal, once lived a life as that animal and carried something back with them. Whatever the case may be, our souls remain intact.
As we travel along the path of birth and rebirth we learn. In each life we learn from our experiences and grow into better and stronger people. When we die we travel into the light beyond the stars so that we can rest and forget before our next life begins. In that next life, though we consciously remember nothing of any previous incarnation, our cumulative experiences will act upon our minds subconsciously so that we make fewer mistakes and live a better life. As the millennia roll past our spiritual growth increases and increases until we are ready to graduate from this plane and move on to the next one. What that world is I cannot say, but I suspect that in some ways it will be much like this one, and in others it will be wildly and fantastically different.
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