Proposta

Some interviewees not only didn’t use traditional images to give words to their notion of an afterlife, but they explicitly disagreed with such traditional ideas.

Charles, for example, Lisa’s father, gave the following account:

I don’t think there is anything beyond death. I’m very rational. I once read a dissertation about mind and matter. Matter, as in the universe, black holes, and energy fields. Things like that. And from where these things could have originated. […] That is something so peculiar and special. We cannot grasp it … I do have the feeling that we will merge into the bigger picture. That a person is part of matter ... and umm, that there is a temporal piece of sciousness that we lose when we become part of the whole. It is being con-nected to and being part of the earth. But such a thing cannot be directed. It is too big. No force would be able to control it. And certainly no God figure.

(Charles)

Charles’ narrative is a good example of the natural mode of symbolic immortal-ity. Like Jan, he had an interest in the origins of the universe, and in his narra-tive this is one of the sources from which he draws to give meaning to his wife’s death and her continued existence after death. Whereas the complexity of the origins of the universe prompted the notion that existence itself is not coin-cidental in Jan’s story, in Charles’ account it inspires the notion that there is no God figure who controls it. This illustrates that similar images are used in dif-ferent ways to give meaning to death. Precisely because this symbol embodies a multiplicity of meanings, as we have earlier seen with the body, it holds mean-ing for a heterogeneous group of people in today’s context of fadmean-ing and emerg-ing eschatological vocabularies.

The following fragment of the interview with Charles shows how no-tions about continued existence after death, as well as the question of human origin, influence mortuary practices. It also illustrates how these practices be-come part of his system of beliefs, wherein symbolic immortality is conceptual-ised differently compared to the interviewees who experienced a form of pres-ence of the dead:

[To choose a burial] was a matter of feeling. We found a wonderful place for her, close to the woods. […] I know that her body is there, but beyond that, I never … many people have this notion that the deceased’s “spirit is dwelling around”, or something along those terms. […] I don’t believe that.

I rather see it as giving her body back to the earth. And umm, well that hap-pens the way it haphap-pens. But I feel that the process does give and does de-mand some time. It is a natural process. To me, she is connected with the earth and will become part of it. (Charles)

In contrast to his daughter, Charles does not have an explicit notion of Mari-anne’s spirit dwelling somewhere close by. Rather, he uses the eternal cycle of nature as a metaphor through which he transcends the death of his wife. She does not ‘exist somewhere’, but her existence diminishes as she is absorbed by nature. This, at the same time, involves continuity, as she is absorbed by some-thing that will last forever.

Another interviewee who disagreed with the traditional, abstract notion of continued existence after death was Anna, a woman in her seventies who had just lost her husband:

I actually think it is some kind of fantasy, because of course it is impossible.

You know, after death. I don’t believe there is something after death. (An-na)

In our interview, Anna was very clear about her disagreement with ‘religious beliefs’, her lack of church involvement, and the absence of a religious upbring-ing. The notion of an otherworldly afterworld, to her, is “some kind of fantasy”.

At the same time, however, we see an interesting use of symbolic immortality in her account when she later describes her thoughts on the disposal of her hus-band’s ashes, which we also encountered in the earlier chapters:

I don’t want to keep him in an urn with me […]. And my husband was a walker. [So I have decided] to scatter him in the park, close to the woods, so he can keep on walking there. I’m not looking forwards to scattering his ashes. Actually it is an unpleasant idea. But it’s just an idea, you know, that he walks there. (Of course it is not real). It means … yes, to get rid of the ashes. […] But he used to love it. Also, a lot of our family members lie there and I always make a story out of it, like: “Go and have a talk with [Edward], perhaps you will find each other.” (Anna)

As we have seen with Charles, for Anna, too, nature creates a sense of continui-ty beyond the lifespan. She uses natural images of symbolic immortalicontinui-ty to give meaning to the place and act of scattering the ashes. Moreover, biological im-mortality beyond death, and the possibility of re-encountering friends and rela-tives, is meaningful to her and influences her decision-making process sur-rounding the cremated remains.

The outline of the qualitative descriptions in this chapter, from taught to experience-based notions of life after death, might suggest a clear distinction between the two, or a linear process from one to the other. However, in the ac-counts of the bereaved such a distinction is seldom apparent. First of all, it must be noted that all interviewees drew on their personal experiences and their own personal context in creating a narrative of symbolic immortality. Traditional theological symbols are interpreted and reinterpreted in the light of a given event or a particular situation (cf. Benore & Park 2004, 9). In some cases, per-sonal experiences were used to strengthen traditional notions of the hereafter. In other cases, experiencing the presence of the dead in the everyday world was contrasted with the ‘real’ hangout of the deceased or lack thereof. Furthermore, experiences of the presence of the dead in the everyday world occurred in narra-tives of the bereaved, alongside abstract ideas about the dead in another realm

or place. Thus, we find connected notions of spatial, temporal, and social forms of continued existence, which are re-imagined in view of the situation at hand.

4 Conclusion

This chapter has drawn attention to notions of symbolic immortality in the atti-tudes and narratives of recently bereaved people with a Roman Catholic, Protestant, or religiously unaffiliated background. Focusing on lived afterlife beliefs in relation to the fate of the deceased, we identified the importance of the body, as well as the soul, in traditional and non-traditional afterlife images. Alt-hough traditional and non-traditional afterlife images are often placed in con-trast to one another, we have argued for an exploration of the dynamics of tradi-tion and innovatradi-tion in order to shed light on the diversity and situatradi-tionality of contemporary afterlife beliefs, which are understood as symbolic expressions that point to a form of continued existence of the deceased.

On the basis of survey research, it was first examined whether Roman Catholic, Protestant, and religiously unaffiliated respondents, who had recently lost a loved one, identified with traditional and non-traditional afterlife beliefs.

Thereby, traditional afterlife beliefs referred to images of theological symbolic immortality that are identified by people as Christian, whereas non-traditional afterlife beliefs referred to the other modes of symbolic immortality that can be interpreted from both Christian as well as non-Christian meta-narratives. The results showed that respondents agreed with non-traditional afterlife beliefs that emphasised the ongoing existence of the deceased in the minds, hearts, and physical world of the bereaved, whereas they disagreed with the notion of resur-rection and expressed neutral attitudes towards the idea of a soul and heaven.

Exploring this further through bivariate analyses, the results showed that religious characteristics have an impact on people’s notions of life after death. People’s self-identification with ‘being religious’ gave the strongest as-sociation with traditional afterlife beliefs. We also found higher agreement with these notions among religiously affiliated respondents than among unaffiliated respondents. Protestants identified with the notions of heaven and the soul, whereas Catholics and unaffiliated respondents expressed neutral attitudes. Ad-ditionally, Protestants expressed neutral attitudes towards the concept of bodily resurrection, whereas the others disagreed with this notion. All groups, regard-less of religious affiliation, identified with non-traditional notions of symbolic immortality, wherein the dead live on in the world around us, through offspring, in objects, and in people’s memory and hearts.

In addition to religious characteristics, our survey results illuminated relevant associations between symbolic immortality and people’s attitudes towards hu-man remains. People who attach higher value to huhu-man remains agree more strongly with notions of a non-traditional soul, and with material notions of life after death, that is, the idea that the dead live on in the world around us and through their bodies – resurrected, or perhaps in another form. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find an association between the traditional belief in the soul and the value ascribed to human remains. This suggests a distinction be-tween the notion of a ‘soul’ in an otherworldly sense, and the presence of the dead in this world.

In the second part of the chapter, we further elaborated upon these re-sults by illustrating how notions of symbolic immortality are re-imagined in narratives of Roman Catholic, Protestant, and religiously unaffiliated survivors.

First, attention was drawn to re-imagined notions of theological symbolic im-mortality. Among the interviewees who were active church members and famil-iar with Christian meta-narratives, we strongly encountered the idea of ‘the mystery of death’ in expressions of symbolic immortality. Other images, such as heaven and paradise, were used, but they first and foremost were adapted to express the inexpressible. Rather than being independent realities, they were a means to give words to the fact that one cannot know what happens beyond death, as this is utterly different from this world. Other modes of symbolic im-mortality, as well as personal interests, were also used to give words to death’s mystery in a Christian sense.

Second, we focussed on the fading of religious vocabularies in relation to the dynamic role and meaning of religion in people’s everyday lives. Theo-logical images of symbolic immortality develop during one’s life, influenced by the social environment and the particular situation at hand. The decreasing role of institutionalised religion has led to a decrease of, as well as to increasingly, polysemic traditional images. Traditional images lost their symbolic capacity when they were no longer being interpreted as true, both in view of people’s in-terpretation of tradition and in view of their personal lives. Also, we found a tension between literal and metaphorical notions about life after death. When metaphorical notions are interpreted in literal ways they lose their meaning in creating a sense of continuity in the process of symbolic immortality, as their possibility and symbolic significance diminishes.

Third, we described non-traditional and emerging afterlife beliefs. In addition to the fading of religious vocabularies, images of symbolic immorality

emerge that are influenced by personal experiences and that are characterised by their multivocality. Because of the multiplicity of meanings that are embedded in a single culturally dominant image, they continue to be recognisable to a het-erogeneous group of people. Furthermore, although being culturally framed, we have seen that notions of life after death first and foremost acquire meaning from experiences in the everyday lives of the bereaved. Although these experi-ences are diverse – varying from the moment of death, the cooking of a particu-lar dish, or noticing coincidental events in one’s natural and social environment – they nevertheless create a sense of experiential transcendence, evoking a reor-dering of images by which people give meaning to the death of a loved one.

Fourth, we discussed the disagreement with traditional notions of life after death. We drew attention to narratives wherein the mode of theological symbolic immortality was explicitly and thoroughly disagreed with. In these cases, people employed other modes of symbolic immortality to create continui-ty beyond the lifespan of the deceased. As people did disagree with a form of continuing existence when reflecting thereupon, we found such notions most strongly in their narratives about practices, in particular when describing their motives and experiences around human remains – both corporeal and artificial.

The psychical reality of death, experienced by sensing the deceased’s presence via human remains or objects, evoked a need for symbolic immortality.

The results of this, and the previous, chapter underline the importance of the social dimension of afterlife beliefs. Further exploring people’s experi-ences of the presence of the dead, and the ongoing relationships between the living and the dead, can, therefore, shed light on the diverse notions of a hereaf-ter, as well as on people’s meaning-making practices in the face of death. In ad-dition to abstract afterlife beliefs, such as heaven, paradise, and the universe, or instead of such abstract ideas, it might be these relationships that are of ultimate significance to the bereaved. In the next chapter, therefore, we will examine ex-periences of, and ritual practices surrounding, the presence of the dead, rather than the verbal articulations of afterlife beliefs.

CHAPTER 6