Immortality (41 page)

More details on the Islamic view of the afterlife can be found in the aforementioned
The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture
by Nerina Rustomji. The female companions in paradise are mentioned in the Qur’an, for example sura 55, verses 46–78, though the idea that there are seventy-two is not, but belongs to one of many traditions of commentary.

Élie Reclus’s story of Eskimo heaven comes from his book
Primitive Folk
(1885, reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2006) and is also cited by Corliss Lamont in the aforementioned
The Illusion of Immortality
. An account of the impact of the American Civil War on ideas of heaven can be found in Rebecca Price Janney’s
Who Goes There? A Cultural History of Heaven and Hell
(Moody Publishers, 2009). The pastor James L. Garlow’s view of heaven is in his book with Keith Wall,
Heaven and the Afterlife
(Bethany House Publishers, 2009). The modern guide to the afterlife cited is Bryan McAnally’s
Life After Death & Heaven and Hell
(Guidepost Books, 2009).

The quote from theologian Paul Tillich is from
The Eternal Now
(Prentice Hall, 1963).

The Dalai Lama tells his own story in the fascinating
Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama of Tibet
(Abacus, 1998). Numerous other biographies also recount the story of his discovery, with varying details. There are many introductions to Buddhist and Hindu thought available; those by Klaus Klostermaier are good. I have mostly relied on W. J. Johnson’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita (Oxford World’s Classics, 1994). The Dalai Lama’s view on the nature of the spiritual something that survives bodily death is taken from the fascinating account of his 1989 conversations with neuroscientists
Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism
(Snow Lion Publications, 1999).

The forty-two sins of ancient Egypt can be found in the Papyrus of Ani, one of the so-called Books of the Dead, and is available in various editions. The William McDougall quote is taken from his
Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution
(Methuen, 1934) and is also cited by Corliss Lamont in his aforementioned
The Illusion of Immortality
. An important modern example of arguing that there
must be immortality as there would otherwise be no justice is found in the philosopher Mark Johnston’s book
Surviving Death
(Princeton University Press, 2010). Modern Western philosophy has engaged little with the belief in reincarnation; Paul Edwards’s
Reincarnation: A Critical Examination
(Prometheus Books, 1996) is a significant exception.

The percentages of those in the United States and United Kingdom who believe in ghosts are from a 2009 Harris Poll and a 2007 Ipsos Mori poll, respectively. Recent research on the cognitive mechanisms responsible for our seeing ghosts can be found in the aforementioned
The God Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life
(Nicholas Brealey, 2010) by Jessie Bering, from which the later quote on the evidence of science is also taken. The reference to clergyman Joseph Glanvill is taken from Shane McCorristine’s
Spectres of the Self: Thinking About Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750–1920
(Cambridge University Press, 2010). Deepak Chopra’s view on ghosts can be found in his
Life After Death
(Rider, 2008) and James L. Garlow’s in his aforementioned
Heaven and the Afterlife
.

Martin and Barresi’s aforementioned
The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self
gives a good account of the origins and development of belief in a soul in the Western tradition. Two perspectives on out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences can be found in Susan Blackmore’s
Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences
(Prometheus, 1993) and Sam Parnia’s
What Happens When We Die
(Hay House, 2005). John Gray’s aforementioned
The Immortalization Commission
gives a good account of the early days of the Society for Psychical Research.

The Voltaire quote is taken from “The Soul, Identity and Immortality” in Paul Edwards’s aforementioned collection
Immortality
. Phineas Gage’s story is told, inter alia, in Antonio Damasio’s excellent book on the role of the whole brain and body in producing the mind,
Descartes’ Error
(Grosset Putnam, 1996), from which also the quote on hunger is taken. Damasio also features in the above-mentioned conversations with the Dalai Lama,
Consciousness at the
Crossroads
. There are many other accessible accounts of the effects of brain damage on the mind available, such as, for example, the work of Oliver Sacks.

The
Catholic Encyclopedia
is available online. The Thomas Jefferson quote is taken from
Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses
by Thomas W. Clark (Center for Naturalism, 2007). The Jesse Bering quote is taken from his aforementioned
The God Instinct
.

Many works discuss the relationship between mind and body, for example Corliss Lamont’s book mentioned above; Anthony Flew’s
The Logic of Mortality
(Blackwell, 1987); many of the essays in the collection
Immortality
, edited by Paul Edwards (Prometheus, 1997); and Richard Swinburne’s
The Evolution of the Soul
(Clarendon Press, 1997). The problem for soul theorists of unconsciousness is an old one and well told in, for example, Eric T. Olson’s
What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology
(Oxford University Press, 2007). The Qur’an quote is from the translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford University Press, 2004). Duncan MacDougall’s weighing of the soul was reported in the
New York Times
on March 11, 1907; accounts are now widely available on the Internet and elsewhere.

There are many accounts of the life of Alexander the Great available, varying from Robin Lane Fox’s eulogizing
Alexander the Great
(Penguin, 1974—the inspiration behind Oliver Stone’s biopic of Alexander) to the highly critical
Envy of the Gods: Alexander the Great’s Ill-Fated Journey Across Asia
by John Prevas (Da Capo Press, 2004).
Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past
by Paul Cartledge (Macmillan, 2004) is a balanced recent addition.

Various writers have made a distinction similar to that between the biological and cultural forms of the Legacy Narrative. Robert Jay Lifton, for example, talks about the biological (or sometimes “biosocial”)
mode compared to the cultural mode (see
Living and Dying
, with Jay Olson, Praeger, 1974), and Corliss Lamont distinguishes between the biological and the social and historical forms of immortality (in the aforementioned
The Illusion of Immortality
).

The words of Achilles, Sarpedon and Glaucus are of course all from Homer’s
Iliad
. I have mostly relied on the translation by Emile Victor Rieu (Penguin Classics, 1950/2003) but have also drawn on some of the many other translations available, for example, Samuel Butler’s (available online). I have also used Rieu’s translation of
The Odyssey
(Penguin Classics, 1946/1991).

The Ernest Becker quote about seeking to preserve immortality versus life is from the aforementioned
Escape from Evil
. Ernst Cassirer described humans as the symbolic animal in his 1944
An Essay on Man
. The Gregory Nagy quote is from his essay “Poetic Visions of Immortality for the Hero” in
Homer’s “The Iliad,”
edited by Harold Bloom (Chelsea House, 1987). The Ernest Becker quote about heroism is from the above-mentioned
Denial of Death
. The Leo Braudy quote is from his brilliant
The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History
(Vintage Books, 1997).

The Miguel de Unamuno quotes are from his extraordinary poetic-philosophical meditation on immortality
The Tragic Sense of Life
(in English by Macmillan, 1921). The John Milton quote, originally from his poem “Lycidas,” is taken from
Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity
by David Giles (Macmillan, 2000). The Corliss Lamont quote is of course from
The Illusion of Immortality
. The Morrissey and James Dean quotes are also taken from Giles’s
Illusions of Immortality
. Later quotes by Giles are from the same work. The Socrates quote is from Plato’s
Symposium
, translated by Benjamin Jowett and available in various editions, including online.

The relevance of the Herostratus syndrome to modern terrorism is explored in depth in
Terrorism for Self-Glorification: The Herostratos Syndrome
by Albert Borowitz (Kent State University Press, 2005—the
alternative spelling of the name is not a typo but the Greek transliteration rather than the more usual Latinized version). Lionel Shriver’s magnificent novel
We Need to Talk About Kevin
(Serpent’s Tail, 2003) explores, among other themes, the role of celebrity culture in motivating a fictional high school massacre. The Zygmunt Bauman quote is from the aforementioned
Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies
. The Jean Rostand quote is from
Pensée d’un biologiste
(Stock, 1939).

The James Henry Breasted quote on Akhenaten is taken from Dominic Montserrat’s
Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt
(Routledge, 2000). The data on blogging is from
www.blogpulse.com
. The survey of online presence in the United States was conducted by
AVG.com
in November 2010.

The debate about the plausibility of the bundle theory of the self is an old one, going back at least to David Hume, who proposed it, and his fellow Scot Thomas Reid, who criticized it. The theory and its difficulties are well summarized in Eric Olson’s aforementioned book
What Are We?

Roy Baumeister’s views on posterity are from his book
Meanings of Life
(Guilford Press, 1991). The Marcus Aurelius quote is from his
Meditations
, available in many editions.

Although there are countless books on Alexander the Great available, there is only one book-length treatment of his mother that I am aware of:
Olympias: Mother of Alexander the Great
by Elizabeth Carney (Routledge, 2006).

Einstein’s consoling words are from a letter he wrote to the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes’s widow, February 25, 1926. The Aristotle quote is from
De Anima
, book 2, chapter 4, translated by J. A. Smith (available online). The Richard Dawkins quote is from his classic
The Selfish Gene
(Oxford University Press,
1976), which remains a superb introduction to the gene’s-eye view of life. A good introduction to cells, genes and their role in humans is
How We Live and Why We Die
by Lewis Wolpert (Faber, 2009).

All quotes by Lynn Margulis are from her excellent book written with Dorion Sagan
What Is Life?
(University of California Press, 1995), from which the Erasmus Darwin quote is also taken.

The Lucien Lévy-Bruhl quote is taken from Godfrey Lienhardt’s essay “African Representations of Self,” itself to be found in the aforementioned collection
The Category of the Person
, edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins and Steven Lukes, which contains many other examples of a collectivized sense of self in traditional societies. For further anthropological research on the primacy of the biological immortality narrative, see for example the work of Michael Kearl, much of which is available online, including his contributions to the online
Encyclopedia of Death and Dying
. The Scipio epitaph is from
The Roman Mind
by M. L. Clarke (Norton, 1956). Franz Berkenau’s account of the Jewish versus the Hellenic strategy is taken from Zygmunt Bauman’s aforementioned
Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies
. John Hick’s similar thoughts are from his paper “The Recreation of the Psycho-Physical Person” (republished in Paul Edwards’s aforementioned book
Immortality
).

The Fichte quote on German nationalism is also taken from Bauman’s
Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies
, which contains an insightful discussion of biological and group immortality narratives. Robert Jay Lifton’s work on revolutionary immortality narratives can be found for example in the aforementioned
Living and Dying
, written with Eric Olson. The estimate of 170 million people dying in war in the twentieth century is taken from David Livingstone Smith’s
The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War
(St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

Herbert Spencer promoted the idea of a human superorganism in his essay
The Social Organism
(1860, available online). The quote
on superorganisms from Alison Jolly is taken from her 1999 article in the
New Scientist
(vol. 2218) “The Fifth Step” and is based on her book
Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution
(Harvard University Press, 1999).

More on the Gaia hypothesis can be found in any of the books by its originator, James Lovelock, such as
The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning
(Basic Books, 2010). The Ernest Becker quote is once again from
The Denial of Death
. And a fascinating discussion of catastrophic threats to life on earth can be found in Martin Rees’s aforementioned
Our Final Century
.

I have used the excellent Penguin Classics (1999) edition of
The Epic of Gilgamesh
, beautifully translated by Andrew George.

The quotes by Tennyson, William McDougall (quoted also in chapter 6) and C. D. Broad are from Corliss Lamont’s now oft-mentioned
The Illusion of Immortality
. The Zygmunt Bauman quote is once again from
Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies
. The Ernest Becker quote is from
Escape from Evil
. The Sam Keen quote is from his foreword to the 1997 edition of Ernest Becker’s
The Denial of Death
(Free Press). Friedrich Nietzsche’s discussion of Christianity as the “slave morality” can be found in his
On the Genealogy of Morals
(first published 1887).