Human beings, as far as we know, are unique in the ability to understand that each one of us will die at some point. Although we are forever on this side of the “undiscovered country/from whose bourn no traveler returns” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, scene 1), this other type of time or place has been a concern of philosophy and religion from very close to the beginning of human history. Anthropologists consider the transition from living to nonliving to cause a basic cognitive dissonance so extreme that the nascent Neolithic consciousness as well as modern humans are incapable of making sense of it. In the ancient caves of Lascaux and Trois Freres, we see what may be indications of shamanic transformations – the precursors of conceptions of the soul and the beginning of the idea that there might be something more at the end of life than merely stoppage. Funereal remains have also been uncovered from this same period in the Neolithic age, suggesting a conception of something going on...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Bibliography
Becker, E. (1997). The denial of death. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Heine, S. (2006). Did Dogen go to China? Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1973). Synchronicity, An acausal connecting principle. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1st Princeton/Bollingen Paperback Edition, Dec. 1.
Nilsson, M. P. (1947). Greek popular religion “The religion of Eleusis”. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ovid, Metamorphoses.
Wilhelm, R. (1962). The secret of the golden flower (Revth ed.). San Diego: Harvest Books.
Wittgenstein, L. (2005). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trans: Ogden, C. K.). New York: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Stebbins, M. (2014). Immortality. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_325
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_325
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6085-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6086-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science