Beyond - Spiritual Edition

THE AFTERLIFE MAY 2022

VOLUME 4 EDITION 6 $9.99

39 SPIRITUAL TIES Get in Touch with your Spiritual Side

43 T ERRACOTTA WARRIORS An Emperor’s Quest for Immortality and the Stone Army he left behind

51 A CROSS THE GLOBE Burial Rituals from Around the World

proof of heaven | a coin for the ferryman | what is death | the fire that still burns

EDITION

Runestones

TABLE OF CONTENTS

cover photo from reefinnovations.com

27 EARTHLY REMNANTS

F EATU R E S

BY ROY K. SCOTT

what’s left behind for us to learn from

39 SPIRITUAL TIES

BY SHERRI MAXWELL

have you ever had an encounter with a ghost, meet people that have

42 TERRACOTTA ARMY

BY JOSHUA J. MARK an emperor’s vain quest for immortality and the statues he left behind

51 BURIAL RITUALS AROUND THE WORLD

BY AVAS FLOWERS

look into all of the different burial rituals from all over the globe

82 WHITE NOISE

DEPARTMENTS

BY LUCY D. MCGOLDRICK how to get in touch with your inner self

2

Mummification

5 L etter from the Editor 63 L ights Out intro from the editor about this issue

13 B ridge the Gap a doctor’s experience with the afterlife

16 L egend and Myth peek into the Greeks and their burial Traditions

22 T he Unknown leading experts discuss supernatural topics On the cover: A view of a newly completed eternal reef project by reef innovations in Texas West Bay Mooring, 2012.

Beyond | May 2022

let’s talk about death, when exactly does it happen

67 G et Connected a panel of spiritual experts spill tips and tricks to contact the other side

74 C lose Encounters people tell stories about their personal experience with the paranormal

90 G oing Down? how Dante’s Inferno has a continuing effect on our culture

Chinese Jade Suit

  Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army

Turning of the Bones

Terracotta Soldier

South Korean Burial Beads

Terracotta Horse Drawn Chariot

Eternal Reefs

Mountainside Hanging Coffins

Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Stank

Creative Director Andrea Stank

Senior Designer Emily Plitnick

Graphic Designer Kenneth Eroh

Copy Editor Sammy Hartz

Photograhy Director Isaiah Fitzsimmons

Production Manager Maria Shemanski

Social Media Coordinator Alex Terplan

Main Office 1708 Roundhead Drive Weatherly, PA, 18255

Phone: 570.427.4365 Printed and produced in the USA Subscribe so you don’t miss an issue, visit www.beyondthisworld.com for the best subscription offers. For subscription or backissue queries, please contact Beyond Worldwide at subscribe@beyondthisworld.com.

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OUT REACH

Hey Spirit Seekers, I’ve been a devout Christian my whole life. I was baptized when I was a few months old and I went to Catholic school for the first ten years of my educational career.

Believing in something beyond this world is part of who I am. My fascination with the unknown only grew as I got older and my faith grew stronger. I became increasingly interested with theories about what comes after this life.

You might wonder about similar things like what might happen after we die, what comes next? All questions we have been pondering for as long as humans have existed. Is there an afterlife? What is it like? Beyond not only poses these intriguing questions, but also delves into what people believed the answers were throughout time. Whether paying a toll to cross a river into the afterlife or commissioning an army of 8,000 terracotta soldiers as part of a quest for immortality, this issue will cover a wide range of beliefs into the unknown.

Learn about all of the riveting burial rituals from across the globe. Dig deep into Dante’s nine circles of hell and learn about the tortured souls there and their impact on the pop culture of today. If you want to get in touch with your spiritual side you’ve come to the right place. Satisfy your curiosity and join us as we travel around the world in search of the answers to some of the oldest questions about what lies beyond.

See you in the afterlife!

Jennifer Stank

Editor-in-Chief

Beyond | May 2022

5

BRIDGE THE GAP

BY DR. EBEN ALEXANDER

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PROOF OF HEAVEN

A Doctor’s Experience with the Afterlife s a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon

“I experienced

of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my

my story with the logic and language

something

father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School as well as other universities.

and I had always believed there were

so profound

journeys described by those who

photo from theepochtimes.com

sophisticated but extremely delicate

that it gave me

amount and it will react. It was no

a scientific reason to believe in

contracted a very rare bacterial newborns. E. coli bacteria had penetrated my cerebrospinal fluid I entered the emergency room that morning, my chances of survival in anything beyond a vegetative state were already low. They soon

consciousness

big surprise that people who had

strange stories. But that didn’t mean

determined that I had somehow

and were eating my brain. When

sank to near nonexistent. For seven days I lay in a deep coma, my body unresponsive, my higher-order brain

undergone severe trauma would return from their experiences with

Lynchburg General Hospital

meningitis that mostly attacks

mechanism. Reduce the amount of oxygen it receives by the smallest

intense headache. Doctors at

myself worked as a neurosurgeon,

narrowly escaped death.

The brain is an astonishingly

Very early one morning four years

in Virginia, a hospital where I

good scientific explanations for the heavenly, out-of-body

of the scientist I am. ago, I awoke with an extremely

I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death,

I know how pronouncements like mine sound to skeptics, so I will tell

after death.”

functions totally offline. continued on page 23

they had journeyed anywhere real.

Beyond | May 2022

13

LEGEND AND MYTH

BY GRAYSON

MANBECK

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Rive r Styx into Hades

A COIN FOR THE FERRYMAN How Mouth Money became a Greek Burial Tradition

C

haron is a deity of the Greek Underworld, and is often referred to as a spirit and a demon.

Charon was the child of two early deities of the Greek pantheon, Nyx (Night) and Erebus (Darkness).

Nyx and Erebus were primordial gods, Protogenoi, suggesting that their children, and therefore Charon, predates the time of Zeus and the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.

The idea was that Hermes, or another Psychopomp, would escort the newly deceased to the banks of the River Acheron, the River of Pain. Here the skiff of Charon would await, with Charon taking the deceased across the river, as long as they could pay the fare. Charon’s fee was said to be coinage, either an obolos or Persian denace. Neither coin was particularly valuable, but in order for the deceased to have in their possession such a coin, meant that the deceased had been subjected to the proper funeral rites; for the obolos would have been placed in the mouth of the newly deceased.

Those that could not pay Charon’s fee would wander aimlessly along the banks of the Acheron for one hundred years, with their spirits found as ghosts upon the earth, perhaps haunting those who had not undertaken the expected traditional funeral rites.

Those that could pay the ferryman of the dead, would be safely transported across the Acheron into the heart of Hades’ realm.

The deceased could then stand in front of the Judges of the Dead, who would pass judgement on how they would spend eternity.

It is often said that Charon was the ferryman across the River Styx, although this was a later alteration of the Charon myth, for of course the Styx was the most famous of the rivers found in the Greek underworld. continued on page 47

16

Beyond | May 2022

photos from thedarkestblog.com and zelenikras.si

Nyx and Erebus had many children, and so Charon was sibling to many of the “dark” figures of Greek mythology, including the goddesses Nemesis (Vengeance) and Eris (Strife) and the gods Thanatos (Death) and Geras (Old Age).

As with most of the children of Nyx and Erebus, Charon was said to reside within the Greek Underworld, and his role for eternity was to act as ferryman of the deceased.

The River Styx The River Styx is a principal river in the Greek underworld (also called Hades). The river forms a border between the underworld and the world of the living. The word means hate in Greek and is named after the goddess, Styx.

History The River Styx is not the only river in Hades. The other major rivers include the Acheron (river of pain), the Lethe (river of forgetfulness), the Phlegethon (river of fire), and the Cocytus (river of wailing). Charon, the ferryman, ferries the souls of the dead across the river into the underworld, but he requires payment for his duties. He would

locate a coin traditionally in the mouth of the dead. Without payment, the dead would not get into the underworld and would be left to drift on the shore for 100 years.

Location Herodotus, a Greek historian from the 5th century BC, believed the origin of the Styx to be close to Feneos, a village in ancient Greece.

The village is situated at the foothills of Mount Cyllene, where Hermes was allegedly born. According to Dante, the river could be found in the fifth circle of hell, where vengeful sinners were drowned in its murky waters.

Powers of the Styx The River Styx was believed to have magical properties and could make a person invulnerable. Achilles was allegedly dipped into the river by his mother, making him invulnerable, but his ankle remained a weak point as he was suspended by it when dipped into the river.

In the land of the living there may not be a river of hate, fire or pain flowing through our backyard, but the various religions and cultures of the world, like that of the ancient Greeks, have long engaged in a plethora of curious burial rites for the dead.

Terracotta Army. Photo by Stephen LaBuda

A QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY CAST IN STONE B Y J O S H U A J. M A R K

The Rise of the Qin Empire

Beijing

Xi’an

East China Sea

This time of peace and prosperity, however, was short-lived. In 213 BCE Li Siu, having grown tired of hearing Confucian scholars criticize the regime by comparing it to the past dynasties of a `golden age’, wrote, “I suggest that the official histories, with the exception of the Memoirs of Qin, be all burnt, and that those who attempt to hide be forced to bring them to the authorities to be burnt.”

Taiwan

Guilin Yangshuo

In all ways, the early Qin Dynasty worked to improve the lives of the people.

The walls and fortifications which once enclosed the borders of the separate warring states were destroyed and the Great Wall was begun from their ruins, marking the northern boundary of the empire and protecting the land from marauding nomad tribes. In the south, the Lingqu Canal was built to aid in transport and in trade. Weapons of the defeated states were melted down and made into works of art.

Hong Kong

continued on page 103

HOW WERE THEY MADE? Make the torso from the pedestal to the collar

Make the head, arms, and hands

Dry in the shade and assemble the arms and hands

Carving the details

Fire in kilns

Install the head

Glazing and coloring

photos from thousandwonders.net, emaze.com, and ancient.eu

F I N D T H E M T O D AY I N X I’A N

EMPEROR QIN SHI HUANG AND HIS ARMY

The Terracotta Army Literally “soldier and horse funerary statues” are the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang the First Emperor of China. The terracotta figures, dating from 210 BCE, were discovered in 1974 by several local farmers near Xi’an, Shanxi province, China near the Mausouleum of the First Qin Emperor. The figures vary in height (183 –195 cm — 6ft – 6ft 5in), according to their role, the tallest being the generals.

The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians.

C U R R E N T E S T I M AT E S A R E T H AT I N T H E T H R E E P I T S C O N TA I N I N G T H E T E R R A C O T TA A R M Y T H E R E W E R E OV E R :

8,000 S O L D I E R S 520 HORSES 150 CALVARY HORSES 130 CHARIOTS

Beyond | May 2022 4 5

BURIAL RITUALS FROM AROUND

1

100°

80°

The ashes of the dead are mixed into a concrete material with a nearly natural pH. The concrete is shaped and textured into a “reef ball” and lowered into the ocean where marine life and coral reefs will take root.

60° N

40°

40° N

20°

0°

Greenland Arctic O Ocean

2

3

4

The dead are eaten by mourners as an act of compassion or to absorb the life-force of the deceased. The Yanomami are one famous tribes that still Cen practice this. They cremate the dead and mix the ashes with a Pacific Ocean c banana paste.

Norsemen erected these tall stones. They were carved with exquisite and intricate runes telling of the decease’s deeds.

They weren’t always near a grave site – it could also be a place of religious or personal significance.

The Egyptians are best known for this practice, but mummies can be found in the Americas and Asia as well. In mummification, the organs are removed for preservation of the body.

100°

80°

North America

1 2

4

RUNESTONES Scandinavia

20° N

Atlantic Ocean a ETERNAL REEFS Florida, USA

MAYAN RITUALS Latin America

3

MUMMIFICATION Ancient Egypt

Equator

5

Africa

FUNERARY CANNIBALISM South America

South America 40° S

60° S 40°

20°

0°

article and imagery from everplans.com

5

The Maya buried their dead with maize, a symbol of rebirth, in their mouths. Grave goods, like food, jade, whistles, and statuettes were provided to guide the dead through the afterlife.

THE WORLD 20°

40°

60°

You could have a traditional funeral, or you could be devoured by wild birds or crushed into fancy beads.

BY AVAS

80°

FLOWERS

Known as “The Turning of the Bones.”

100° The Malagasy people dig up their dead every 5-7 60°care N of them. They years to take re-wrap the dead, perfume them, dance with them, and share stories.

6

40° N

Asia Europe

8 7

JADE BURIAL SUIT Han Dynasty, China

SKY BURIAL Tibet

HANGING COFFINS The Philippines

9

BURIAL BEADS South Korea Pacific O

FAMADIHANA Madagascar

Australia

Antarctic t Ocean Scale

20°

40°

1 in = 1,485 mi

60°

7

Royal members of the Han dynasty were buried in ceremor nial suits of jade. The jade was cut into square, rectangular, and triangular shapes and threaded with wire to cover the entire nbody, like a suit of armor.

8

There is such space for 20° limited S burials in South Korea, they have to honor the dead in unique ways. In this practice, the body is cremated and pressed into jewelry-like beads. They are often colorful and kept in an urn or bottle.40° S

9

Hidden high up along mountainsides and in difficult to reach places. The people of Sagada believed that the closer a coffin was to the60° sky,Sthe closer the deceased was to heaven.

10

10

Indian a Ocean

6

In most forms of Buddhism, bodies are meant to be cremated or given over to animals in an act of charity. In Tibet, a practice of allowing vultures to pick the bodies 20° Nclean evolved.

Once picked clean, the bones are ground up and fed to crows.

80°

100° Beyond | May 2022

51

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WHAT IS DEATH?

How Do We Decide When Someone Is “Dead”

F

or some of us, death is something we’ve only seen on television or on the silver screen. Our perceptions of dying

have been shaped by actors gunning for awards in dramatic deathbed scenes or bad guys going down in a blast of bullets.

But how exactly do we define death? Everyone knows what it means, but the thing that is uncertain is when exactly does it actually occur? Through the centuries our perception of when someone actually is pronounced dead has changed. Looking back, it seems terrifying that people were buried alive without anyone knowing any better. Will our definition of death keep changing as the years continue to go on?

photo from blog.thewellnessuniverse.com

LIGHTS OUT

B Y M O L LY E D M O N D S

How Do We Define Death?

Others of us have witnessed dying in an up close and personal way. We’ve lost grandparents and parents to degenerative diseases, we’ve lost siblings and friends to car accidents or we’ve known someone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When death happens, it often seems unfair. It may also seem unnatural because from the time of our births, we spend a good deal of effort trying to prevent death. We receive childhood vaccines so we don’t get sick; we hear strict admonitions to look both ways before crossing the street;

we swallow broccoli grudgingly knowing that it’s good for us. As we become teenagers, we learn about risk factors that could shorten our lives, from tobacco and alcohol use to unsafe sex and reckless driving. And when we round the bend to adulthood, we start swallowing vitamins and prescription drugs and subscribing to bizarre exercise and beauty regimes in an effort to trick death.

forever. Also, it’s the event that gives life meaning. Without the timeline of death, it could be argued, we’d never get around to doing very much at all. In that way, death puts a lot of pressure on us, and we may never feel we’re actually ready for it. Additionally, death is a mysterious business; after all, the only ones who know anything about it aren’t around to share their knowledge.

But death isn’t an adversary we can conquer or a battle that is to be won. Rather, it’s a natural part of life that occurs sooner or later because our bodies weren’t made to last

In this article, we’ll take a look at what we know about the scientific process of dying so far. Death may not always be pretty, but it’s a fate that awaits us all. So what exactly is death?

1700s

1800s

A mirror was held to the mouth or a feather above the nose to look for signs of breath. If the mirror didn’t cloud or the feather didn’t move, then that person was as good as gone.

People began to realize that even if all the outward signs of life ceased, there was still a chance that the person wasn’t dead. Tales began to circulate that a person could be buried alive.

1900s By this time, enough was known about the human body to check for a heart-beat, but it was still several decades before the invention of the stethoscope.

2000s Today, we know there’s technology that makes death quite reversible. If breathing stops, ventilators keep the respiratory and circulatory systems functional.

Beyond | May 2022

63

GOING DOWN?

B Y L A M O N I CA E V E R E T T- H AY N E S - A R I ZO N A

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THE FIRE THAT STILL BURNS Why Dante’s Inferno Stays Relevant After 700 Years Dante’s nearly 700-year-old, three-part epic poem, the Divine Comedy — of which “Inferno” is the initial part — remains an influential piece of literature in exploring the origins of evil.

Dante’s work has influenced or inspired music, novels, films, mobile apps, and even video games. Most recently, Dante’s work was adapted for the film Inferno, starring Tom Hanks.

In light of the current attention paid to Dante’s “Inferno,” Alfie answered some questions:

Q: What is the value of film interpretations

Tom Hanks’ character. Some of them were based on the punishments described in Dante’s hell, and they were shocking and frightening.

of classical work?

A: Adaptations of Dante help maintain interest in

Q:

ow accurately does Inferno, starring H Tom Hanks, depict Dante’s work?

A: Let me say up front that it’s not a reinterpretation of Dante’s work, or a fictionalization of Dante’s life, but a modern-day thriller.

Having said that, I was particularly impressed with the hallucinations seen by Robert Langdon,

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Beyond | May 2022

Q:

hat more can we learn/gain from work W that, in this case, is more than 700 years old? In what ways, then, are the messages timeless that Dante advanced?

A: In the Divine Comedy, Dante tackles the big

questions. The first portion, “Inferno,” is about categorizing and understanding the forms of human evil in all its forms, from the banal to the depraved. “Inferno” doesn’t merely represent an eternal torture chamber. It is, really, a meditation on evil.

Dante approaches the question of evil from the perspective of a medieval Christian, but the question is relevant no matter your religion. You have only to pay attention to the world around you to start wondering about evil behaviors, both great and minor.

photo from italytravelandlife.com

his work among the public. And it’s interesting to see how other artists reinterpret the work. How do they update it for the contemporary world?

There are portions of Dante’s work that are now out of date. Conversely, Dante couldn’t include forms of evil like genocide in his hell because that’s a modern-day invention. Yet the concept of a hell organized around a classification of types of evil is still very seductive.

For educational purposes only.

Not for publication.