Why do we fear death?

In many cultures death is one of the last remaining truly taboo topics. We readily argue about politics and religion, openly discuss sex and war, but dying is off the agenda for polite conversation.

Life is finite. The body is made to wear out. The oldest recorded living person to date is Jeanne Calment who lived for 122 years and 164 days, a long time but virtually infinitesimal compared to the age of the universe.

The only thing certain to be experienced by every single one of us is passing away, or the death of the physical body. So given the cessation of physical life is inevitable, why do so many of us fear it so much?

In human form we find comfort and security in certainty. Despite the reassurances of countless Mediums and individuals claiming personal experience of contact with departed loved ones, we cannot know for sure what if anything lies beyond the grave.

Many perspectives on religion teach that there is a place such as hell where those who live an unworthy life will experience eternal suffering. But in this renewed age of reason, the so-called information age, can such scaremongering really be taken seriously?

More likely our fear stems from the possibility that we might simply cease to exist. That indeed is what "rational" science tells us. The thought that we may lose everything we held dearest, that all our achievements might be wiped out, and all utterly meaningless, is just too horrific to contemplate.

We would be no more than mechanistic freaks of nature, mere products of the chance coming together of certain molecules under certain conditions. But if that were so would we care, or even be capable of caring about our destiny? Could a lump of carbon and water feel emotions such as fear? I think not.

Could such an automata ever possess free will? Contemplate any time you had a difficult decision to make. No doubt your mind swung to and fro, weighing the pros and cons of each choice. Maybe you even lost sleep over it. Yet deep down you knew that you had the power to go one way or the other. Hardly mechanistic.

Even in the absolute worst-case scenario that there really is nothing beyond physical death there is no need to fear it since it renders everything completely insignificant anyway.

Science is the undisputed king of its own domain, ie the physical realm. But it is powerless beyond these borders.

Anyone who's had direct contact with a departed loved one need have no fear of passing on, since they may trust their own experience. A sitting with a half decent medium should also provide sufficient evidence of Spiritual survival.

In 1937 the Church of England commissioned a Committee to investigate (and no doubt hopefully de-bunk) Spiritualism. The resulting Majority Report was signed by seven members of the Committee, including the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Dean of St Paul’s, the Nolloth Professor of the Christian Religion at Oxford, a Harley Street Psychologist and a Barrister-at-Law. It found that certain outstanding psychic experiences of individuals, including certain experiences with mediums, make a strong prima facie case for survival and for the possibility of spirit communications while philosophical, ethical and religious considerations may be held to weigh heavily on the same side. The report was subsequently suppressed by the Church.

And last but not least is the near death experience phenomena of which there are now an enormous number of reported cases. These take place after a subject passes the state of physical death but is later resuscitated. Many subjects report memories of an awareness during the time their bodies were dead, often with remarkable similarities, eg the sensation of leaving and/or being outside the physical body, being able to describe resuscitation attempts or other events going on at the time, often in another room or from a different viewpoint, traveling down a tunnel towards a light, being met by a being of light and love and/or already departed loved ones...

So waste no time or energy fearing physical death. It's an inevitability. Instead embrace life. Live it to the full as though the Spirit were immortal and its purpose experiential growth. If you're right you'll satisfy that purpose on earth, and if you're wrong - well it won't have cost you anything and the automata that is you will have made an incredible journey and had a few laughs along the way.