Fear of Death (!/?)
Saving human lives is pretty much the most important credo of our western society today. All possible places where people could potentially die from accidents have been densely regulated as much as possible. Traffic is designed to have minimal traffic fatalities. The construction industry has strict safety rules to prevent people from dying. Deadly diseases have been reduced by increased hygiene (and vaccinations?) and the development of life-extending drugs has become a multi-billion dollar business. Time for a critical evaluation?
In this day and age, the fear of death is more visible than ever. To prevent deaths in ICUs, measures are accepted that have a profound impact on today’s society. Countless elderly people get lonely, countless entrepreneurs go bankrupt, countless people lose their jobs. The number of deaths is accurately tracked daily and shared extensively in the media. Supposedly these measures are to save lives. Because dying is something you shouldn’t want. We learn as children that death is terrible. The quality of life is secondary to the fear of dying. Paradoxically, this fear only applies to people who are like us. What happens, for example, to the six thousand children who, according to the World Food Program, die of hunger every day as a result of those same measures, does not move the average Westerner any more than a donation to Unicef. Whether the feeding of this fear is justified, by the way, we can leave open the question. Did vaccines really eradicate deadly diseases, or did the rise of hygiene play the key role in that? And besides… do all the mouth guards and spacing rules really help? Or are the annual flu deaths now being buried as coronas? Everyone has his or her own ideas about that. But when it’s your time… it’s your time. People used to die in droves from diseases like the plague and smallpox. Nowadays, they are massively affected by diseases such as cancer and heart failure. Nature always finds a new way.
Ideal leverage
The fact is that the fear of death is an ideal means of pressure for governments to keep their citizens in line. In the Middle Ages, people were not so afraid of death. If you died it was God’s will and if it was your time, it was your time. The eternal burning in hell, however, was terrified. Medieval people were controlled by their rulers with the threat of purgatory. What few people know is that until late in the seventh century, reincarnation was an accepted thought in Europe. Primitive Christians like the Essenes, Manicheans and Cathars experienced an afterlife. People who believe they continue to exist after dying are hard to subdue. This is one of the reasons why these gnostic groups had to be exterminated as heretics. Purgatory was introduced to keep Christian citizens and peasants in line. But belief in a Biblical God, as well as belief in the accompanying hell, has declined dramatically since the Renaissance. For most people, nothing replaced death and death became a pitch black hole. A nothingness, an end of existence. The grim reaper who cuts the thread of life with his scythe, after which life stops. One became more and more attached to existence. To well-being, to wealth and to manifestation. Having to let go of existence became a collective trauma. Everything is about living as long as possible. The fear of purgatory passed into the fear of death itself. And that fear is exploited today in the same way that the fear of hell was exploited a thousand years ago.
Dying before dying
I sometimes wonder… Without fear of death, would we have so many traffic rules? Without mortal fear, would site regulations call for double fall protection? Would one, without fear of death, have children vaccinated so enthusiastically? Would they lock up the elderly any longer? Wear mouthguards? Five feet of clearance? Or would quality of life become more important than quantity? Life is short, and when the time comes…
Whereas the church and the nobility exploited the fear of hell to maintain power, those in power today have discovered the fear of death as a successful instrument of oppression. Of course, fear of pain and disease also plays a part, but if they didn’t lead to the illusionary end, they would be much more acceptable. You, as a ParaVision reader, probably know or feel that death is not an end. With any luck, you’ll enjoy your existence to the fullest without being overly attached to it. One of my teachers once told me, “You should be able to walk away from your life at any time and leave everything behind.” He meant dying before dying. When you realise that you are not your body, personality, thoughts and emotions, but something much bigger than that, and you let go of your ‘little self’, you will soon be able to move on to the next round more easily. As a reincarnation therapist, death fascinates me, as do the lives before it. Professionally, I know countless other lives from my own past. With hundreds of clients I was allowed to travel to their lives before birth into the present existence. Death is a transition. It’s a new beginning. Fear of it is similar to a baby’s fear in the womb of life after birth. No one knows how he or she will react when the time comes. Do you stay calm, or do you panic? Is it painful, or do you sleep peacefully? Whatever it is, don’t cross the bridge until you meet it. Sooner or later, you and I will have to face it, too. If it’s your time, it’s your time. But don’t let those in power continue to use the fear of your own death, or that of your loved ones, to rob you of your freedom!