Beyond
How Humankind Thinks About Heaven
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
“Beautifully written, expertly researched and masterfully presented, this tour of how heaven has been understood throughout history is absolutely fascinating.” —James Martin, SJ, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
A smart and thought-provoking cultural history of heaven.
What do we think of when we think about heaven? What might it look like? Who or what might be there?
Since humans began to huddle together for protection thousands of years ago, these questions have been part of how civilizations and cultures define heaven, the good place beyond this one. From Christianity to Islam to Hinduism and beyond, from the brush of Michelangelo to the pen of Dante, people across millennia have tried to explain and describe heaven in ways that are distinctive and analogous, unique and universal.
In this engrossing cultural history of heaven, Catherine Wolff delves into how people and cultures have defined heaven over the centuries. She describes how different faiths and religions have framed it, how the sense of heaven has evolved, and how nonreligious influences have affected it, from the Enlightenment to the increasingly nonreligious views of heaven today. Wolff looks deep into the accounts of heaven to discover what’s common among them and what makes each conception distinct and memorable. The result is Beyond, an engaging, thoughtful exploration of an idea that is central to our humanity and our desire to define an existence beyond death.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Therapist Wolff (Not Less Than Everything) delivers an elegant if scattered study of the afterlife in this wide-ranging survey. Wolff charts a roughly chronological course from Mesopotamian mythology to contemporary spiritualist thought and along the way introduces readers to Buddhist conceptions of nirvana and enlightenment, Christian beliefs on heaven and damnation, the Hindu cosmos of worlds, Jewish writings on a "Promised Land flowing with milk and honey," Muslim visions of a "lush" and "sensual paradise," and many other conceptions of afterlives. Some beliefs merit entire chapters; others—notably Indigenous religions—warrant a paragraph or two. While Wolff provides numerous anecdotes (such as a high-tech New Age retreat in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains), these granular stories cannot overcome the oversimplifications and inconsistencies. For instance, having previously declared that "none of us has ever met anybody who has returned from heaven with a verifiable report," Wolff concludes by describing an "ultimate inn" where "we'll be surrounded by our family and friends from earth, and some we've just met from the communion of saints." Spiritualists of any stripe will find much to ponder.
