Working the Fear of Death - (1930)

Chose a Side

I think the first step to do with working on the fear of death is to chose a side.

The two sides are that we are essences and that by the very nature of the essence, it is immortal and that after death it will continue. The other side is that with death we cease to exist altogether, dissolved and forever discontinued.

These two sides we could call the Gnostic and existential sides.

Once we take a side we can work. Because taking a side opens the door to what we are scared of. 

The Gnostic Side

As a Gnostic the side that we take is that the essence is immortal and that are physical death it will surely continue. The Gnostic actually knows this to be true!

How the Gnostic knows this to be true is via several avenues. One avenue is the remembrance of past lives. A few seconds of a memory of just one past life is enough proof. Another avenue is through psychological observation. As one observes oneself and one begins to understand how the various "I's" that we have were not all created in this life and that they have to have an origin, and because that origin is not in this life it must be in a previous life.

Having the grounds that our essence is immortal allows us to work on the many fears that we have associated with physical death. we can explore further our fears. If we know that the soul is immortal we are going to be scared of leaving this world, scared of the next world beyond, scared of not knowing what to do in the beyond, scared of not being with our loved ones etc. etc.

Existential Side

The existential side is that we are just going to be dissolved and discontinued and that the essence is not at all immortal. Taking this view is not the Gnostic truth but gives a person a direction in which to work. 

Epicurus a Greek philosopher took this view and laid down some arguments to which a person can counteract this fear. I will lay these arguments by Epicurus in later post. However this does not serve the Gnostic person, because the Gnostic person already knows that this is not true or at least believes that the existential view is not true.

End (1930).