The Soul After Death

Fr Seraphim Rose proves both his depth of devotion and intellect in this book. Drawing from Scripture, Patristic texts, and Lives of the Saints, he confronts the works of modern scholastics who use their research to disprove ancient truths regarding the efforts of the Prince of Darkness. Modern efforts whether via scientific or occult methods propose that death is not to be regarded as a portal to accountability. Fr Seraphim effectively refutes them in this book with clarity and resoluteness.Thank you, Fr Seraphim for presenting this voice of truth. May we always be blessed with the true Church and her radiant voice that calls us with love toward our merciful Christ.

The Soul After Death complements Fr. Seraphim's other famous book, Orthodoxy And The Religion Of The Future. Both books compile and engage with various then-contemporary "spiritual" phenomena, contrasting them with a traditional Orthodox viewpoint. Here, the focus is specifically on "near-death" and "out-of-body" experiences -- visions that people have when they are close to dying. These visions have many common characteristics and have been extensively documented by various psychiatrists and people claiming to be psychiatrists (as we'll see below, the distinction between the two is not always clear). They are also exploited by spiritists and charlatans of different kinds.If you have never heard of any of these books or people, you may find the whole thing bewildering. You may wonder what the point was of bringing up these marginal authors, who may have been briefly popular during the woo-woo fads of the seventies, but who have long been forgotten.But have they? You might not be so unfamiliar with them after all. For example, I'm sure you've heard of the "five stages of grief" -- denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. I even learned about them in high school. Of course the textbook didn't say who came up with this classification.But the "five stages" model does have an author -- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a recurring name throughout The Soul After Death. Kubler-Ross was a psychiatrist with a medical degree who taught at the University of Chicago. She proposed the five stages as a therapeutic scheme for helping dying people and their families come to terms with the inevitable. She interviewed many such people and was driven by a sincere desire to help them.What you won't find in your high school textbook is that, during this process, Kubler-Ross developed an interest in "near-death" experiences and visions, which are catalogued in painstaking detail, in the same book where her famous model was first laid out. One thing led to another (it always does with these people): a few years later, Kubler-Ross had delved into mediumism, spiritism, etc. and had convinced herself of her own ability to channel and speak to the spirits of the dead. The direct quotes from her on pp. 164-166 are more than sufficient for a diagnosis.You might argue that it doesn't matter -- we can appreciate Kubler-Ross's contributions to therapy independently of her own personal problems. I'm not so sure, but in any case, shouldn't we at least acknowledge both sides? The psychiatric concept introduced by Kubler-Ross is now so pervasive in the cultural mainstream that basically nobody knows who invented it -- and then, suddenly, we find that its inventor wasn't speaking purely from practical experience and observation, but was also influenced by peculiar spiritual ideas, and was, at the very least, deeply disturbed.This is Fr. Seraphim's point, made even more convincing by the fact that he never mentions the five stages, because The Soul After Death was written in 1974, before that model had become so famous. We live in a world that has already been "reformatted" by faux-Eastern mysticism (real Eastern mysticism looks nothing like this). Our culture may still pay lip service to Christianity (less and less, as it turns out), but the actual ideas that it presents to us were created within a completely different religious framework. And it is a _religious_ framework, even if it calls itself secular.For this philosophical provocativeness, The Soul After Death will always be invaluable. Nonetheless, it also has a somewhat controversial reputation in Orthodox circles. Fr. Seraphim presented the Orthodox Christian teaching on the afterlife as a contrast to the one that emerges from Kubler-Ross and the others, and a substantial part of his exposition is devoted to "the toll-houses." This teaching, which was espoused by many traditional Orthodox thinkers, holds that, after death, souls pass through a sequence of "stations" (not meant literally) in which their affinity to different types of sin is revealed.I don't claim to have a perfect understanding of dogmatic nuance, but it seems to me that much of the controversy came from wording. The English word "toll-house" is a big part of the problem: it evokes an overly literal image, and suggests that you have to "pay a toll" in order to pass, which is problematic. But, while "toll-house" is the literal translation of the Russian word "mytarstvo," that literal meaning is archaic, and now the word is more commonly translated as "ordeal." For example, Dostoevsky uses this word, in the precise Orthodox sense, in three chapter titles of The Brothers Karamazov, and English translators typically write it as "ordeal." The word "ordeal" more easily lends itself to the interpretation that the soul is being confronted with things it did during life, rather than having to pass extra tests; it is just a ritualized depiction of the Particular Judgment concept.Arguments to authority are not all-powerful in Orthodoxy, so even if a saint provably wrote something, you're not obligated to accept it as absolute literal fact. But rejecting it out of hand also seems wrong; Fr. Seraphim shows (and it is not hard to verify this on your own) that the teaching, regardless of whether or not you use the word "toll-house," has a long history at least within the Russian tradition. Even the story of St. Theodora visiting the toll-houses, which is sometimes criticized, is also cited in the standard prayer-book published by ROCOR (pp. 408-409). For those within ROC(OR), it would seem that the teaching should at least be respectfully acknowledged, if not blindly followed.But, even if every reference to the toll-houses were removed from the book, little would change. Fr. Seraphim is loved by Orthodox Christians, not for his defense of the toll-houses, or for his critique of Kubler-Ross et al., but for his love for God, and for his efforts to clear away any and all "spiritual" deceptions and distractions from actual spiritual life. As long as someone shares these values, this book has a grateful audience.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.Ephesians 6:12"No matter how absurd the idea of the toll-houses may seem to our 'wise men', they will not escape passing through them."St. Theophan The RecluseIn this monumental work, Fr. Seraphim Rose of blessed memory discusses the Orthodox teachings on death, and in particular the Orthodox Patristic Tradition of the Toll Houses; that is the testing of souls by demons at the point of death. He begins by discussing Near Death Experiences (NDE's) and explains how these should be viewed as demonic temptations - `And it is no wonder; for even Satan himself is able to take the form of an angel of light.' 2 Corinthians 11:14.Fr. Seraphim cites examples where non-believers who have experienced these NDE's claim to have seen `beautiful lights' or `gardens' etc. He warns against such visions making the case that this is simply a ruse by the evil one to trick these non-believers into thinking they will be entering into some sort of paradise after death, whilst they fail to comprehend the truth that while there is life after death, the lights and visions they have encountered are in fact far more sinister and the reality of their situation far more dangerous.He compares and contrasts the writings on NDE's with Orthodox teachings on angels and in particular the realm of the spirits. The book explains the Toll Houses in light of the teachings of the Church Fathers: Fr. Seraphim quotes from St John Chrysostom, St Gregory the Dialogist, St Athanasius the Great in addition to citing numerous other sources, and quoting numerous Orthodox prayers which reference the hour of death and the Toll Houses.`Answer to a critic': In this final part of the book, Fr. Seraphim Rose responds to a certain `critic' whom he does not mention by name. This critic wrote a book `The Aerial Toll-House Myth: The Neo-Gnosticism of Fr Seraphim Rose' which as Fr Thomas Hopko states in an interview on Ancient Faith Radio about the Aerial Toll Houses, is simply a vitriolic attack on Fr. Seraphim. In his response, Fr. Seraphim shreds the critic's `arguments' showing this individual to be confused, and his arguments futile at best.Finally, as we read in the Prolog from Ohrid by St Nikolai Velimirovich for August 15th (Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin):"Each one of the faithful can learn much, indeed very much, from the life of the Virgin Theotokos. However, I would like to mention here only two things. First, she had the habit to pray frequently on Golgotha, on the Mount of Olives, in the Garden of Gethsemane, to go to Bethlehem and to other places famous because of her Son. At all of these places, especially Golgotha, she prayed on bended knees. By this, she gave the first example and incentive to the faithful to visit the holy places out of love toward Him Who, by His presence and by His passion and glory, made these places holy and significant. Second, we learn how she, in her prayer, prayed for a quick departure from this life that her soul, at the time of her separation from the body, might not see the prince of darkness and his horrors, and hidden from the dark regions not encounter the power of Satan. Do you see how terrible it is for the soul to pass through the toll-gates [mitarstva]! When she, who gave birth to the Destroyer of Hades and, who herself has frightening power over demons prayed thusly, what then is left for us? Out of very great humility, she commended herself to God and did not trust in her own deeds. So much less should we trust in our deeds and even more we should commend ourselves into the hands of God, crying out for His mercy, especially for mercy at the time of the departure of the soul from the body."