The Death Process

An introduction

As in the case of other aspects of the spiritual world, the Writings provide an unprecedented degree of detail about the process of death. The most important thing to realize about dying is that you don't "leave" and go "somewhere else" when you die because in one sense you aren't "here" in the first place: Your mind or spirit isn't in the physical world to begin with. You have a body that your mind and spirit drive around like a person drives his car, but the body is no more the same thing as the mind or spirit than the car is the same thing as its driver. The mind can look out at this body's world, through the body's senses, but the mind is never a part of that world. The mind and spirit lives in the spiritual world from the first moment of their existence.  All that changes at death is that you become directly aware of the spiritual realm, while ceasing to be aware of this one.

The following articles review the extensive teachings of  the Writings on the death transition. Some of their data on the matter were made available to Swedenborg by his being allowed to experience the whole death process consciously, which most people do not.

What It Feels Like to Die

The Hour of Death (accompanying editorial)

An Understanding of Death includes a review of the teachings of the Writings about why people die at the particular time they do.

On Immortality  A major review  by a noted scholar of the Writings of the spiritual physics of the transition at death from space-time to spiritual reality, with other Big Picture questions addressed along the way.