The Modern Book of the Dead

What happens to us after we die?It’s a question people have been asking since the dawn of time, and entire civilizations have been shaped by the ways in which they’ve answered it. All the world’s religions offer their own perspectives on what happens to us after death, and even in the modern world, where the existence of the soul is so often questioned, channeling and near-death experiences have kept those ancient questions alive all the same. So it is that in today’s largely secular society, thousands still continue to turn to ancient texts like the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead for consolation and inspiration. Like the world’s other great sacred works, these Books of the Dead offer wisdom, hope, and comfort. But because they’re so old, the material they present needs to be seen within a modern context in order to be truly useful. If “What happens to the soul at death?” remains perhaps the single most important question we can ask, then whatever answer we find should incorporate not just ancient wisdom, but also the fruits of modern experience. The Modern Book of the Dead does just that. Author Ptolemy Tompkins grew up in a family where questions about the shape and fate of the human soul were discussed on a daily basis, and he has explored those concepts in his critically acclaimed books The Divine Life of Animals and Paradise Fever. But as he explains in his boldly unconventional new book, it was only with his father’s death that he began to think about death in a genuinely concrete way—as something that really and truly will happen to each one of us. Part memoir, part history of ideas of the afterlife, and part road map to what might truly await each of us when we leave our bodies behind, The Modern Book of the Dead is a wise and courageous book that approaches the question of the afterlife in a refreshingly intimate manner. Weaving together philosophy, science, stories of near-death experiences, and theology, the author comes to one amazing and uplifting truth: that somehow, human consciousness lives on after death. Both inspiring and intimate, this is a modern meditation that allows the reader to think about death in an all-new way.

Ptolemy Tompkins has been an in-house editor at Guideposts and Angels on Earth magazines and is the author of four books. His writing has been featured in Beliefnet.com, Harper’s, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in New York.