In The Republic, Plato tells the story of Er, a soldier slain in battle, found amid the decaying corpses of other soldiers. After being hoisted upon a funeral pyre, Er’s body comes back to life, and he begins to tell a great tale: his soul journeyed to the other world, where he saw two openings in the earth, and judges directing a great confluence of humanity. The just were sent onward to heaven and the unjust to the lower way. The judges tell Er he is to be a messenger, and return to earth to relay all that he heard and saw.
The broad outline of Er’s tale – a soul leaves the body only to return with a message – is a narrative arc that pervades all ages, literatures and cultures. A rational response to the silence of death. Though endless in style and form, it was long unified by one inalterable truth: it can never be verified or thoroughly denounced.
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