Day of the Dead

Most, perhaps all, cultures have moments of the year for
fostering links with those who have died. In the western
Christian world, the days of the dead are Halloween, All Saints
and All Souls Day. In this Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue, Rupert
Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask about the significance of this
time. They take a lead from the Pixar film, Coco, which conveys
this liminal zone with striking nuance and sophistication, and go
on to ask about the meaning of praying for the dead, as well as
relating to the legacy of ancestors in practices such as
Constellations. The links between the living and the dead, as
explored by writers including Dante to CS Lewis, are also
illuminating, as is psychedelic and near death experience
research, which encounters hellish, purgatorial and paradisal
states of mind. Ritual and wisdom can nurture healing, and a
deeper sense of the meaning of this life as a preparation for
more life, now and in the life to come.