Tuesday 3 January 2017

"Upstairs"

See Dead Men (Tell Tall Tales) and A Peculiar Question.

Blogging about a rich and complex text, Alan Moore's Jerusalem (London, 2016), while still reading it for the first time, I can make mistakes but will correct them as soon as I see them. See here.

Jerusalem presents both Eternalism and continuity of individual consciousness after physical death. Eternalism is presented as a serious proposition. Is survival?

Survival has been and remains a widespread belief although in many mutually incompatible forms. It can legitimately be presented in fiction, e.g., in a chapter of Moore's Voice Of The Fire fantastically narrated by a severed head or when Swamp Thing rescues Abbie from Hell. When survival is a serious proposition - e.g., I meditate with Buddhists and have Muslim and Wiccan neighbors and Christian and Spiritualist acquaintances - I am critically skeptical and ask for evidence.

Michael Moorcock says that "Jerusalem buzzes with life..." (back cover):

several births;
six generations of a Northampton family;
a large extended family crammed into a small terrace house;
social life in the local pubs;
extended reflections on memories and experience.

We can add "and death": deaths and ghosts.

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