Socrates and the Afterlife
The "Upper Earth" in PHAEDO
Socrates’Describes the Superior “Upper Earth” Circa 386 BCE
It is certainly interesting to read Socrates’ beliefs regarding what awaited the soul of the philosopher after death, as enunciated in Plato’s Phaedo. He refers to the “upper earth which is under the heaven,” and in its description it sounds eerily similar to the various pleasant astral “summerland” and even Devachan-type scenarios, those elevated earth-like vistas people theoretically venture through post-mortem.
This “upper earth” consists of colours like earth’s only far brighter and clearer—there are also more colours than found in the regular earthly realm. (Now where have we heard this before? 😉)
And in this fair region everything that grows—trees, and flowers, and fruits—are in a like degree fairer than any here; and there are hills, having stones in them in a like degree smoother, and more transparent, and fairer in colour than our highly valued emeralds…and other gems…[F]or there all the stones are like our precious stones, and fairer still.
From Socrates’ description, the various gemstones, regular stones, and gold and silver all sound as if they are self-luminous (radiating an inner light), exactly as we would expect in the pleasant astral and mental mindscapes. The whole of the spectacle is a glorious sight indeed, at least according to the tale he relays (which is not of his own making).
But Socrates isn’t done yet:
And there are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent: in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them what the air is to us.
People living in the air? Floating islands? Absurd? Hollywood nonsense? Not in the astral or mental afterlife realms. The more etherealised beings here still experience their own relative physicality, just of a less dense or heavy type, such that the “air” is as palpable to them as the ocean is to us here, as Socrates explains.
He continues, informing his audience how there is no disease and life spans are far longer. Inhabitants still have sensory perception though “in far greater perfection.” They also, “have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers, and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they truly are…”
Reading Socrates’ description of how these exalted beings of “upper earth” could communicate with their gods may remind some of you of seer Charles Leadbeater’s description of certain sub-planes of the mental plane/Devachanic realm. (More on this in Book 2 - get on the wait list to be notified ⬅)
For our purposes I’m not overly interested in spending months and years trying to figure out ways to shoehorn every datapoint into a pre-existing schema such as that expounded by, say, esoteric Buddhism or Brahmanism (and in turn by Theosophy, which is largely informed by the former two schools).
[Note: Sinnett, in chapter 1 of Esoteric Buddhism, informs us (via his initiated tutors) that long before Buddha, Brahmin philosophy “embodied the identical doctrine which may now be described as Esoteric Buddhism.”]
I would rather let the fairly obvious correspondences speak for themselves and accept the fact that, no matter how valiantly we might try to apprehend a still clearer view of the endless afterlife virtualscapes, we are simply not in a position to banish all mystery from our inquiry. We can, however, state with confidence that consciousness persists after physical death and it seems to prefer—at least initially, and speaking very generally—to inhabit a similitude of the world just quit.
Regarding those deeply misguided or irredeemably criminal souls who, according to the Greek tradition, supposedly found themselves in Tartarus as a result of the sentences inflicted by their (inner) judges, we know today—from massive amounts of data—that it is we who judge ourselves in truth, and we who inflict our own suffering upon ourselves in our own unconsciously projected “virtual Tartaruses.”
Such is our “fate” when we are ultimately the projectors of our own virtual reality simulations called “life” (or the “afterlife”).
Socrates, as various other sources have, spoke of those (few) souls who will never be redeemed (never leave “Tartarus” in this case) but will be lost forever through their spiritual delinquency. This, in truth, is predicated on a very deep-seated forgetting of their true nature (avidya, to use a Sanskrit term). I dig into that notion more deeply in TGI 2.
In contrast, those souls of preeminent holiness dwell “in the purer earth,” while those of this latter group who have “duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer still,” which were too difficult for him to describe. This, of course, sounds remarkably like Socrates is referring to the formless/arupic existence of the upper mental and causal worlds which various adepts and students of the occult have found exceedingly difficult to describe using such clunky and blunt tools as words.
In esoteric circles, the so-called astral and mental planes of the afterlife are known collectively as the “world of effects,” which corresponds to the “hereafter” or heaven of ordinary theology, as A.P. Sinnett confirms in Esoteric Buddhism.
However, our fundamentalist friends may be horrified to learn that there is a separate and unique thought-form “heaven” for every religious group, and it is, at best, a way station in the grand scheme of things.
Robert Monroe and The Monroe Institute refer to these as Belief System Territories, or, as I prefer, B.S. Territories.
When Mellen-Thomas Benedict died temporarily from “terminal” cancer in 1982 and had his NDE, he was taken for a tour through various “heavens”, finding the Christian ones to be “boring” and “childlike.”
It seems like Socrates—or whoever relayed the “tale” about the “upper earth” to him—was, in a somewhat primitive respect, on the right track.
The thoughts in this brief piece surely need massive amounts of contextualising, I agree, and that’s the point of my research in Book 2: to produce possibly the most unique, comprehensive, multi-disciplinary and diverse investigation into the afterlife that has been done in a single book (well, tome).
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What I have found fascinating is the fact that NDE testimonies & dream accounts & DMT Trip Reports all have a very similar quality about them -- as if they are all taking place in the same part of the brain.
I've been thinking about and researching death and the afterlife since the age of 6. Not one description about the afterlife has ever impressed me, although what Socrates said resonates to some extent, but not fully.
When I experienced what I called cosmic consciousness via 33 milligrams of powdered MDMA up the nose, I was left with the impression that the Truths about this mortal life and the afterlife must measure up to the criteria of being the epitome of Simplicity, Fearlessness, and Good News for all living creatures.
For quite some time I was comfy with my conclusion that at our Home we are formless and so is our Home -- that it did NOT resemble this mortal world. But lately I've been wondering if this mortal world is simply The Opposite World -- our Home looks similar to this mortal world but there is NO FEAR whatsoever -- no impeding death, no prices to pay, no rules, no laws, no limits, no restrictions, no permissions necessary, no requirements, no obligations, no responsibilities, no threats, no worries, no disappointments, nothing to protect or defend....no aggression, no hostility, no politics, no governments, no judgments, no self judgments...a world quite the opposite of this mortal world.
Given that we are eternal conscious entities, it seems unlikely that we are, spiritually speaking, formed like mortal creatures. I doubt I have always looked human and I don't expect the spirits who played the roles of my cats & dogs to look like cats & dogs at Home. All spirits are eternal conscious entities -- they are Perfect Eternal Conscious Energy and each one is perfectly equal & equally perfect to each other. Not one is older or younger, dumber or smarter than any other. They are each thinking-feeling entities who are aware they are thinking-feeling entities.
And what's an eternal conscious entity to do with itself throughout the middle of forever? Well it sure looks like we predetermined and scripted these mortal lives as an escape & vacation from our blissful Home of never-changing sanity & sobriety. Being at Home that never changes gets boring sometimes especially when you know you have the option to forget it for awhile, to escape it and totally forget that it even exists.
This mortal life, for the most part, by my experience and observation, has been a prison sentence nightmare for all mortal creatures. And when I get Home, I am fairly confident I will say, Isn't it nice to be Home again?