Crossroads and after death

Ghost at crossroad

Today I finnaly understood the meaning of crossroads whether in mysticism or just plain witchcraft. I recall reading about rites concerning the deceased being performed in crossroads, because that's where spirits are usually found. Why? Obviously the physical crossroad is of no use to the spirit of a recent deceased person, but the meaning of crossroad is important precisely because that kind of spirit finds itself in a sort of crossroad. "Where do I go from here?" Thus the rites to communicate with them are performed on crossroads, because non-physically, that's where they find themselves. Symbolism is everything.1

 

But why should it be a crossroad? Because like attracts like:

a) if there's ignorance of the life after death, the ghost will seek what it knows - the physical habits, and will remain close to this plane.

b) if there's knowledge of life after death, it will go after a spiritual life, and will distance itself from here.

 

Also there is the possibility that 'hell' and the 'underworld' are not under this plane, as usually believed, but next to, or side by side with 'lighter' astral planes. Why? Because the rule is from the material to the non-material, and these darker planes are non-material too. In a way, we are all in the underworld, Hades, since our vital body penetrates our physical body through the chakras, meridians, and according to ancient traditions, blood - it is inside matter, it is 'under'.

 

This was probably one of the meanings of the underworld, because even in the Myth of Er, the punishments were effected on this world through reincarnation, not on the other world. The other meaning being the non-material places where the soul finds itself. If 'heavy', the soul is close to this plane, almost touching it as in a crossroad, and if 'dark', in places devoid of light, which are still non-material.

 

I know my view is influenced by Theosophy, but this only makes sense, from logic, intuition, and the clues that several traditions left us.

 

So it would be something like this:

 

Higher Astral Plane (summerland)

Medium Astral Plane (spring/autumn)

Lower Astral Plane (winterland - lighter side/darker side)

Material Plane: Subtler Material Plane (etheric)2, the actual 'crossroad'

Objective Material Plane

 

There is also the analogy of day/night applied in metaphysics, shamanism and folklore belief. The recent deceased person WILL find itself on a crossroad, it will be confusing, i.e., dark, night, the etheric side of the material plane. In search of light, the spirit would move on and see light coming in, as in the coming of dawn. But if it stays close the material, it is what the spirits knows, so it's also 'day', and further away it's the unknwon, 'night'. But the astral plane entails a new dawn, and a new day for the spirit - logically so - since a new life is beginning to take shape, the spiritual life without a physical body.

 

The crossroad also reminds me of some concepts like the hungry ghost from hinduism, which are said to roam in the wild, or attach to people, thus very much on this material plane, actually. There is the energetic side of the material world anyway. These are the famous vampires. Asian drawings, tibetan, chinese and japanese, depict them with red hair and skin - a condition resulting from famine - and big bellies, to illustrate their state of deprivation, because they are still in this world, but they can´t satisfy their material needs - they don´t have a body.(3)

 

But one thing is even more disturbing: even though hungry ghosts apparently don't consume anything physically, there is the other side of it. As is known in yogic traditions, prana is released from the deceased's body during their cremations, and 'hangs around', the reason why many aghori yogis hang around cremation sites to make use of that vital energy. But if the person is dead, why does it still have prana, vital energy? It seems that prana doesn't exit the body altogether at once. And if the belief is true that hungry ghosts gather around places of human excrements, it may be very well that even human excrement stiill holds an amount of prana which draws them. It is the same concept with offerings to the spirits and elementals, they are drawn to the vital energy imparted on them by humans - and everything has prana anyway.(4)

 

So, the dark side is that indeed perhaps literal physical filthy places with remains and waste should be avoided, since they are potentially infected with hungry ghosts.

 

On the other side, it can be an oportunity to raise those spirits. There is a concept in Kabbalah called the raising of the fallen sparks. Of course a kabbalist wouldn't go so far as to deal with lost souls, unless they are attached to living people, since they are more concerned with the living, and places of doom are not part of their agenda, but still there is potential. If a spirit is drawn to desolate places because it contains residue of prana, it can be drawn also to people with whom they identify (by their physical habits, like smoking, drinking, cursing, hatred, envy, etc), and a living person has much more prana. This is the concept of vampirism of course. The attached souls, the dibbuks, the encostos. In this there is also potential to raise the fallen sparks, because if a person has an addiction, e.g., which attracts a ghost, it's an oportunity to elevate both the living and the dead.

Notes:

1 - The supervisor of crossroads is the goddess of the crossroads herself, Hekate, the threefold goddess, Hekate Triodia, three-ways, identical to the roman Diana Trivia. As a moon goddess, due to her proximity to the earth, she supervises souls coming, souls embodied, and souls going, thus, as Servius Honoratus wrote: 

"Luminous Hecate presided over the Avernus. Hecate is the goddess of the three powers: for she is Luna, Diana, and Proserpina. but he could not say only Proserpina, because of the groves which are Diana's, and also not just Diana, because he says 'Avernis' ('of Avernus', the underworld, the domain of Proserpina): whence he chose a name in which both consisted. Whence Lucanus says of Proserpina, 'Hecate is the last part of us.'",

or, as the Wikipedia page on Diana puts it, "Luna in heaven, Diana, on Earth, Proserpina in Hell."

2 - Here I say 'etheric' according to theosophical understanding, to refer to the invisible part of the material realm. In neoplatonism though, the etheric refers to the fitth element, that which pertains to the astral realm, whereas the four elements pertain to the earth sphere according to Porphyry: fire (top of the atmosphere), air (atmosphere), water (seas, rivers), earth (the ground), all these populated by their corresponding daimons or elementals, supervised by or included each in their corresponding god. Fire is Dionysus, Air is Silenus or Silvanus, Water is Okeanos, Earth is Demeter, but Hades is usually referred to the whole of the earth sphere, and Pluto to the supervising power over souls that is present in the underworld (thus he is said to be with Persephone). Since the supervising entity or inspective guardian is, according to Proclus, the lowest level of any realm, and both a domain, and a deity, i.e., Tartarus, because of supervising souls coming from high and returning from low, it is depicted as a dog, like the dog of Artemis, the Cerberus of Hades, and his aidos kynee, dog-cap, because what better image is for the inspective guardian than the dog, the animal who surveys everything in its whereabouts with its scent?

3 - "For, since a depraved and irrational soul, when it leaves the body, is still compelled to adhere to it, since the souls also of those men who die by violence, are detained about the body; this circumstance should prevent a man from forcibly expelling his soul from the body. The violent slaughter, therefore, of animals, compels souls to be delighted with the bodies which they have left, but the soul is by no means prevented from being there, where it is attracted by a kindred nature; whence many souls are seen to lament, and some remain about the bodies that are unburied; which souls are improperly used by enchanters, as subservient to their designs, being compelled by them to occupy the body, or a part of the body, which they have left. Since, therefore, these things were well known to theologists, and they also perceived the nature of a depraved soul, and its alliance to the bodies from which it was divulsed, and the pleasure which it received from a union with them, they very properly avoided animal food, in order that they might not be disturbed by alien souls, violently separated from the body and impure, and which are attracted to things of a kindred nature, and likewise that they might not be impeded by the presence of evil daemons, in approaching alone [or without being burdened with things of a foreign nature] to the highest God." Porphyry, On abstinence from animal food, Book 2, 47

4 - "For they (material daimons) are full of every kind of imagination, and are sufficiently qualified to deceive, through effects of a prodigious nature; and through these, unhappy men procure philtres, and amatory allurements. For all intemperance, and hope of possessing wealth and renown, and especially deception, exist through these, since falsehood is allied to these malevolent beings; for they wish to he considered as Gods, and the power which presides over them is ambitious to appear to be the greatest God. These are they that rejoice in libations, and the savour of sacrifices, through which their pneumatic vehicle is fattened; for this vehicle lives through vapours and exhalations, and the life of it is various through various exhalations. It is likewise corroborated by the savour of blood and flesh." Porphyry, On Abstinence from animal food, Book 2, 42