Life After Death in America: An Historically Strong Belief

by Laura Strong, PhD

When it comes to spiritual matters, the United States is a nation of believers. “Almost two-thirds of Americans confidently affirm God’s existence” and ninety-five percent of the population “believe in God or what they term a ‘Higher Power’” (Gallup and Lindsay 23).  Not surprisingly, most Americans also believe in life after death. “Two in three adults expect to exist in some form following death. The overwhelming majority of these surmise this existence will be a positive experience, and most of them also employ the metaphor of a journey in their understanding of the afterlife” (21). How has America’s religious history shaped such a strong belief in the afterlife and how are these beliefs continuing to evolve today?

Slogans such as “One Nation Under God” and “In God We Trust,” which were added to the pledge of allegiance and national currency only after World War II, promote the idea that the United States is now and has always been a predominantly Christian country. While it is true that Christian-based religions have been hugely influential, and at times practiced by the majority of the population, we have been quietly evolving into what Harvard religious scholar Diana Eck refers to as “The World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation.” Today this diversity can be seen not only in the selection of our religions, but also in the choice of whether to follow any official “religion” at all, which is reflected in Robert Fuller’s book Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. Recent changes aside, this nation has always been home to a broad range of personal beliefs.

Even before there was a United States of America, the indigenous people of this continent maintained a rich array of spiritual traditions. Most of today’s Native Americans, along with a growing number of others, still practice variations of these original beliefs. While a meaningful exploration into Native American ideas about the afterlife is well beyond the scope of this forum, it is important to note that many of the original inhabitants were known to “believe in a future state, where the spirit exists, which they call the world of the spirits, where they enjoy different degrees of tranquility or comfort, agreeable to their life spent here” (Martin 60).

When foreigners finally did arrive, they were not all conservative English Puritans either. Amongst the settlers were “Spanish and French Catholics, British Anglicans and Quakers, Sephardic Jews and Dutch Reform Christians” (Eck 3).  Relatively few of these newcomers were even churchgoers. According to Religious Studies professor Robert Fuller, “In the late 1600s, less than one-third of all adults belonged to a church. This percentage actually declined over the next hundred years. By the time of the Revolutionary War only 15 percent belonged to any church” (13).  These early Americans also partook in a variety of magical and occult practices, including divination, astrology, fortunetelling, witchcraft, and folk medicine, which they did not see in opposition to their religious beliefs. “Many colonists also avidly collected works dealing with astrology, alchemy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, and a variety of decidedly heterodox mystical philosophies” (Fuller 15).

Even with the easy availability of occult knowledge and esoteric materials, it was still God and the Bible that offered comfort and assurance to many people when concerned with such practical matters as life and death. Early American church-goers practiced their Christian faiths because they “hoped to secure an afterlife, be reunited with loved ones, ward off supernatural influence, or align themselves with God’s providential powers” (Fuller 16). Yet, this comfortable intermingling of occult and religious beliefs began to deteriorate with the Witch Trials, the Great Awakening, and the coming of the Age of Reason.

During the same time, a number of other factors began to affect religious alliances in America. At the end of the Revolution, the three most popular religions were all derivatives of British Protestantism, including Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and the Episcopal Church. Yet, by the mid 1800s, the unique needs of migratory settlers and homesteaders, the conversion of many slaves, and the continuous flow of immigrants to the country shifted religious preferences towards the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Roman Catholic Church.

The majority of Protestants placed an emphasis on each individual’s “personal and unique relationship with God. Salvation is achieved by our own efforts alone and there is a tendency for deeds to count more than prayers. Prayers for the souls of the dead are heretical because the dead are in the hands of God and will be judged on their own merits alone” (Blanche and Parkes 139). More conservative strains of Protestantism, such as the Baptists, also stressed that “unbelief and wickedness will be punished by God, and those who deny Jesus Christ will be addressed to hell, a place of darkness and fire, where nobody can see God” (Lewis 45). In addition, Roman Catholics also believed in the intermediate stage of Purgatory, a place where those who are not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell can go to be purified before ascending to Paradise. Prayers from the living and the purchase of controversial “indulgences” were also thought to lessen the time a person spends in Purgatory.

While Christianity continued to prevail in early America, the Age of Enlightenment also brought with it new ideas about spirituality. During this period, English Freemasonry arrived in America and proclaimed such deist ideas as God is the “Grand Architect” of the Universe at the heart of most of the world’s religious traditions. Freemasons also supported the idea of a universal faith based on what they saw as the basic tenets of all religions, including “the belief in a creator God, the existence of an immortal soul, and the importance of expressing spiritual conviction through moral living and charity” (Fuller 21).

Enlightenment ideals also provided the inspiration for other Protestant variations, including the Unitarians and the Universalists. The Unitarians differed from their predecessors in that they saw the Bible as inspired by the word of God but not “the” word of God. Instead, they preferred to recognize it as a document created by “men” of a certain era and restricted by its written format. The Universalists on the other hand, differed in their reaction to the idea of salvation as something reserved for only a moral few. They preferred to preach something called “universal salvation,” a liberal approach that also fostered an experimental approach to living. “If we have salvation regardless of our specific beliefs or practices then we are free to follow our personal spiritual inclinations rather than conform to institutional norms” (Fuller 23).Modern Unitarian Universalists continue to hold a number of different opinions about the afterlife. “Most believe that heaven and hell are not places but are symbolic. Some believe heaven and hell are states of consciousness either in life or continuing after death; some believe in reincarnation; some believe that afterlife is nonexistent or not known or not important, as actions in life are all that matter” (Belief.net).

While the Age of Reason introduced many people to progressive ways of thinking, it certainly was not the end of Christian conservativism. Ongoing waves of “awakenings,” or spontaneous eruptions of revival meetings and proselytizing, continued to attract Protestant converts and increase their Bible-based convictions:

By the mid-nineteenth century, evangelicals had reduced the requirements for salvation to a simple formula: Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. It follows that those who don’t consciously embrace Jesus as their savior have no chance for salvation. Unbelievers are categorized as unrepentant sinners. Adherents to other religions are likewise cut off from the benefits of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. (Fuller 77)

The religious fervor of the era also set the stage for the development of a number of other new religions, including the Mormons, Adventists and Christian Scientists.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in the 1820s, after receiving two angelic visitations. Latter-Day Saints support the idea of the resurrection, which for them includes the regeneration of the earth and all those who have lived on it. “There will actually be two resurrections. The first will be limited to those who were righteous and just during their lives on earth,” along with “children who have died in their innocence and heathens who groped for spiritual light but died in ignorance.” The second and final resurrection will include everyone else who has ever lived, regardless of their virtue, who will then be subject to the final judgment. Since only those who have been baptized will be considered “worthy,” the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) also practice what is known as the “baptism of the dead.” According to this belief, “the dead as well as the living must be exposed to the gospel, as the Lord rules and judges both the quick and the dead. Realizing that many have lived and died without knowing the true gospel during the long periods of spiritual darkness, the LDS conducts baptism for the dead so they, too, can benefit from the saving ordinances of the kingdom” (Kastenbaum 251).

Adventism and its derivatives, such as the Seventh-Day Adventist church, are based on the teachings of a preacher named William Miller. He predicted that Christ would return to earth on March 21, 1843 and while his prediction proved false, his teachings still survive. “Adventists are distinguished from many other Christians by the doctrine of conditional immortality.” They believe that “only God has immortality, and mortals possess a nature inherently sinful and dying. There is no conscious entity that survives death, and the state after death is one of silence, inactivity, and complete unconsciousness.” Yet, they do believe in the “resurrection” at the time of the second coming of Christ when all the righteous will rise from their graves. “The immortalized righteous are then taken to heaven, the New Jerusalem, where they reign with Christ for a thousand years, judging the world and fallen angels” who have been left behind with the “wicked dead” to suffer on earth for a thousand years, after which time they will be destroyed by fire (Lewis 1).

Christian Science was founded by Mary Morse Eddy in 1879, who after a lifetime of chronic illnesses experienced the full recovery of her health following her complete acceptance of God. This led her to believe that illness and death are both unreal. “Adherents to this faith believe that death is the last enemy and that disease must be treated by prayer alone. […] They tend to ignore the fact of death, they hold no funeral or other ritual when it takes place and give no support to bereaved members of the church” (Blanche and Parkes 142-43).

For those looking to explore spirituality outside the structure of an organized religion, the 1800s and early 1900s also provided many new and exiting possibilities, including Swedenborgianism, Transcendentalism, Spiritualism, and Theosophy. Swedenborgianism emerged in America in the early 1800s, when translations of Emanuel Swedenborg’s work reached the country and quickly appealed to both the spiritual and scientific minded. Swedenborg, an acclaimed Swedish scientist who later became a mystic, showed signs of psychic ability in his childhood, but it was not until the age of 56 that he began having waking visions of the spirit world. With practice, he was able to converse with angels, spirits, and eventually God, who told him he had been selected to unveil the spiritual essence of the scriptures. Swedenborg wrote numerous books based on the information he received from angelic beings about the workings of the universe and introduced the idea that anyone could make contact with the “higher spiritual planes” through diligent studying and the cultivation of mystical states of awareness.

Swedenborg also confirmed the continued existence of the spirit after death. He claimed that after leaving the physical body, “souls transit into an intermediate, earthlike realm where they meet deceased friends and relatives. Following a period of self-examination, the dead are compelled to go to a particular afterlife world (a ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’). These realms were created by the mind during the deceased’s embodiment in the physical world” and pleasant or unpleasant have many similarities to life on earth. (Lewis 349). Swedenborg also reported that while one could never leave heaven or hell, it was possible to progress through various levels. Swedenborg’s ideas provided the inspiration for a number of other spiritual movements, including Transcendentalism.

The American variation of this movement began in Boston in 1836, when a group of Unitarian preachers founded the Transcendental Club to explore a more mystical, experience-based approach to Unitarian ideas. Two of the visionaries behind this movement were Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson was encouraged by Swedenborg’s idea that each individual could be receptive to the spiritual realms, but felt there was no need for angelic intervention. He instead preferred to look to nature for his mystical inspiration. The Transcendentalists also explored Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism and integrated many of their concepts into their philosophy, including the idea that: “In addition to the body of flesh there exists a spiritual body, which is variously named the oversoul, conscious, or inner light. It cannot be annihilated and continues to live after death, and, eventually, to reach its Source” (Lewis 356). In addition, Transcendentalists felt that sin is not what holds humans back, but spiritual ignorance, which could be rectified.

Spiritualism also emerged in America in the 1800s, when two sisters, Maggie and Kate Fox, revived the ancient practice of communicating with the dead. Spiritualism combined elements from a variety of different religions, but their primary focus was “scientifically” proving survival after death through direct communication of mediums. While Spiritualists chose not to subscribe to a number of Christian doctrines, including the last judgment and the resurrection of the physical body, they did believe in the continuation of the personality after death, which was considered to be reborn in a spiritual body. “At death the soul, which is composed of a sort of subtle matter, withdraws itself and remains near the earth plane for a period of time. After this, it advanced in knowledge and moral qualities and proceeds to a higher plane, until it eventually reaches the sphere of pure spirit” (Lewis 336).

Another movement that attempted to bridge the gap between science and religion was Theosophy, which combined Eastern philosophies, Spiritualist beliefs, and Gnostic-occult teachings. The original Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 in New York City by a Russian immigrant and medium Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steele Olcott. Joined in their desire to seek proof of the “Unseen Universe,” while avidly avoiding religious creed, dogma, and ritual, they intended to “make known the esoteric knowledge of the spiritual masters of the Near East, meaning the ancient world of Egypt and Mesopotamia. In these teachings, they believed, lay a universal truth that would unite the spirituality of the East and the science of the West” (Eck 181). As their interests expanded to include Hinduism and Buddhism, they decided to visit India, and returned to spread many Eastern ideas, such as the existence of the astral body, karma, and reincarnation. “According to Theosophy, a long series of reincarnations is required for the soul to achieve its supreme aim, which is rising to its original Source, and the duration of the period spent on each plane before another incarnation depends upon good and evil deeds done in the body” (Lewis 354).

While many people in the 1800s were introduced to new religious and spiritual ideas through such organizations, Asian immigrants were also bringing Eastern philosophies to America on their own. By the 1850s, Chinese workers were arriving in San Francisco with their Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian traditions and just a few decades later Japanese immigrants arrived with their own Buddhist variations. The first official visit from a Hindu came in 1893, when Swami Vivekananda came to attend the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago and delivered a public lecture in Boston at the Unitarian Universalist Church. By the 1900s, Muslims from Syria and Lebanon had also arrived to work in the shipyards of Massachusetts. However, the vast majority of the thirty-seven million immigrants who came to America between the 1840s and the 1920s were still from European nations, making Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faiths still the norm.

For the nearly two million Jews that arrived during this period, relocation introduced changes to their religious life as well. “The new migrants were ill equipped to integrate into the existing forms of Jewish worship, which were mostly in Reform synagogues with English-speaking rabbis. As a result they pioneered their own form of religious life, creating the Conservative movement in Judaism, which was designed to retain some elements of tradition and embrace modern ideas as well” (Harris). Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism tends to focus on “this” life instead of the afterlife. The concept of a resurrection, which is held by Orthodox Jews, is viewed more as an extension of this life, rather than a completely new one in a spiritual dimension. Since the present body is seen as the “seed” for the resurrected one, the proper burial of the body is considered extremely important. “Outside the Orthodox fold, ordinary believers often accept the notion of an immortal soul, not unlike the notion held by most Christians. And many secular and Reform Jews continue to view themselves as part of the traditions of Judaism, without adhering to any sort of afterlife belief” (Lewis 212).

A number of exclusionary laws and immigration acts, along with World War I and the Great Depression, slowed down the number of immigrants until the end of World War II, when allowances were made for Nazi refugees and those who were fleeing Communism. However, the biggest influx of new religious ideas came with the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, when quotas were ended and the door opened for people to enter the country from all over the world. “With them have come the religious traditions of the world–Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Zoroastrian, African, and Afro-Caribbean,” as well as numerous others (Eck 1).

The 1960s were also known as a time of great spiritual exploration. “Middle-class, white-bread definitions of who God was and of where God could be found” were being challenged. Instead of looking to the church, “Americans drew inspiration from the struggles of the poor, from the rich spiritual traditions of African Americans, from other world religions, from rock music and contemporary art, and from changing understandings of gender and sexuality” (Wuthnow 57). The assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the Vietnam War, also forced many Americans to face death in new ways. Yet this time, instead of just looking to the Bible for answers, there were numerous other alternatives to explore, including: Eastern religions, Native American teachings, African American beliefs, Transcendental Meditation, Mother Earth spirituality, and shamanism.

While there was some fundamentalist backlash against this eclectic approach to spirituality in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the groundwork had already been laid for the development of what Robert Fuller calls the “spiritual, but not religious” portion of the population. Today, “almost 40 percent of Americans have no connection with organized religion. Despite their unchurched status, however, most nonetheless claim to be strongly religious or spiritual on a personal level” (1). They also share similar beliefs, which include: 1) They “are concerned with the individual’s right, even duty, to establish his own criteria for belief,” instead of accepting religious doctrines. 2) They see spirituality as more of a “sensibility” than a way of “perceiving and responding to the world. Personal spirituality has to do with cultivating a mystical feel for God’s presence in the natural world.” 3) Most seekers feel that institutional religion has become stagnant and fails “to keep pace with humanity’s ongoing evolutionary growth.” 4) They “have a new understanding of the self and the self’s inner connection with God. In sharp contrast to the belief that humans are born into the condition of sin, they affirm the self’s infinite potentials.” 5) “And, finally, unchurched Americans are surprisingly interested in exploring what lies beyond our physical universe” (Fuller 75-76).

This increased separation between “spiritual” (private experience) and “religious” (public institutions, rituals, and doctrines) beliefs is also having an impact on the religious portion of the population. Just as in the early days of America, over half of all modern “church members privately subscribe to some form of belief pertaining to the occult” including: astrology, reincarnation, divination, and channeling (Fuller 9). Millions of Americans also find inspiration in numerous other “self-help” forums, such as books. Americans may not be very comfortable discussing the subject of death, yet they certainly are interested in reading about it. There has been a huge increase in the number of new and re-released books on the subject of death and afterlife. These include such well-known classics as Dr. Raymond Moody’s Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon–Survival of Bodily Death, Sogynal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ books, including: On Death & Dying, and On Life After Death. More recently, these have been joined by a number of others, including Gary Schwartz’s The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death, James Van Praagh’s Talking to Heaven: A Medium’s Message of Life After Death, and Sylvia Browne’s Life on the Other Side: A Psychic’s Tour of the Afterlife.

Time will tell if this is just another passing phase for Americans or if we are actually coming to a new understanding about death. In the meantime, doctors, nurses, hospice workers, and others are increasingly likely to encounter people with different cultural traditions, spiritual beliefs, and ideas about life after death. According to Robert Fuller, “We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die” (8).

When faced with such questions about life and death, many Americans will continue to rely on traditional religious faith for answers, yet alternatives are also needed for the growing number of people who are following their own spiritual path. Spiritual counselors are one solution that has gained acceptance in the hospice movement, and a growing number of shamanic practitioners, psychotherapists, and alternative healthcare providers are offering services to the dying. The Zen Hospice in San Francisco has even started a “midwives to the dying” program, and spiritual counselors, such as Samuel Oliver, are beginning to share their insight:

A person’s capacity to believe in a higher power that is beyond themselves is a vital part of the dying process. Here, a patient moves through merely what he or she has been taught to a more intimate and direct experience of what lies beyond concepts, labels, and formal religion. Regardless of what path people have taken to reach this point, for most every one, endings become a time for spiritual awareness. (Oliver).

All of this leads to the conclusion that while the search for answers continues there is still a great need to care for the soul at the time of death.

Works Cited

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Blanche, Harold Ter, and Colin Murray Parkes. "Christianity." Death and Bereavement across Cultures. Eds. Colin Murray Parkes, Pittu Laungani and Bill Young. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. vi, 261.

Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

Fuller, Robert C. Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. Oxford, New York: Oxford UP, 2001.

Gallup, George, and D. Michael Lindsay. Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Pub., 1999.

Harris, Jay M. "Jews." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2002. 24 Jan. 2003. http://encarta.msn.com.

Kastenbaum, Robert. "Survival Beliefs and Practices: Church of the Latter-Day Saints." Encyclopedia of Death. Eds. Robert Kastenbaum and Beatrice Kastenbaum. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1989. xix, 295.

Lewis, James R. The Death and Afterlife Book: The Encyclopedia of Death, near Death, and Life after Death. Detroit: Visible Ink, 2001.

Martin, Joel W. The Land Looks after Us: A History of Native American Religion. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Oliver, Samuel L. "Lessons from a Hospice Spiritual Counselor." Health and Age: Novartis Foundation for Gerontology. 2 July, 2001. 25 Jan. 2003. http://www.healthandage.com/PHome/gid2=1212!gm=15.

Wuthnow, Robert. After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. Berkeley: U of California P, 1998.