posted on Oct, 12 2008 @ 11:54 PM
I honestly don't know where else to put this. Mods, if it's in the wrong category, please feel free to reposition it as appropriate thank you
Above ground burials -- that's the term for them, apparently
What they are are preserved corpses which are housed in 'buildings' (mausoleums).
They can be seen in many cemeteries. And now, according to a documentary I watched last week, they are being housed in multi-million dollar edifices
which are able to contain hundreds, even thousands of preserved corpses.
The documentary first showed family mausoleums in a nearby (and almost filled) large city cemetary. The camera panned across the elaborate bronze
doors, marble, colour photos under glass and religious statuettes of these substantial family 'houses of the dead'.
Then, the documentary explained that this large cemetery (one of, if not 'the' largest in the Southern Hemisphere) was now filled to overflowing.
In anticipation of this, apparently, the Roman Catholic church had constructed, at a cost of many millions of dollars, a massive and impressive
structure where people could .. for a sum .. inter their preserved loved-ones within the walls of the purpose-built structure.
The cost to inter one preserved corpse, including maintainance of the building, cleaning, air-conditioning, chapels, 'family rooms', gardens, etc.
was in the vicinity of $AU18,000. Some families placed down-payments on several adjoining spaces in the walls, so they and their children could be
buried there later, near other family members.
It's a beautiful building. The walls, halls and floors are all covered in peach coloured stone (marble?) . . in fact, it's similar to a five star
hotel, with its wide corridors, atriums, luxury appointments, soaring ceilings, etc.
But the purpose of this edifice is to house corpses .. dead people who've been chemically preserved.
Ashes to ashes ? Or chemically preserved ? Dust to dust ? Or waxen, fungus-sprouting preserved bodies kept in walls, inside magnificent rosewood
and mahogany coffins with brass or even gold-plated fittings and re-touched photos on the front ?
What are our bodies ? I regard them as 'clothing' we use to house our souls, personalities during our time on this planet/dimension.
They're flesh and blood 'clothing'. Oh sure, they're practical. They allow us to get around during our lifetimes. We use these flesh and blood
'clothes' to experience a great deal. And those experiences are of value to our souls and personalities, we're told.
But when our soul / life force quits our bodies .. what do our bodies become, other than our 'old clothes' so to speak. And when our soul/life
force quits our bodies, our bodies begin almost immediately to decompose. After a short while, that old 'clothing' is rotting like a piece of meat
.. which is what our bodies are.
What do we do with our old clothing when it's rotting, falling apart ? Yes, we dispose of it.
So why do some people refuse to do so ?
Why, instead, do they pay people to disembowel the corpses of their loved ones ? Their internal organs are removed, they're packed with cotton and
suffused with chemicals.
Why do some people refuse to relinquish their loved ones to Death ?
Why do they preserve corpses as if they were smoked hams ? And then put them in expensive marble 'houses' .. as if the corpses of their loved ones
had merely 'relocated' to houses in cemeteries .. as if their loved ones were still alive, or at least in a state of formaldahyde induced suspended
animation ?
They're dead !
Their spirit has quit those bodies.
Those bodies are just meat that's been prevented from rotting away.
Isn't artificially preserving corpses a denial of Death /
Isn't it at least 'willful' ?
Isn't it a refusal to accept Death ?
Isn't it questionable ?
Particularly when the Roman Catholic church itself is very much party to this refusal on the part of the living, to relinquish the dead to Nature ..
and to God ?
Isn't it grotesque ? Walls filled with fungus spouting 'human hams' in expensive boxes stuffed inside expensive wall ?
Isn't it a very public form of denial of death and of the power of death to claim us all ?
The families 'visit' their human hams. They are provided a key to the door in the wall which conceals boxes containing their preserved family
members. They open the door and kiss the boxes containing their human hams. They feel good, apparently, knowing their long dead grandparents are
still grotesquely preserved inside that box.
' We still have you. We still own you. We still possess you.' they appear to be saying to the human hams.
Is it just another form of consumerism .. ' Preserve your human hams here and never have to say goodbye .. keep your dead with you and never
have to learn how to submit to a higher power ... beat Death itself ' ?