When Our Loved Ones “Die”

I wrote this post many months ago, but never published it. Today I read the Ritual of Thanotos in preparation for leading it for our current schedule, and I remembered about this post and decided to publish it.

As I am writing so deeply from my Heart, I will blur the lines a bit and use a unisex name to give some semblance of privacy.

Jamie was my best friend growing up and a close relative. As small children, age 5-7, Jamie figured out mudras and taught them to me. A few years later, breath of fire. We tried pyrokinesis, telekinesis, telepathy, and other forms of the occult. As teens, one day Jamie came to me in excitement, having learned to astral project.

And then, that phone call where I learned of Jamie's death. I still hear it haunting my mind every so often: “Jamie’s dead” in a flat tone of voice on the other end of the line. That accompanying clutch in my chest, the as-yet uncontrollable tightening of my face.

The next year and a half were filled with misery, grief, and sadness. I woke in the mornings with no enthusiasm for my day, dreading the emptiness, the lack of connection with my best friend. I didn’t understand at the time but I now know I suffered from heavy depression. Bereavement has no care for overcoming any weakness. Inner strength must be found elsewhere, but I did not have it then.

And then one fated night, Zeus lead me to His Temple, our website. With the meditations and Yoga, I became alive again. My soul was growing its spark back.

I decided to make a Ouija board in hopes of communicating better with my Guardian Daemon. I sat down at it, and asked if anyone was there. The planchette moved to “Yes”, then proceeded to spell out Jamie's name.

I froze.

Then, adrenaline rushed through my system. Surely this must be some cruel trick of enemy entities, trying to mess with me when I was already down. I put away my board and did not touch it again for a long time.

Over the next years, I increased my psychic ability thanks to the meditations available in the ToZ. After some time, Jamie was right next to me, in astral spirit form. These visits continued every so often over the next few years. They brought comfort to my heart, and helped me understand that it was indeed Jamie on the other side of that Ouija board.

One day, a Zevist friend online through our forums who died also came to visit me, I could sense he was happy I remembered him.

On Jamie’s birthday nearly 10 years after their death, I received a piece of information about the birth town of a random person online; it was the same tiny village Jamie had been born in. The odds of that happening were impossible; Jamie’s birthday, and name of place of birth. I went into a trance and contacted one of our Gods: Jamie had been reincarnated, born again on that day, at that approximate moment.

Since then, we have met up again on the astral a few times. The Gods guided me there in my “sleep”. Jamie remembers me, remembers out connection; but through the process of incarnating again, things are a bit different, but will be similar again upon full Remembrance of the soul when Jamie spiritually advances.

More recently, an elderly relative died. He had suffered from dementia and many health ailments and frailness in his final years. Upon his death, he was transported to me briefly. He was again as a young man: strong, full of life and vigor.

Our loved ones live again, and one day, we will meet them again. Death is not final for us and our loved ones. As painful as it feels, as empty and lonely as it may seem, death is merely a temporary departure from our current life.

My heart always goes on.

The following poetry I remembered upon waking this morning and thinking of the above:

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,

Their lessons scarcely done;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,

We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us,

The dews drew quivering and chill;

For only gossamer, my gown,

My tippet – only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses' heads

Were toward eternity.

-Emily Dickinson, 1890

"To die will be an awfully big adventure."

-Peter Pan, final scene of the original play by J.M. Barrie, 1904

Hathor, Nebet Amentet, Lady of the West!

You stand at the threshold where the living pass into the eternal.

You receive the souls of the righteous beneath the sycamore tree

and offer them bread and water and shade.

No one who comes to you in truth is turned away.

Guard the souls of the Zevists who have departed.

Receive them with tenderness.

Guide them through the Western passages with your golden light.

And for those of us still walking in the land of the living,

grant us the knowledge that death is not an ending

but a passage into your arms.

-Hathor’s Ritual

Anubis, Great Lord, take care of our souls,

Take care of the family members of ours who have departed,

Guide them pleasantly and lovingly into the Afterlife,

Have Great mercy on them for their transgressions,

Reward them kindly for their good deeds,

O Great Inpu!

Walk beside them through the corridors of the Duat, and let them not walk alone.

-Anubis’s Ritual

Mother of Anubis,

Great Goddess of the Underworld,

Guide us aright both in Life and in Death,

Until our final step into Eternal Life and Resurrection.

-Nephthys’s Ritual

Renenutet, Renen-watat, She Who Stands at the Weighing of the Heart!

You were present when the soul of the dead was weighed upon the scales of Ma'at.

You witnessed every judgement. You knew every secret of the departed.

The dead speak to you, and you speak for the dead.

Open the channel between the Initiates and the blessed dead.

Let the ancestors of the faithful be reached.

Let the wisdom of those who have crossed be available to those who remain.

Let the knowledge that the dead carry back from the Hall of Judgement

flow to the living through your intercession.

-Renenutet’s Ritual

“In the Temple of Zeus, it is common knowledge that reincarnation is a factual reality.

The process of this is holy and sacred because the Gods instated these rules for humans to not perish but rather become infinite and eternal beings like them in the end.

We will reincarnate again and again until we complete the Magnum Opus, or the Great Work of the Gods.”

-Reincarnation Ethics

Further reading:

The Afterlife & Death

Necromancy & The Zevist Afterlife

Seances: Summoning, Contacting, and Communicating with Deceased Spirits

Death Is A Door