Heaven: A Traveller’s Guide to the Undiscovered Country

Heaven: A Traveller’s Guide to the Undiscovered Country
Peter Stanford

A stimulating inquiry into one of the great religious mysteries – and what theologians, artists, writers, psychologists, priests, historians and people from all religions and walks of life have thought of heaven, where many of us still hope to go one day.The author writes: ‘While images of hell are firmly fixed in the human psyche, no parallel standard vision exists for heaven either within the Christian Church or more widely in the world’s various religious traditions…it has somehow been judged indecent or presumptuous to contemplate the better end of the post-mortem destination market. This book will break that taboo.’Heaven’s mysteriousness has leant it a discreet but powerful allure. There are two basic views: first, the afterlife will involve a vaguely defined spiritual peace – eternal solitude with God alone; the second allows for some overlap between heaven and earth, and hence relationships outside the central bond with God. Or is heaven religion’s biggest con-trick but one that is impossible to debunk?

HEAVEN

A TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

PETER STANFORD

DEDICATION (#ulink_c9803174-5d0f-5aed-9db1-aba486c96654)

To my mother, Mary Catherine Stanford (1921–1998), in the hope that the very best of what follows may now be true for her

and

To my mother-in-law, Emily Celine Cross (1934–2001), who inspired me with her trust in God to believe that it could be.

EPIGRAPH (#ulink_f74b6109-c9e8-5f97-b0f3-e12779e7baba)

‘The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns …’

SHAKESPEARE: Hamlet (Act III, Scene 1)

CONTENTS

Cover (#ub54031c6-4f88-5991-8bc9-e24c5732579e)

Title Page (#ue892e819-bd7e-5de5-bc73-5f5ed0883720)

Dedication (#u2e4e16d8-7326-5eb5-bfad-6a4145fd51d9)

Epigraph (#ue0e93f1c-67e3-563d-a505-50f8d5687a6d)

List of Illustrations (#u57831d46-b387-5a00-b404-abb84745ef6a)

Introduction (#u2e4e16d8-7326-5eb5-bfad-6a4145fd51d9)

PART ONE Knowledge of Angels (#u42302c63-7773-5c46-b9d6-c817e27bb95e)

1 Dust to Dust (#u443e9980-d0b4-5f84-ad10-65ed7023b90d)

Traveller’s Tales: 1 (#ulink_0b2af5b5-319d-5d94-b975-7975b842a3f2)

2 Come Back and Finish What You Started (#u32472c7e-8a66-5ebe-95a3-abd267ad49e6)

3 But Not Life as We Know it (#u8323e4e6-679c-5931-87fa-84756207980b)

4 The Compensation Culture (#u62849d33-dfbe-5c4c-9fc8-71b5bb163d81)

5 Fly Me to the Moon (#litres_trial_promo)

PART TWO And the Soul Goes Marching On (#litres_trial_promo)

6 Safe in My Garden (#litres_trial_promo)

Traveller’s Tales: 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Space Oddity (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Star-Man (#litres_trial_promo)

9 Tomorrow’s World (#litres_trial_promo)

10 If Paradise Was Half as Nice (#litres_trial_promo)

Traveller’s Tales: 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

11 A Delectable Death (#litres_trial_promo)

12 Reach for the Sky (#litres_trial_promo)

PART THREE Above Us, Only Sky (#litres_trial_promo)

13 The Borderlands (#litres_trial_promo)

Traveller’s Tales: 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

14 I Hear You Knocking (#litres_trial_promo)

15 Speaking Words of Wisdom? (#litres_trial_promo)

16 Man is What He Eats (#litres_trial_promo)

17 The Sound of Silence (#litres_trial_promo)

18 Through the Keyhole (#litres_trial_promo)

19 An Indian Summer (#litres_trial_promo)

20 A Village in Heaven (#litres_trial_promo)

Traveller’s Tales: 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

21 But I’ve Never Been to Me (#litres_trial_promo)

Source Notes (#litres_trial_promo)