Why do we do readings? What is it that we are trying to do? If at all, how are we helping?

It has taken me years to understand and formulate the basis of the practice of Labyrinth Reading but I have been getting hints recently, one of which came just the other day. In an online meeting with several people who are familiar with and/or had at some point experimented with the readings, the question was asked, “How can I actually help someone who is dead?”

Now this question is actually about 5 questions, (change which word is accented) and no answers were immediately forthcoming, but after some discussion a few minutes later one member of the group came up with this formulation:

“You have to look at your question to see the answer to it, for your question assumes much in it’s use of the word “dead.” If we reformulate the question to something like…”what can we do to help someone who is no longer living on this particular physical plane, or no longer possesses a physical body, then we are approaching a more accurate picture of reality.””

In the next several posts on this website we will be examining this question. I invite  your participation. We will look at: the stages of death, at what point can we say that someone is actually “dead,”  some scenarios imagined and resultant belief systems of different philosophies and religions surrounding this time. We might touch on physics, electrical fields, astral and causal bodies, and various during-life practices that may or may not affect one’s passage.

Below is a short mention of some Christian practices that will give us a nice start in examining this subject, the hours and days around the time of death.

Wikipedia tells us that: Among Church writers Tertullian († 230) is the first to mention prayers for the dead, not as a concession to natural sentiment, but as a duty: The widow who does not pray for her dead husband has as good as divorced him. This passage occurs in one of his later Montanist writings, dating from the beginning of the 3rd century. Subsequent writers similarly make incidental mention of the practice as prevalent, but not as unlawful or even disputed (until Arius challenged it towards the end of the 4th century). The most famous instance is Saint Augustine‘s prayer for his mother, Monica, at the end of the 9th book of his Confessions, written around 398.

And then we have the famous Ars Moriendi, the Art of Dying.

In the Christian world of medieval Europe, the Ars Moriendi, or “Art of Dying,” became hugely popular  around the time of the plague when death was rampant (14th and 15th centuries). The clergy had long used certain texts for their deathbed practices. When it became apparent that they would no longer be able to personally attend to the vast numbers of dying, their texts, their training manuals, were publicly issued. Soon they were widely used. These small texts generally consisted of a series of woodblock prints with instructions to be read by a family member or friend to the dying. The death bed was commonly believed to be surrounded by angels and demons. The instructions were clear – don’t avoid death, face it unafraid, defeat the evils of temptation which will certainly assail you, follow the way of Christ, and experience a good death.

The ars moriendi texts were widely read and produced by common people, for common people. Scholars have generally agreed that there are two ‘archetypal’ manuscripts from which the hundreds of variants that comprise the ars moriendi tradition in England are said to derive. The first of the two is a six-chapter work that explores the notion of an ‘artful death’ in great detail, whereas the second of the two is a briefer work that adapts and illustrates the longer treatise’s second chapter…this text nonetheless demonstrates the key point of the short version—namely, that maintaining stability in one’s faith in salvation in the face of death is the most important step to attaining salvation. ( http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=book_collecting_essays ) p.20

The Ars Moriendi teachings became incorporated into the modern Christian Liturgy. For example, the very popular 1855 English translation, Daily Hand-Book for Days of Rejoicing and of Sorrow drew directly from the Ars Moriendi Tradition.

The book contains four major sections: prayers and hymns for the healthy, the afflicted, the sick, and the dying. As the fourth section seeks “a calm, gentle, rational and blissful end,” it adapts core themes from the Ars Moriendi tradition: the dying must consider God’s judgment, forgive others and seek forgiveness, take leave of family and friends, commend themselves to God, and “resolve to die in Jesus Christ.” While demons no longer appear at the deathbed, the temptation to despair remains as the dying person’s sins present themselves to “frighten, condemn, and accuse.” The familiar remedy of contrition and forgiveness through Christ’s passion comforts the dying. Starck offers a rich compendium of “verses, texts and prayers” for bystanders to use in comforting the dying, and for the dying themselves. A confident, even joyful, approach to death dominates these prayers, as the dying person prays, “Lord Jesus, I die for thee, I live for thee, dead and living I am thine. Who dies thus, dies well.” (http://www.deathreference.com/A-Bi/Ars-Moriendi.html)