Eschatology

Scope Note

Conception of the survival of the soul; career of the soul after death (e.g., mode of departure from the body, temporary sojourn near place of death, indefinite sojourn as a disembodied soul or ghost, journey to a realm of the dead); notions about ghosts, specters, apparitions, and phantoms (e.g., shape, substance, propensities); behavior of departed souls or ghosts (e.g., haunting of houses and cemeteries, visitations); spiritualistic beliefs; conception of a realm of the dead (e.g., place, mode of life, rewards and punishment); duration of afterlife; belief in immortality; ideas of transmigration and reincarnation; conception of the survival of the body (e.g., resurrection); etc.