Staring at the Sun

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalom ISBN 0787996688

I picked this up at the library because of my interest in spiritual growth/occult societies. That is, several occult societies purport to develop programs that favor personal growth, and the theme of this book seemed to be tangentially relevant to that.

While the book didnt give me exactly what I was looking for (rituals incorporating the facing of death for the purposes of affirming growth, for example), it did reaffirm some truths that I hold about the subject of death.

For example, it strongly reaffirms the idea of treating death as an ally (as in Carlos Castaneda's reports of Don Juan in (I think) "Tales of Power", in that having death as a constant companion will teach one to live better. This idea can also be found in the wonderful book "The book of Skulls" by Robert Silverberg, in which part of the immortality teachings of a monastic order hidden in the Sonoran desert consists of meditating on the presence of the skull beneathe the skin.

The book was a rather easy read, full of short patient anecdotes, and low on complexity, but in the end I tossed it about halfway through simply because it was quite repetitive. For me, however, it did fulfil one of my criteria for a useful book - it stimulated several trains of thought.

It also provided me with a quote to ponder, from "Zorba the Greek":

"Leave Death nothing but a burnt-out castle"

In other words, have a great party in life, and then youre not saving anything up that will only be given, in time, to Death.

It also reiterated ideas I have on the survival of the soul after death, giving it the name "rippling", which I hadnt come across before. While the idea is something I picked up years ago, he placed it in the context of using the idea to alleviate death fears. In my terms, the "soul" is the sum of our ideas, and "life after death" can be achieved by sending those ideas out to others (as I'm doing now, to you). Inasmuch as the ideas live on, so do we. Yalom is a secularist, and believes that this idea substitutes for the afterlife of the major religions, and in that, I basically agree.

This book would probably be useful for those with death anxiety, particularly atheists and agnostics who havent worked out the ideas for themselves yet.

Overall rating, 6/10 (readability/usefulness/thought-provoking)