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There Is Life After Death
ALSO BY TOM HARPUR
Harpur’s Heaven and Hell
Always on Sunday
For Christ’s Sake
Life After Death
God Help Us
The Uncommon Touch
Would You Believe?
Prayer: The Hidden Fire
Finding the Still Point
The Pagan Christ
The Spirituality of Wine
Living Waters
Water into Wine
Born Again
TOM HARPUR
THERE IS
LIFE AFTER
DEATH
Thomas Allen Publishers
Toronto
Copyright © 2011 Tom Harpur
Revised from Life After Death © Tom Harpur 1991 (hardcover), 1992 (trade paperback), and 1996 (paperback)
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—without the prior written permission of the publisher, or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Harpur, Tom
There is life after death / Tom Harpur.
Rev. ed. of: Life after death.
ISBN 978-0-88762-740-8
1. Immortality. I. Title.
BL530.H37 2011 202'.3 C2010-907343-6
Editor: Patrick Crean
Cover and text design: Gordon Robertson
Cover image: Benjamin Rondel / First Light
Published by Thomas Allen Publishers,
a division of Thomas Allen & Son Limited,
390 Steelcase Road East,
Markham, Ontario L3R 1G2 Canada
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of
The Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which
last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.
We acknowledge the Government of Ontario through the
Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11
Printed and bound in Canada
Text printed on a 100% PCW recycled stock
To all those dear ones
whom we have “loved long
since and lost awhile”
Contents
4 Reincarnation
5 Dreams of Death and Dying
6 New Light from Science
PART 2—THE TESTIMONY OF RELIGION
7 Christianity:
8 Hell, Purgatory and End Times
9 Other World Faiths and Three Christian Sects:
10 Personal Reflections and Conclusions
Notes
Selected Bibliography
An Urgent Question
WHEN IN THE SPRING of 2004 The Pagan Christ was launched onto the Canadian scene and quickly became a major controversial bestseller, what initially captured most of the headlines was
