Week 4: Introduction to the Netherworld and the Afterlife
Channel: Oriental Beliefs MOOC
Date: 2018-02-28

https://www.edx.org/course/oriental-beliefs-between-reason-and-traditions
In this fourth week of our course, we are definitely reaching an awe-inspiring step in our journey of discovery of human beliefs. What stands there in front of us now is the gloomy world of death with all that this notion generally implies in terms of frightening images, symbols and metaphors. And it certainly won’t be long before we can confirm that the cultures of the past have indeed been very imaginative in producing these types of constructions. And yet, as Johannes den Heijer tells us in this introductory video, it has occurred to most of these cultures that death might be viewed not as the final point of everything, but rather as the starting point of "something new, something that we mortals cannot see, but in which we can believe". The belief in an afterlife is a common feature of most peoples, but it can take a multitude of forms.