In the premiere episode of the second season of Through the Wormhole, Morgan Freeman dives deep into this provocative question that has mystified humans since the beginning of time.Modern physics and neuroscience are venturing into this once hallowed ground, and radically changing our ideas of life after death.
Freeman serves as host to this polarized debate, where scientists and spiritualist attempt to define what is consciousness, while cutting edge quantum mechanics could provide the answer to what happens when we die.
It probably wasn’t long after ancient people developed a belief in the afterlife that they began trying to contact those who had crossed over to the other side.
Necromancy, the term for such communication with dead souls, comes from the ancient Greek word nekromanteia, but the practice dates back much further than the Greeks. Egyptian and Chaldean magicians attempted to conjure up the deceased and speak with them, and God specifically barred the ancient Hebrews from engaging in the practice in Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
In the epic poem The Odyssey, Homer describes his hero Odysseus casting spells according to the instructions from the sorceress Circe, in an effort to speak to the prophet Tiresias and gain assistance to return home
Roman neuromancers believed that it was easiest to reach the dead in caverns and near volcanoes, which they believed to be passageways to the underworld.