Just Finished Reading: Heaven – A Traveller’s Guide to the Undiscovered Country by Peter Stanford

Not my normal reading I know, but I do like to throw a little something different into the mix from time to time. After all the only difference between a rut and a grave is its depth…..

Prompted by a personal tragedy the author, a lapsed Catholic (IIRC), begins to ponder the question we all think about from time to time: What happens when we die or more accurately after we die? One of the possibilities is, of course, that we go to Heaven but what do we mean by Heaven? Not surprisingly, as the whole idea is a human construct, ideas of what Heaven is and even where it is have changed and evolved over time. As explorers came back from exotic lands with exotic tales the worldly paradise moved further and further away. Likewise as early astronomers explored the skies the idea of Heaven up above moved inexorably further and further away. Heaven had to become more spiritual and less physical as we gained deeper knowledge of the world and the universe around us.

Tracing the idea in Christian, Muslim and other religions the author lays out the cultural and historical evolution of Heaven and embeds it in its context without which it is difficult if not impossible to comprehend. It was an interesting and often fascinating ride full of surprising little nuggets of knowledge which sometimes made me exclaim in surprise – for example that early images of the divine had them wearing halo’s of different shapes instead of the expected, and now uniform, circles. In the past, depending on who you were, a halo could be square, triangular or a circle. It was only later that the circle became ‘standardised’. That was most certainly news to me! Overall this was an interesting and, at least to me, unusual read. Written neither from a religious nor sceptical/atheistic perspective the author neither hits you over the head with his piety whilst laughing at other beliefs nor does he poke fun or roll his eyes at all religions with their foolish ideas. Because of that I never turned off at any point nor could I see any cause why a person of reasonable faith would do so. Recommended therefore for both believers and non-believers alike.