title: Subaru Impreza

text: Japan models went on sale on 20 December 2011. a choice of four-door sedan (as Impreza G4) or five-door hatchback body (as Impreza Sport), 1.6-liter DOHC FB16 (1.6i, 1.6i-L) or 2.0-liter DOHC FB20 (2.0i, 2.0i EyeSight, 2.0i-S, 2.0i-S EyeSight), five-speed manual or "Lineartronic" continuously variable transmission (CVT). The smaller 1.6-liter engine is offered in Japan so as to reduce the annual Japanese road tax obligation.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Remaining nearly the same size as the previous series, the new model is lighter and more fuel efficient, plus is claimed to be better packaged. The 2012 Impreza received longer wheelbase that provides more interior room for passengers. The Impreza hatchback rear head-and-legroom is impressive; two adults can ride in the back of the Impreza with comfort. Whereas, in the hatchback, the rear 65/35 split seatbacks fold down, offering 52.4 cu. ft. of cargo space.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Higher quality materials are fitted throughout the interior, and due to its larger exterior dimensions as defined by Japanese government regulations, the Impreza is an upmarket product in Japan. It is now almost exactly the same dimensions as the first and second Subaru Legacy (1990–1999). The 2015–2016 models had an updated grille, bumper, side mirrors and increased sound deadening.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The third generation high-performance WRX variants continued in production until new versions were released in early 2014. In 2014, Subaru decided to move away from marketing the WRX and WRX STI under the Impreza name. The WRX and WRX STI are performance trims of the Impreza with higher output engines, firmer suspension, larger brakes, slightly resculpted body panels, lowered ride height and larger intakes. Subaru had promised to completely move the WRX and STi off the Impreza chassis and body to create a standalone model, but they instead chose to simply alter the Impreza's body, and chassis and remove the Impreza name. Subaru decided to not produce a WRX or WRX STi wagon as had been previously offered. The wagon made up approximately 50 percent of US WRX and WRX STI sales.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: In addition to the regular models, Subaru also offered the Impreza Sport Hatchback in the Premium and Limited trim levels. The so-called American Impreza Sport (not to be confused with the JDM regular hatchback with the same name) has the rugged style with side spoilers, roof rack, different style alloys, and availability of two-tone colors. However it also has the normal ground clearance, unlike the new XV. For the Premium model grade, buyers can choose 5 speed manual or Lineartronic CVT, while the Limited is only available with CVT.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: EyeSight consists of two cameras with one on each side of the interior rear view mirror, that use human like stereoscopic vision to judge distances and generally keep tabs on the driver. The system can help maintain a safe distance on the highway, a lane departure warning system, a wake up call when traffic lights change, and even keeps an eye out for pedestrians. Autonomous cruise control system has been integrated into the EyeSight feature as a driver safety aid. This feature is initially available only in Japan, but was expanded to US models of other vehicles, beginning with 2013 Legacy and Outback models.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: In 2013, the Impreza won the IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award. In 2014, the car won the National Business Review Sports Car of the year award in New Zealand.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Like its predecessor, the fourth generation Impreza is also available with crossover-styled model. However, instead of the third generation where it was badged the Impreza XV or the Outback Sport, it is now called the Subaru XV. In North America, it was named the Subaru XV Crosstrek until 2015 when it was changed to Subaru Crosstrek. In Japan, it remained to be called the Subaru Impreza XV. This model debuted at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. It went on sale in Japan in September 2012 and in the United States during the 2012 New York International Auto Show. It made its Southeast Asian debut in 2012 Indonesia International Motor Show.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: For the VA series WRX released in 2014 for the 2015 model year, Subaru took a different approach with the model when compared to past generations. This time, the Impreza name was dropped in all markets in which the new model is named simply as the WRX, as had been the case in North America with the previous model, while in Japan it was sold as the WRX S4. The body design also took a stronger departure from the Impreza donor model than in the past. The general WRX profile/silhouette was carried over from the Impreza, as were the front doors, trunk lid, and interior. However, the entire front end bodywork plus the rear quarter panels were unique to the WRX. The rear doors received a subtle reskin with an upwards kink and revised character line, but retained an otherwise identical shape.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Subaru unveiled the fifth generation 2017 model year Impreza sedan and hatchback at the New York International Auto Show in March 2016. The fifth generation is the first model based on the new Subaru Global Platform, which will be the base for all future Subaru models.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Japanese domestic market models went on sale on 13 October 2016 at Subaru dealerships, while the new Impreza entered the core North American and Australian markets for the company in December 2016. In Japan, the new Impreza outsold its monthly sales target of 2,500 units by more than fourfold, with 11,050 orders. According to Subaru, demand from customers in the Japanese domestic market switching from other brands was notable, representing 51% of all orders, indicating that the Impreza was attracting a wider range of customers there. North American models are produced for the first time at Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. in Lafayette, Indiana, while the Crosstrek continues to be produced in Japan.<ref name="SIA Impreza production 11/2016 fhi.co.jp"></ref> Models for markets outside of North America continue to be produced in Japan. SIA also produces the North American-market Subaru Outback and Subaru Legacy, and will produce the three-row Ascent crossover previewed by the Viziv 7 concept from the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show in 2018.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The new Subaru Global Platform underpins both sedan and hatch versions of the Impreza. This new platform has an increased rigidity of 70% to 100% over the outgoing model and a lower centre of gravity by 5 mm (0.2 inches). 95% of this new Impreza is all-new compared to the fourth generation. The suspension has been set up for better comfort, while Active Torque Vectoring in some models improves dynamics. The car is longer and wider than the old one, with a longer wheelbase. Much of the increase in wheelbase was used to improve front and rear-seat legroom; in the United States, Subaru now boasts that the new Impreza has category-leading passenger room.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Powering the new Subaru Impreza is a revised version of the FB20 2.0 litre direct-injection boxer-four. This engine is sold in all markets except Europe, where it came available in its hybrid variant ("e-Boxer") in March 2020. A 1.6 litre engine continues to be available in Europe and in the Japanese domestic market. With around 80% of parts revamped, the engine produces 156 hp, eight more than before. Subaru's Lineartronic CVT was also improved with enhanced ratio coverage, and a 5-speed manual transmission continues to be available. The changes made to the Impreza's 2.0L engine are supposed to offer slightly improved acceleration and flexibility of power delivery. Although the engine is 156 hp, some auto reviewers feel that the new Impreza continues to fall short in power when compared to competitors from other brands. Some competing compact sedans such as the Volkswagen Jetta, Honda Civic, and Hyundai Elantra are sold with optional engines offering 200 hp or more. Subaru has rated the new Impreza in the US market (with 2.0L engine) an EPA-estimated city / highway. As with the previous generation Impreza, Subaru's Symmetrical AWD is standard in all markets except Japan, where it is optional.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Subaru's EyeSight suite of active safety functions is available, as is a new infotainment system with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. In the North American and Australian market models, CarPlay and Android Auto are standard on all trims. The North American model Impreza Limited is also offered with a power driver's seat for the first time in the model's history. Although not present in the North American model, the new Impreza is also the first car ever produced by a Japanese brand to include a pedestrian protection airbag as standard. The new Impreza earned a record high safety score under the Japan New Car Assessment Program and earned top safety marks from the Euro NCAP in 2017.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: At the car's introduction in 2016, it won the Car of the Year Japan Award. This win gives Subaru only its second ever COTY trophy and its first victory since the Legacy B4 won 13 years ago.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The new Subaru XV (or Crosstrek for the North American market) was unveiled at the Geneva International Motor Show in March 2017. Like the Impreza, the XV/Crosstrek has moved to the Subaru Global Platform. Minimum ground clearance is and like its predecessor, matte black cladding has been added to each side to add a "rugged flavor", creating "a dynamic form expressing all the enjoyment to be expected from a crossover vehicle".


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The sixth generation Impreza was revealed on November 17, 2022 at the 2022 LA Auto Show being based on the outgoing model. The sedan was discontinued, along with the manual transmission, leaving the hatchback and the Lineartronic CVT as the only options. The Impreza became more upmarket with standard Subaru EyeSight and automatic emergency braking. The dual-pinion steering rack from the WRX was also added. For the first time since 2005, Subaru has revived the 2.5 RS model which makes and of torque. The Sport model will have a 2.0L engine which makes and of torque.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Various models of the Impreza have been used by police forces in Japan, Estonia, Latvia, Australia, France, Singapore and in the UK, where they are featured extensively on the TV documentary series "Police Interceptors".


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The Town of Itasca, Illinois uses a Subaru WRX STI for their Police Force, but only for Public Outings and Special PR events.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The Impreza chassis has been more successful in rallying than Subaru's previous contenders. Prior to the introduction of the Impreza into World Rally Championship racing in 1993, the Subaru World Rally Team had fielded its larger mid-size Legacy. However, with the rest of the rally competition increasingly shifting towards smaller and lighter chassis, Subaru introduced the smaller Impreza, immediately achieving a podium on its debut on the 1993 1000 Lakes Rally. To jumpstart its early rally efforts, and to develop the Impreza into a competitive rally car, Subaru teamed up with preparatory firm and British motorsports company Prodrive, in 1989.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Immediately following the first overall WRC event win for both the fledgling Subaru team and its young driver, the late Colin McRae aboard a Group A Legacy on the 1993 Rally New Zealand, the Scotsman's teammate and childhood idol, 1981 World Rally Champion, Ari Vatanen of Finland, went on to finish second in the debut rally of the first ever factory Impreza. New recruit for the following season, 1990 and 1992 World Champion, Carlos Sainz brought the Impreza its inaugural victory on the 1994 Acropolis Rally.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The Impreza brought Subaru three consecutive WRC constructors' titles (1995–1997, the latter season the first for the newly introduced World Rally Car class) and a driver's championship for McRae in 1995, the late Richard Burns in 2001, and the Norwegian, Petter Solberg in 2003.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Another evolution of the Impreza WRC made its debut in the 2007 Corona Rally Mexico. Unfortunately, the team had several major problems with reliability as the car experienced mechanical difficulties in almost every rally from its first.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Subaru debuted an Impreza WRC in hatchback form for the first time from the 2008 Acropolis Rally onwards, on which event Solberg scored a second-place finish. On 16 December 2008 Subaru announced that it would withdraw from the World Rally Championship due to economic problems. The Impreza holds the record for the most WRC event wins, tied with the Lancia Delta.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: However, the Subaru Rally Team USA is still competing in the Rally America National Championship. Also, there are still several teams using Subaru models in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. Starting in 2006, Subaru of America (SOA), as the official distributor of Subaru vehicles in the United States, participates in the Subaru Road Racing Team (SRRT) with a Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT Spec-B in the Grand-Am Street Tuner class. In 2010, SRRT campaigns a Subaru Impreza WRX STI in the Grand Sport class. In 2011, SRRT switched from the hatchback to a 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STI sedan.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Possum Bourne won the Silverstone Race to the Sky in 2001. David Higgins won the Mount Washington Hillclimb Auto Race in 2011 and 2014.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: From 2005 to 2008, the Cusco team entered into the Super GT championship using an Impreza, being the only team to do so using a 4WD car.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Nobushige Kumakubo won the 2006 D1 Grand Prix season using a rear-wheel drive Impreza GDB. Stephan Verdier was Formula D's Most Improved Driver of 2008, with Eric O'Sullivan winning Rookie of the Year in 2009.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: Compass 360 Racing used an Impreza in the Canadian Touring Car Championship in 2010, with Roger Ledoux winning the title for Lachute Performance in 2014 and 2015. Other teams entering the GTS category of the 2014 Pirelli World Challenge season, the 1998 Japanese Touring Car Championship and the 2016 TCR International Series.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: In April 2010, a modified third generation WRX STI driven by Tommi Mäkinen set a lap time of 7:55 on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, which is a record for a 4-door car. The Subaru Road Racing Team debuted the Impreza WRX STI hatchback and switched to Impreza WRX STI sedan in 2011 participated to the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: In 2011, Mark Higgins used a stock Impreza to set a lap record at the Isle of Man TT course. In 2016, Higgins again broke the record in a modified WRX STI.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: In May 2012, Subaru Rally Team USA announced that a new rallycross team, Subaru Puma Rallycross Team USA will participate in the 2012 Global RallyCross Championship season with Dave Mirra, Bucky Lasek, and Sverre Isachsen. They also competed in the 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The 2014 Alcan Winter Rally was won by a Subaru Impreza winning first in its class and taking first place in the overall race, continuing the winning tradition begun with the Legacy in 1990.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The car has also been used in endurance racing, having had class wins at the 2011 24 Hours of Nürburgring, the 1995 Eastern Creek 12 Hour, and the Bathurst 12 Hour in 1994 and 2007 and 2009. Hitoshi Goto won the 2017 Super Taikyu Series, finishing on the podium in every race.


title: Subaru Impreza

text: The car won the Targa New Zealand three times, the Targa Newfoundland four times and the Targa Tasmania three times.


title: Afterlife

text: The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving essential aspect varies between belief systems; it may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary, nirvana. Belief in an afterlife is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.


title: Afterlife

text: In some views, this continued existence takes place in a spiritual realm, while in others, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past. In this latter view, such rebirths and deaths may take place over and over again continuously until the individual gains entry to a spiritual realm or otherworld. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics.


title: Afterlife

text: Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific place after death, as determined by God, or other divine judgment, based on their actions or beliefs during life. In contrast, in systems of reincarnation, such as those in the Indian religions, the nature of the continued existence is determined directly by the actions of the individual in the ended life.


title: Afterlife

text: Theists generally believe some afterlife awaits people when they die. Members of some generally non-theistic religions believe in an afterlife without reference to a deity. The Sadducees were an ancient Jewish sect that generally believed that there was a God but no existence after death.


title: Afterlife

text: Many religions, whether they believe in the soul's existence in another world like Christianity, Islam, and many pagan belief systems, or reincarnation like many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, believe that one's status in the afterlife is a consequence of one's conduct during life.


title: Afterlife

text: Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each death. This concept is also known as rebirth or transmigration and is part of the Saṃsāra/karma doctrine of cyclic existence. Samsara refers to the process in which souls (jivas) go through a sequence of human and animal forms. Traditional Hinduism and Buddhism teach that each life helps the soul (jivas) learn until the soul becomes purified to the point of enlightenment (unity with the cosmos). It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The human idea of reincarnation is found in many diverse ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by historic Greek figures, such as Pythagoras and Plato. It is also a common belief of various ancient and modern religions such as Spiritism, Theosophy, and Eckankar. It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America.


title: Afterlife

text: Although the majority of denominations within the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Kabbalah, the Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research. Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teach reincarnation.


title: Afterlife

text: Rosicrucians speak of a life review period occurring immediately after death and before entering the afterlife's planes of existence (before the silver cord is broken), followed by a judgment, more akin to a final review or end report over one's life.


title: Afterlife

text: Heaven, the heavens, Seven Heavens, pure lands, Tian, Jannah, Valhalla, or the Summerland, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as gods, angels, jinn, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases, enter heaven alive.


title: Afterlife

text: Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a paradise, in contrast to hell or the underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith or other virtues or right beliefs or the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a world to come.


title: Afterlife

text: In Hinduism, heaven is considered as "Svarga loka". There are seven positive regions the soul can go to after death and seven negative regions. After completing its stay in the respective region, the soul is subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its "karma". This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves "Moksha" or "Nirvana". Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (heaven, hell, or other) is referred to as otherworld.


title: Afterlife

text: Hell, in many religious and folkloric traditions, is a place of torment and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell as an eternal destination, while religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically, these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the earth's surface and often include entrances to hell from the land of the living. Other afterlife destinations include purgatory and limbo.


title: Afterlife

text: Traditions that do not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward merely describe hell as an abode of the dead, the grave, a neutral place (for example, Sheol or Hades) located under the surface of earth.


title: Afterlife

text: The afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion, and its belief system is one of the earliest known in recorded history. When the body died, parts of its soul known as "ka" (body double) and the "ba" (personality) would go to the Kingdom of the Dead. While the soul dwelt in the Fields of Aaru, Osiris demanded work as restitution for the protection he provided. Statues were placed in the tombs to serve as substitutes for the deceased.


title: Afterlife

text: Arriving at one's reward in afterlife was a demanding ordeal, requiring a sin-free heart and the ability to recite the spells, passwords, and formulae of the Book of the Dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, the deceased's heart was weighed against the "Shu" feather of truth and justice taken from the headdress of the goddess Ma'at. If the heart was lighter than the feather, they could pass on, but if it were heavier they would be devoured by the demon Ammit.


title: Afterlife

text: Egyptians also believed that being mummified and put in a sarcophagus (an ancient Egyptian "coffin" carved with complex symbols and designs, as well as pictures and hieroglyphs) was the only way to have an afterlife. What are referred to as the Coffin Texts, are inscribed on a coffin and serve as a guide for the challenges in the afterlife. The Coffin texts are more or less a duplication of the Pyramid Texts, which would serve as a guide for Egyptian pharaohs or queens in the afterlife. Only if the corpse had been properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba, could the dead live again in the Fields of Yalu and accompany the Sun on its daily ride. Due to the dangers the afterlife posed, the Book of the Dead was placed in the tomb with the body as well as food, jewelry, and 'curses'. They also used the "opening of the mouth".


title: Afterlife

text: Ancient Egyptian civilization was based on religion. The belief in the rebirth after death became the driving force behind funeral practices; for them, death was a temporary interruption rather than complete cessation of life. Eternal life could be ensured by means like piety to the gods, preservation of the physical form through mummification, and the provision of statuary and other funerary equipment. Each human consisted of the physical body, the "ka", the "ba", and the "akh". The Name and Shadow were also living entities. To enjoy the afterlife, all these elements had to be sustained and protected from harm.


title: Afterlife

text: On 30 March 2010, a spokesman for the Egyptian Culture Ministry claimed it had unearthed a large red granite door in Luxor with inscriptions by User, a powerful adviser to the 18th Dynasty Queen Hatshepsut who ruled between 1479 BC and 1458 BC, the longest of any woman. It believes the false door is a 'door to the Afterlife'. According to the archaeologists, the door was reused in a structure in Roman Egypt.


title: Afterlife

text: The Greek god Hades is known in Greek mythology as the king of the underworld, a place where souls live after death. The Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the gods, would take the dead soul of a person to the underworld (sometimes called Hades or the House of Hades). Hermes would leave the soul on the banks of the River Styx, the river between life and death.


title: Afterlife

text: Charon, also known as the ferry-man, would take the soul across the river to Hades, if the soul had gold: Upon burial, the family of the dead soul would put coins under the deceased's tongue. Once crossed, the soul would be judged by Aeacus, Rhadamanthus and King Minos. The soul would be sent to Elysium, Tartarus, or Asphodel Fields. The Elysian Fields were for the ones that lived pure lives. It consisted of green fields, valleys and mountains, everyone there was peaceful and contented, and the Sun always shone there. Tartarus was for the people that blasphemed against the gods or were rebellious and consciously evil. In Tartarus, the soul would be punished by being burned in lava or stretched on racks. The Asphodel Fields were for a varied selection of human souls including those whose sins equaled their goodness, those who were indecisive in their lives, and those who were not judged.


title: Afterlife

text: Some heroes of Greek legend are allowed to visit the underworld. The Romans had a similar belief system about the afterlife, with Hades becoming known as Pluto. In the ancient Greek myth about the Labours of Heracles, the hero Heracles had to travel to the underworld to capture Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog, as one of his tasks.


title: Afterlife

text: In "Dream of Scipio", Cicero describes what seems to be an out of body experience, of the soul traveling high above the Earth, looking down at the small planet, from far away.


title: Afterlife

text: In Book VI of Virgil's "Aeneid", the hero, Aeneas, travels to the underworld to see his father. By the River Styx, he sees the souls of those not given a proper burial, forced to wait by the river until someone buries them. While down there, along with the dead, he is shown the place where the wrongly convicted reside, the fields of sorrow where those who committed suicide and now regret it reside, including Aeneas' former lover, the warriors and shades, Tartarus (where the titans and powerful non-mortal enemies of the Olympians reside) where he can hear the groans of the imprisoned, the palace of Pluto, and the fields of Elysium where the descendants of the divine and bravest heroes reside. He sees the river of forgetfulness, Lethe, which the dead must drink to forget their life and begin anew. Lastly, his father shows him all of the future heroes of Rome who will live if Aeneas fulfills his destiny in founding the city.


title: Afterlife

text: Other eschatological views populate the ancient-Greek worldview. For instance, Plato argued for reincarnation in several dialogues, including the "Timaeus".


title: Afterlife

text: The Poetic and Prose Eddas, the oldest sources for information on the Norse concept of the afterlife, vary in their description of the several realms that are described as falling under this topic. The most well-known are:


title: Afterlife

text: Sheol, in the Hebrew Bible, is a place of darkness (Job x. 21, 22) to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, (Gen. xxxvii. 36; Ezek. xxxii.; Isa. xiv.; Job xxx. 23), a place of stillness, (Ps. lxxxviii. 13, xciv. 17; Eccl. ix. 10), at the longest possible distance from heaven (Job xi. 8; Amos ix. 2; Ps. cxxxix. 8).


title: Afterlife

text: The inhabitants of Sheol are the "shades" ("rephaim"), entities without personality or strength. Under some circumstances they are thought to be able to be contacted by the living, as the Witch of Endor contacts the shade of Samuel for Saul, but such practices are forbidden (Deuteronomy 18:10).


title: Afterlife

text: While the Hebrew Bible appears to describe Sheol as the permanent place of the dead, in the Second Temple period (roughly 500 BC – 70 AD) a more diverse set of ideas developed. In some texts, Sheol is considered to be the home of both the righteous and the wicked, separated into respective compartments; in others, it was considered a place of punishment, meant for the wicked dead alone. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek in ancient Alexandria around 200 BC, the word "Hades" (the Greek underworld) was substituted for Sheol. This is reflected in the New Testament where Hades is both the underworld of the dead and the personification of the evil it represents.


title: Afterlife

text: The Talmud offers a number of thoughts relating to the afterlife. After death, the soul is brought for judgment. Those who have led pristine lives enter immediately into the "Olam Haba" or world to come. Most do not enter the world to come immediately, but experience a period of reflection of their earthly actions and are made aware of what they have done wrong. Some view this period as being a "re-schooling", with the soul gaining wisdom as one's errors are reviewed. Others view this period to include spiritual discomfort for past wrongs. At the end of this period, not longer than one year, the soul then takes its place in the world to come. Although discomforts are made part of certain Jewish conceptions of the afterlife, the concept of eternal damnation is not a tenet of the Jewish afterlife. According to the Talmud, extinction of the soul is reserved for a far smaller group of malicious and evil leaders, either whose very evil deeds go way beyond norms, or who lead large groups of people to utmost evil. This is also part of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith.


title: Afterlife

text: Maimonides describes the "Olam Haba" in spiritual terms, relegating the prophesied physical resurrection to the status of a future miracle, unrelated to the afterlife or the Messianic era. According to Maimonides, an afterlife continues for the soul of every human being, a soul now separated from the body in which it was "housed" during its earthly existence.


title: Afterlife

text: The Zohar describes Gehenna not as a place of punishment for the wicked but as a place of spiritual purification for souls.


title: Afterlife

text: Although there is no reference to reincarnation in the Talmud or any prior writings, according to rabbis such as Avraham Arieh Trugman, reincarnation is recognized as being part and parcel of Jewish tradition. Trugman explains that it is through oral tradition that the meanings of the Torah, its commandments and stories, are known and understood. The classic work of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, is quoted liberally in all Jewish learning; in the Zohar the idea of reincarnation is mentioned repeatedly. Trugman states that in the last five centuries the concept of reincarnation, which until then had been a much hidden tradition within Judaism, was given open exposure.


title: Afterlife

text: Shraga Simmons commented that within the Bible itself, the idea [of reincarnation] is intimated in Deut. 25:5–10, Deut. 33:6 and Isaiah 22:14, 65:6.


title: Afterlife

text: Yirmiyahu Ullman wrote that reincarnation is an "ancient, mainstream belief in Judaism". The Zohar makes frequent and lengthy references to reincarnation. Onkelos, a righteous convert and authoritative commentator of the same period, explained the verse, "Let Reuben live and not die ..." (Deuteronomy 33:6) to mean that Reuben should merit the World to Come directly, and not have to die again as a result of being reincarnated. Torah scholar, commentator and kabbalist, Nachmanides (Ramban 1195–1270), attributed Job's suffering to reincarnation, as hinted in Job's saying "God does all these things twice or three times with a man, to bring back his soul from the pit to... the light of the living' (Job 33:29, 30)."


title: Afterlife

text: Reincarnation, called "gilgul", became popular in folk belief, and is found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews. Among a few kabbalists, it was posited that some human souls could end up being reincarnated into non-human bodies. These ideas were found in a number of Kabbalistic works from the 13th century, and also among many mystics in the late 16th century. Martin Buber's early collection of stories of the Baal Shem Tov's life includes several that refer to people reincarnating in successive lives.


title: Afterlife

text: Among well known (generally non-kabbalist or anti-kabbalist) rabbis who rejected the idea of reincarnation are Saadia Gaon, David Kimhi, Hasdai Crescas, Yedayah Bedershi (early 14th century), Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud, the Rosh and Leon de Modena. Saadia Gaon, in Emunoth ve-Deoth (Hebrew: "beliefs and opinions") concludes Section VI with a refutation of the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation). While rebutting reincarnation, Saadia Gaon further states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs. By no means do all Jews today believe in reincarnation, but belief in reincarnation is not uncommon among many Jews, including Orthodox.


title: Afterlife

text: Other well-known rabbis who are reincarnationists include Yonassan Gershom, Abraham Isaac Kook, Talmud scholar Adin Steinsaltz, DovBer Pinson, David M. Wexelman, Zalman Schachter, and many others. Reincarnation is cited by authoritative biblical commentators, including Ramban (Nachmanides), Menachem Recanti and Rabbenu Bachya.


title: Afterlife

text: Among the many volumes of Yitzchak Luria, most of which come down from the pen of his primary disciple, Chaim Vital, are insights explaining issues related to reincarnation. His "Shaar HaGilgulim", "The Gates of Reincarnation", is a book devoted exclusively to the subject of reincarnation in Judaism.


title: Afterlife

text: Rabbi Naftali Silberberg of The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute notes that "Many ideas that originate in other religions and belief systems have been popularized in the media and are taken for granted by unassuming Jews."


title: Afterlife

text: Mainstream Christianity professes belief in the Nicene Creed, and English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use include the phrase: "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."


title: Afterlife

text: When questioned by the Sadducees about the resurrection of the dead (in a context relating to who one's spouse would be if one had been married several times in life), Jesus said that marriage will be irrelevant after the resurrection as the resurrected will be like the angels in heaven.


title: Afterlife

text: Jesus also maintained that the time would come when the dead would hear the voice of the Son of God, and all who were in the tombs would come out; those who have heard His "[commandments] and believes in the one who sent [Him]" to the resurrection of life, but those who do not to the resurrection of condemnation.


title: Afterlife

text: The Book of Enoch describes Sheol as divided into four compartments for four types of the dead: the faithful saints who await resurrection in Paradise, the merely virtuous who await their reward, the wicked who await punishment, and the wicked who have already been punished and will not be resurrected on Judgment Day. The Book of Enoch is considered apocryphal by most denominations of Christianity and all denominations of Judaism.


title: Afterlife

text: The book of 2 Maccabees gives a clear account of the dead awaiting a future resurrection and judgment in addition to prayers and offerings for the dead to remove the burden of sin.


title: Afterlife

text: The author of Luke recounts the story of Lazarus and the rich man, which shows people in Hades awaiting the resurrection either in comfort or torment. The author of the Book of Revelation writes about God and the angels versus Satan and demons in an epic battle at the end of times when all souls are judged. There is mention of ghostly bodies of past prophets, and the transfiguration.


title: Afterlife

text: The non-canonical Acts of Paul and Thecla speak of the efficacy of prayer for the dead so that they might be "translated to a state of happiness".


title: Afterlife

text: Hippolytus of Rome pictures the underworld (Hades) as a place where the righteous dead, awaiting in the bosom of Abraham their resurrection, rejoice at their future prospect, while the unrighteous are tormented at the sight of the "lake of unquenchable fire" into which they are destined to be cast.


title: Afterlife

text: Gregory of Nyssa discusses the long-before believed possibility of purification of souls after death.


title: Afterlife

text: Pope Gregory I repeats the concept, articulated over a century earlier by Gregory of Nyssa that the saved suffer purification after death, in connection with which he wrote of "purgatorial flames".


title: Afterlife

text: The noun "purgatorium" (Latin: place of cleansing) is used for the first time to describe a state of painful purification of the saved after life. The same word in adjectival form ("purgatorius -a -um", cleansing), which appears also in non-religious writing, was already used by Christians such as Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory I to refer to an after-death cleansing.


title: Afterlife

text: During the Age of Enlightenment, theologians and philosophers presented various philosophies and beliefs. A notable example is Emanuel Swedenborg who wrote some 18 theological works which describe in detail the nature of the afterlife according to his claimed spiritual experiences, the most famous of which is "Heaven and Hell". His report of life there covers a wide range of topics, such as marriage in heaven (where all angels are married), children in heaven (where they are raised by angel parents), time and space in heaven (there are none), the after-death awakening process in the World of Spirits (a place halfway between Heaven and Hell and where people first wake up after death), the allowance of a free will choice between Heaven or Hell (as opposed to being sent to either one by God), the eternity of Hell (one could leave but would never want to), and that all angels or devils were once people on earth.


title: Afterlife

text: The Catholic conception of the afterlife teaches that after the body dies, the soul is judged, the righteous and free of sin enter Heaven. However, those who die in unrepented mortal sin go to hell. In the 1990s, the Catechism of the Catholic Church defined hell not as punishment imposed on the sinner but rather as the sinner's self-exclusion from God. Unlike other Christian groups, the Catholic Church teaches that those who die in a state of grace, but still carry venial sin, go to a place called Purgatory where they undergo purification to enter Heaven.


title: Afterlife

text: Despite popular opinion, Limbo, which was elaborated upon by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, was never recognized as a dogma of the Catholic Church, yet, at times, it has been a very popular theological theory within the Church. Limbo is a theory that unbaptized but innocent souls, such as those of infants, virtuous individuals who lived before Jesus Christ was born on earth, or those that die before baptism exist in neither Heaven nor Hell proper. Therefore, these souls neither merit the beatific vision, nor are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin although they have not received baptism, so still bear original sin. So they are generally seen as existing in a state of natural, but not supernatural, happiness, until the end of time.


title: Afterlife

text: In other Christian denominations it has been described as an intermediate place or state of confinement in oblivion and neglect.


title: Afterlife

text: The notion of purgatory is associated particularly with the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, all those who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven or the final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The tradition of the church, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of a "cleansing fire" although it is not always called purgatory.


title: Afterlife

text: Anglicans of the Anglo-Catholic tradition generally also hold to the belief. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in an intermediate state between death and the resurrection of the dead and in the possibility of "continuing to grow in holiness there", but Methodism does not officially affirm this belief and denies the possibility of helping by prayer any who may be in that state.


title: Afterlife

text: The Orthodox Church is intentionally reticent on the afterlife, as it acknowledges the mystery especially of things that have not yet occurred. Beyond the second coming of Jesus, bodily resurrection, and final judgment, all of which is affirmed in the Nicene Creed (325 CE), Orthodoxy does not teach much else in any definitive manner. Unlike Western forms of Christianity, however, Orthodoxy is traditionally non-dualist and does not teach that there are two separate literal locations of heaven and hell, but instead acknowledges that "the 'location' of one's final destiny—heaven or hell—as being figurative."


title: Afterlife

text: Instead, Orthodoxy teaches that the final judgment is one's uniform encounter with divine love and mercy, but this encounter is experienced multifariously depending on the extent to which one has been transformed, partaken of divinity, and is therefore compatible or incompatible with God. "The monadic, immutable, and ceaseless object of eschatological encounter is therefore the love and mercy of God, his glory which infuses the heavenly temple, and it is the subjective human reaction which engenders multiplicity or any division of experience." For instance, St. Isaac the Syrian observes that "those who are punished in Gehenna, are scourged by the scourge of love. ... The power of love works in two ways: it torments sinners ... [as] bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven by its delectability." In this sense, the divine action is always, immutably, and uniformly love and if one experiences this love negatively, the experience is then one of self-condemnation because of free will rather than condemnation by God.


title: Afterlife

text: Orthodoxy therefore uses the description of Jesus' judgment in John 3:19–21 as their model: "19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." As a characteristically Orthodox understanding, then, Fr. Thomas Hopko writes, "[I]t is precisely the presence of God's mercy and love which cause the torment of the wicked. God does not punish; he forgives... . In a word, God has mercy on all, whether all like it or not. If we like it, it is paradise; if we do not, it is hell. Every knee will bend before the Lord. Everything will be subject to Him. God in Christ will indeed be "all and in all," with boundless mercy and unconditional pardon. But not all will rejoice in God's gift of forgiveness, and that choice will be judgment, the self-inflicted source of their sorrow and pain."


title: Afterlife

text: Moreover, Orthodoxy includes a prevalent tradition of "apokatastasis", or the restoration of all things in the end. This has been taught most notably by Origen, but also many other Church fathers and Saints, including Gregory of Nyssa. The Second Council of Constantinople (553 CE) affirmed the orthodoxy of Gregory of Nyssa while simultaneously condemning Origen's brand of universalism because it taught the restoration back to our pre-existent state, which Orthodoxy doesn't teach. It is also a teaching of such eminent Orthodox theologians as Olivier Clément, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev. Although apokatastasis is not a dogma of the church but instead a theologoumenon, it is no less a teaching of the Orthodox Church than its rejection. As Met. Kallistos Ware explains, "It is heretical to say that all must be saved, for this is to deny free will; but, it is legitimate to hope that all may be saved," as insisting on torment without end also denies free will.


title: Afterlife

text: Joseph F. Smith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints presents an elaborate vision of the afterlife. It is revealed as the scene of an extensive missionary effort by righteous spirits in paradise to redeem those still in darkness—a spirit prison or "hell" where the spirits of the dead remain until judgment. It is divided into two parts: Spirit Prison and Paradise. Together these are also known as the Spirit World (also Abraham's Bosom; see Luke 16:19–25). They believe that Christ visited spirit prison (1 Peter 3:18–20) and opened the gate for those who repent to cross over to Paradise. This is similar to the Harrowing of Hell doctrine of some mainstream Christian faiths. Both Spirit Prison and Paradise are temporary according to Latter-day Saint beliefs. After the resurrection, spirits are assigned "permanently" to three degrees of heavenly glory, determined by how they lived – Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial. (1 Cor 15:44–42; Doctrine and Covenants, Section 76) Sons of Perdition, or those who have known and seen God and deny it, will be sent to the realm of Satan, which is called Outer Darkness, where they shall live in misery and agony forever. However, according to the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, most persons lack the amount of knowledge to commit the Eternal sin and are therefore incapable of becoming sons of perdition.


title: Afterlife

text: The Celestial Kingdom is believed to be a place where the righteous can live eternally with their families. Progression does not end once one has entered the Celestial Kingdom, but extends eternally. According to "True to the Faith" (a handbook on doctrines in the LDS faith), "The celestial kingdom is the place prepared for those who have "received the testimony of Jesus" and been "made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood" (Doctrine and Covenants, 76:51, 69). To inherit this gift, we must receive the ordinances of salvation, keep the commandments, and repent of our sins."


title: Afterlife

text: Jehovah's Witnesses occasionally use terms such as "afterlife" to refer to any hope for the dead, but they understand Ecclesiastes 9:5 to preclude belief in an immortal soul. Individuals judged by God to be wicked, such as in the Great Flood or at Armageddon, are given no hope of an afterlife. However, they believe that after Armageddon there will be a bodily resurrection of "both righteous and unrighteous" dead (but not the "wicked"). Survivors of Armageddon and those who are resurrected are then to gradually restore earth to a paradise. After Armageddon, unrepentant sinners are punished with eternal death (non-existence).


title: Afterlife

text: The Seventh-day Adventist Church's beliefs regarding the afterlife differ from other Christian churches. Rather than ascend to Heaven or descend to Hell, Adventists believe the dead "remain unconscious until the return of Christ in judgement". The concept that the dead remain dead until resurrection is one of the fundamental beliefs of Seventh-day Adventism. Adventists believe that death is an unconscious state (a "sleep"). This is based on Matt. 9:24; Mark 5:39; John 11:11-14; 1 Cor. 15:51, 52; 1 Thess. 4:13-17; 2 Peter 3:4; Eccl. 9:5, 6, 10. At death, all consciousness ends. The dead person does not know anything and does not do anything. They believe that death is creation, only in reverse. Ecclesiastes 12:7. When a person dies, the body turns to dust again, and the spirit goes back to God, who gave it. The spirit of every person who dies—whether saved or unsaved—returns to God at death. The spirit that returns to God at death is the breath of life.


title: Afterlife

text: The Quran (the holy book of Islam), emphasizes the insignificance of worldly life ("ḥayāt ad-dunyā" usually translated as "this world") vis-a-vis the hereafter.


title: Afterlife

text: A central doctrine of Islamic faith is the Last Day ("al-yawm al-ākhir", also known by other names), on which the world will come to an end and God will raise all mankind (as well as the "jinn") from the dead and evaluate their worldly actions. The resurrected will be judged according to their deeds, records of which are kept on two books compiled for every human being—one for their good deeds and one for their evil ones.


title: Afterlife

text: Having been judged, the resurrected will cross the bridge of As-Sirāt over the pit of hell; when the condemned attempt to they will be made to fall off into hellfire below; while the righteous will have no trouble and continue on to their eternal abode of heaven.


title: Afterlife

text: After death, humans will be questioned about their faith by two angels, Munkar and Nakīr. Those who die as martyrs go immediately to paradise. Others who have died and been buried, will receive a taste of their eternal reward from the "al-qabr" or "the grave" (compare the Jewish concept of Sheol). Those bound for hell will suffer "punishment of the grave", while those bound for heaven will find the grave "peaceful and blessed".


title: Afterlife

text: Islamic scripture — the Quran and hadith (reports of the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad who is believed to have visited heaven and hell during his Isra and Mi'raj journey) -- give vivid descriptions of the pleasures of paradise (Jannah) and sufferings of hell ("Jahannam"). The gardens of jannah have cool shade adorned couchs and cushions rich carpets spread out, cups full of wine and every meat and fruit . Men will be provided with perpetually youthful, beautiful "ḥūr", "untouched beforehand by man or jinn", with large, beautiful eyes .


title: Afterlife

text: In contrast, those in Jahannam will dwell in a land infested with thousands of serpents and scorpions; be "burnt" by "scorching fire" and when "their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for fresh skins" to repeat the process forever ; they will have nothing to drink but "boiling water and running sores" ; their cries of remorse and pleading for forgiveness will be in vain .


title: Afterlife

text: Traditionally "jannah" and "jahannam" are thought to have different levels. Eight gates and eight levels in "Jannah", where the higher the level the better it is and the happier you are. "Jahannam" possess seven layers. Each layer more horrible than the one above.


title: Afterlife

text: The Quran teaches that the purpose of Man's creation is to worship God and God alone. Those it describes as being punished in hell are "most typically", unbelievers, including those who worship others besides Allah , those who deny the divine origin of the Quran , or the coming of Judgement Day .


title: Afterlife

text: Straightforward crimes/sins against other people are also grounds for going to hell: the murder of a believer , usury (Q.2:275), devouring the property of an orphan , slander , particularly of a chaste woman .


title: Afterlife

text: However it is a common belief among Muslims that whatever crimes/sins Muslims may have committed, their punishment in hell will be temporary. Only unbelievers will reside in hell permanently. Thus Jahannam combines both the concept of an eternal hell (for unbelievers), and what is known in Christian Catholicism as purgatory (for believers eventually destined for heaven after punishment for their sins).


title: Afterlife

text: The common belief holds that "Jahannam" coexists with the temporal world. Mainstream Islam teaches the continued existence of the soul and a transformed physical existence after death. The resurrection that will take place on the Last Day is physical, and is explained by suggesting that God will re-create the decayed body ("Have they not realized that Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth, can ˹easily˺ re-create them?" ).


title: Afterlife

text: Ahmadi Muslims believe that the afterlife is not material but of a spiritual nature. According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the soul will give birth to another rarer entity and will resemble the life on this earth in the sense that this entity will bear a similar relationship to the soul as the soul bears relationship with the human existence on earth. On earth, if a person leads a righteous life and submits to the will of God, his or her tastes become attuned to enjoying spiritual pleasures as opposed to carnal desires. With this, an "embryonic soul" begins to take shape. Different tastes are said to be born which a person given to carnal passions finds no enjoyment. For example, sacrifice of one's own rights over that of others becomes enjoyable, or that forgiveness becomes second nature. In such a state a person finds contentment and peace at heart and at this stage, according to Ahmadiyya beliefs, it can be said that a soul within the soul has begun to take shape.


title: Afterlife

text: The Sufi Muslim scholar Ibn 'Arabi defined Barzakh as the intermediate realm or "isthmus". It is between the world of corporeal bodies and the world of spirits, and is a means of contact between the two worlds. Without it, there would be no contact between the two and both would cease to exist. He described it as simple and luminous, like the world of spirits, but also able to take on many different forms just like the world of corporeal bodies can. In broader terms Barzakh, "is anything that separates two things". It has been called the dream world in which the dreamer is in both life and death.


title: Afterlife

text: The teachings of the Baháʼí Faith state that the nature of the afterlife is beyond the understanding of those living, just as an unborn fetus cannot understand the nature of the world outside of the womb. The Baháʼí writings state that the soul is immortal and after death it will continue to progress until it finally attains God's presence. In Baháʼí belief, souls in the afterlife will continue to retain their individuality and consciousness and will be able to recognize and communicate spiritually with other souls whom they have made deep profound friendships with, such as their spouses.


title: Afterlife

text: The Baháʼí scriptures also state there are distinctions between souls in the afterlife, and that souls will recognize the worth of their own deeds and understand the consequences of their actions. It is explained that those souls that have turned toward God will experience gladness, while those who have lived in error will become aware of the opportunities they have lost. Also, in the Baháʼí view, souls will be able to recognize the accomplishments of the souls that have reached the same level as themselves, but not those that have achieved a rank higher than them.


title: Afterlife

text: Early Indian religions were characterized by the belief in an afterlife, Ancestor worship, and related rites. These concepts started to significantly change after the period of the Upanishads.


title: Afterlife

text: Afterlife in Buddhism is complex, consisting of an intermediated spirit world, the six realms of existence, and the Pure land after achieving enlightenment. Ancestor worship, and links to one's ancestors was once an important component of early Buddhism, but became less relevant already before the formation of the different Buddhist streams. The concepts and importance of afterlife vary among modern Buddhist teachings.


title: Afterlife

text: Buddhists maintain that rebirth takes place without an unchanging self or soul passing from one form to another. The type of rebirth will be conditioned by the moral tone of the person's actions (kamma or karma). For example, if a person has committed harmful actions by body, speech and mind based on greed, hate and delusion, would have his/her rebirth in a lower realm, i.e. an animal, a hungry ghost or a hell realm, is to be expected. On the other hand, where a person has performed skillful actions based on generosity, loving-kindness (metta), compassion and wisdom, rebirth in a happy realm, i.e. human or one of the many heavenly realms, can be expected.


title: Afterlife

text: However, the mechanism of rebirth with Kamma is not deterministic. It depends on various levels of kamma. The most important moment that determines where a person is reborn into is the last thought moment. At that moment, heavy kamma would ripen if there were performed. If not, near death kamma would ripen, and if not death kamma, then habitual kamma would ripen. Finally if none of the above happened, then residual kamma from previous actions can ripen. According to Theravada Buddhism, there are 31 realms of existence that one can be reborn into.


title: Afterlife

text: Pure Land Buddhism of Mahayana believes in a special place apart from the 31 planes of existence called Pure Land. It is believed that each Buddha has their own pure land, created out of their merits for the sake of sentient beings who recall them mindfully to be able to be reborn in their pure land and train to become a Buddha there. Thus the main practice of pure land Buddhism is to chant a Buddha's name.


title: Afterlife

text: In Tibetan Buddhism the Tibetan Book of the Dead explains the intermediate state of humans between death and reincarnation. The deceased will find the bright light of wisdom, which shows a straightforward path to move upward and leave the cycle of reincarnation. There are various reasons why the deceased do not follow that light. Some had no briefing about the intermediate state in the former life. Others only used to follow their basic instincts like animals. And some have fear, which results from foul deeds in the former life or from insistent haughtiness. In the intermediate state the awareness is very flexible, so it is important to be virtuous, adopt a positive attitude, and avoid negative ideas. Ideas which are rising from subconsciousness can cause extreme tempers and cowing visions. In this situation they have to understand, that these manifestations are just reflections of the inner thoughts. No one can really hurt them, because they have no more material body. The deceased get help from different Buddhas who show them the path to the bright light. The ones who do not follow the path after all will get hints for a better reincarnation. They have to release the things and beings on which or whom they still hang from the life before. It is recommended to choose a family where the parents trust in the Dharma and to reincarnate with the will to care for the welfare of all beings.


title: Afterlife

text: There are two major views of afterlife in Hinduism: mythical and philosophical. The philosophies of Hinduism consider each individual consists of 3 bodies: physical body compose of water and bio-matter ("sthūla śarīra"), an energetic/psychic/mental/subtle body ("sūkṣma-śarīra") and a causal body ("kāraṇa śarīra") comprising subliminal stuff i.e. mental impressions etc.


title: Afterlife

text: The individual is a stream of consciousness ("Ātman") which flows through all the physical changes of the body and at the death of the physical body, flows on into another physical body. The two components that transmigrate are the subtle body and the causal body.


title: Afterlife

text: The thought that occupies the mind at the time of death determines the quality of our rebirth (antim smaraṇa), hence Hinduism advises to be mindful of one's thoughts and cultivate positive wholesome thoughts - Mantra chanting (Japa) is commonly practiced for this.


title: Afterlife

text: When one leaves the physical body at death he appears in the court of Lord Yama, the God of Death for an exit interview. The panel consists of Yama and Chitragupta - the cosmic accountant, and Varuna the cosmic intelligence officer. He is counseled about his life, achievements and failures and is shown a mirror in which his entire life is reflected. (Philosophically these three men are projections of one's mind) Yama the Lord of Justice then sends him to a heavenly realm (svarga) if he has been exceptionally benevolent and beneficent for a period of Rest and Recreation. his period is limited in time by the weight of his good deeds. If he has been exceptionally malevolent and caused immense suffering to other beings then he is sent to a cosmic gulag (naraka) for his sins. After one has exhausted his karmas, he takes birth again to continue his spiritual evolution. However, belief in rebirth was not a part of early Vedic religions and texts. It was later developed by Rishis who challenged the idea of one life as being simplistic.


title: Afterlife

text: Rebirth can take place as a god (deva), a human (manuṣya) an animal (tiryak) — but it is generally taught that the spiritual evolution takes place from lower to higher species. In certain cases of traumatic death a person can take the form of a Preta or Hungry Ghost - and remains in an earth-bound state interminably - until certain ceremonies are done to liberate them. This mythological part is extensively elaborated in the Hindu Puranas especially in the Garuda Purana.


title: Afterlife

text: The Upanishads are the first scriptures in Hinduism which explicitly mention about Afterlife, The Bhagavad Gita, a famous Hindu script, says that just as a man discards his old clothes and wears new ones; similarly the Atman discards the old body and takes on a new one. In Hinduism, the belief is that the body is nothing but a shell, the consciousness inside is immutable and indestructible and takes on different lives in a cycle of birth and death. The end of this cycle is called "mukti" (Sanskrit: मुक्ति) and staying finally with the ultimate reality forever; is "moksha" (Sanskrit: मोक्ष) or liberation.


title: Afterlife

text: The (diverse) views of modern Hinduism in part differ significantly from the Historical Vedic religion.


title: Afterlife

text: Jainism also believes in the afterlife. They believe that the soul takes on a body form based on previous karmas or actions performed by that soul through eternity. Jains believe the soul is eternal and that the freedom from the cycle of reincarnation is the means to attain eternal bliss.


title: Afterlife

text: The essential doctrine of Sikhism is to experience the divine through simple living, meditation and contemplation while being alive. Sikhism also has the belief of being in union with God while living. Accounts of afterlife are considered to be aimed at the popular prevailing views of the time so as to provide a referential framework without necessarily establishing a belief in the afterlife. Thus while it is also acknowledged that living the life of a householder is above the metaphysical truth, Sikhism can be considered agnostic to the question of an afterlife. Some scholars also interpret the mention of reincarnation to be naturalistic akin to the biogeochemical cycles.


title: Afterlife

text: But if one analyses the Sikh Scriptures carefully, one may find that on many occasions the afterlife and the existence of heaven and hell are mentioned in "Guru Granth Sahib" and in "Dasam Granth", so from that it can be concluded that Sikhism does believe in the existence of heaven and hell; however, heaven and hell are created to temporarily reward and punish, and one will then take birth again until one merges in God. According to the Sikh scriptures, the human form is the closet form to God and the best opportunity for a human being to attain salvation and merge back with God. Sikh Gurus said that nothing dies, nothing is born, everything is ever present, and it just changes forms. Like standing in front of a wardrobe, you pick up a dress and wear it and then you discard it. You wear another one. Thus, in the view of Sikhism, your soul is never born and never dies. Your soul is a part of God and hence lives forever.


title: Afterlife

text: Traditional African religions are diverse in their beliefs in an afterlife. Hunter-gatherer societies such as the Hadza have no particular belief in an afterlife, and the death of an individual is a straightforward end to their existence. Ancestor cults are found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, including cultures like the Yombe, Beng, Yoruba and Ewe, "[T]he belief that the dead come back into life and are reborn into their families is given concrete expression in the personal names that are given to children...What is reincarnated are some of the dominant characteristics of the ancestor and not his soul. For each soul remains distinct and each birth represents a new soul." The Yoruba, Dogon and LoDagoa have eschatological ideas similar to Abrahamic religions, "but in most African societies, there is a marked absence of such clear-cut notions of heaven and hell, although there are notions of God judging the soul after death." In some societies like the Mende, multiple beliefs coexist. The Mende believe that people die twice: once during the process of joining the secret society, and again during biological death after which they become ancestors. However, some Mende also believe that after people are created by God they live ten consecutive lives, each in progressively descending worlds. One cross-cultural theme is that the ancestors are part of the world of the living, interacting with it regularly.


title: Afterlife

text: It is common for families to participate in ceremonies for children at a shrine, yet have a Buddhist funeral at the time of death. In old Japanese legends, it is often claimed that the dead go to a place called "yomi" (黄泉), a gloomy underground realm with a river separating the living from the dead mentioned in the legend of Izanami and Izanagi. This "yomi" very closely resembles the Greek Hades; however, later myths include notions of resurrection and even Elysium-like descriptions such as in the legend of Ōkuninushi and Susanoo. Shinto tends to hold negative views on death and corpses as a source of pollution called "kegare". However, death is also viewed as a path towards apotheosis in Shintoism as can be evidenced by how legendary individuals become enshrined after death. Perhaps the most famous would be Emperor Ōjin who was enshrined as Hachiman the God of War after his death.


title: Afterlife

text: Some Unitarian Universalists believe in universalism: that all souls will ultimately be saved and that there are no torments of hell. Unitarian Universalists differ widely in their theology hence there is no exact same stance on the issue. Although Unitarians historically believed in a literal hell, and Universalists historically believed that everyone goes to heaven, modern Unitarian Universalists can be categorized into those believing in a heaven, reincarnation and oblivion. Most Unitarian Universalists believe that heaven and hell are symbolic places of consciousness and the faith is largely focused on the worldly life rather than any possible afterlife.


title: Afterlife

text: According to Edgar Cayce, the afterlife consisted of nine realms equated with the nine planets of astrology. The first, symbolized by Saturn, was a level for the purification of the souls. The second, Mercury's realm, gives us the ability to consider problems as a whole. The third of the nine soul realms is ruled by Earth and is associated with the Earthly pleasures. The fourth realm is where we find out about love and is ruled by Venus. The fifth realm is where we meet our limitations and is ruled by Mars. The sixth realm is ruled by Neptune, and is where we begin to use our creative powers and free ourselves from the material world. The seventh realm is symbolized by Jupiter, which strengthens the soul's ability to depict situations, to analyze people and places, things, and conditions. The eighth afterlife realm is ruled by Uranus and develops psychic ability. The ninth afterlife realm is symbolized by Pluto, the astrological realm of the unconscious. This afterlife realm is a transient place where souls can choose to travel to other realms or other solar systems, it is the souls liberation into eternity, and is the realm that opens the doorway from our solar system into the cosmos point of view.


title: Afterlife

text: Mainstream Spiritualists postulate a series of seven realms that are not unlike Edgar Cayce's nine realms ruled by the planets. As it evolves, the soul moves higher and higher until it reaches the ultimate realm of spiritual oneness. The first realm, equated with hell, is the place where troubled souls spend a long time before they are compelled to move up to the next level. The second realm, where most souls move directly, is thought of as an intermediate transition between the lower planes of life and hell and the higher perfect realms of the universe. The third level is for those who have worked with their karmic inheritance. The fourth level is that from which evolved souls teach and direct those on Earth. The fifth level is where the soul leaves human consciousness behind. At the sixth plane, the soul is finally aligned with the cosmic consciousness and has no sense of separateness or individuality. Finally, the seventh level, the goal of each soul, is where the soul transcends its own sense of "soulfulness" and reunites with the World Soul and the universe.


title: Afterlife

text: The Wiccan afterlife is most commonly described as The Summerland. Here, souls rest, recuperate from life, and reflect on the experiences they had during their lives. After a period of rest, the souls are reincarnated, and the memory of their previous lives is erased. Many Wiccans see The Summerland as a place to reflect on their life actions. It is not a place of reward, but rather the end of a life journey at an end point of incarnations.


title: Afterlife

text: Zoroastrianism states that the "urvan", the disembodied spirit, lingers on earth for three days before departing downward to the kingdom of the dead that is ruled by Yima. For the three days that it rests on Earth, righteous souls sit at the head of their body, chanting the Ustavaiti Gathas with joy, while a wicked person sits at the feet of the corpse, wails and recites the Yasna. Zoroastrianism states that for the righteous souls, a beautiful maiden, which is the personification of the soul's good thoughts, words and deeds, appears. For a wicked person, a very old, ugly, naked hag appears. After three nights, the soul of the wicked is taken by the demon Vizaresa (Vīzarəša), to Chinvat bridge, and is made to go to darkness (hell).


title: Afterlife

text: Yima is believed to have been the first king on earth to rule, as well as the first man to die. Inside of Yima's realm, the spirits live a shadowy existence, and are dependent on their own descendants which are still living on Earth. Their descendants are to satisfy their hunger and clothe them, through rituals done on earth.


title: Afterlife

text: Rituals which are done on the first three days are vital and important, as they protect the soul from evil powers and give it strength to reach the underworld. After three days, the soul crosses Chinvat bridge which is the Final Judgment of the soul. Rashnu and Sraosha are present at the final judgment. The list is expanded sometimes, and include Vahman and Ormazd. Rashnu is the yazata who holds the scales of justice. If the good deeds of the person outweigh the bad, the soul is worthy of paradise. If the bad deeds outweigh the good, the bridge narrows down to the width of a blade-edge, and a horrid hag pulls the soul in her arms, and takes it down to hell with her.


title: Afterlife

text: Misvan Gatu is the "place of the mixed ones" where the souls lead a gray existence, lacking both joy and sorrow. A soul goes here if his/her good deeds and bad deeds are equal, and Rashnu's scale is equal.


title: Afterlife

text: In Gnostic teachings humans contain a divine spark within them said to have been trapped in their bodies by the creator of the material universe known as the Demiurge. It was believed that this spark could be released from the material world and enter into the heavenly spiritual world beyond it if special knowledge or gnosis was attained. The Cathars, for example, viewed reincarnation as a trap made by Satan, who tricked angels from the heavenly realm into entering the physical bodies of humans. They viewed the purpose of life as a way to escape the constant cycle of spiritual incarnations by letting go of worldly attachments.


title: Afterlife

text: The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882 with the express intention of investigating phenomena relating to Spiritualism and the afterlife. Its members continue to conduct scientific research on the paranormal to this day. Some of the earliest attempts to apply scientific methods to the study of phenomena relating to an afterlife were conducted by this organization. Its earliest members included noted scientists like William Crookes, and philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick and William James.


title: Afterlife

text: Parapsychological investigation of the afterlife includes the study of haunting, apparitions of the deceased, instrumental trans-communication, electronic voice phenomena, and mediumship.


title: Afterlife

text: A study conducted in 1901 by physician Duncan MacDougall sought to measure the weight lost by a human when the soul "departed the body" upon death. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material, tangible and thus measurable. Although MacDougall's results varied considerably from "21 grams", for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass. The title of the 2003 movie "21 Grams" is a reference to MacDougall's findings. His results have never been reproduced, and are generally regarded either as meaningless or considered to have had little if any scientific merit.


title: Afterlife

text: Frank Tipler has argued that physics can explain immortality, although such arguments are not falsifiable and, in Karl Popper's views, they do not qualify as science.


title: Afterlife

text: After 25 years of parapsychological research Susan Blackmore came to the conclusion that, according to her experiences, there is not enough empirical evidence for many of these cases.


title: Afterlife

text: Mediums purportedly act as a vessel for communications from spirits in other realms. Mediumship is not specific to one culture or religion; it can be identified in several belief systems, most notably Spiritualism. While the practice gained popularity in Europe and North America in the 19th century, evidence of mediumship dates back thousands of years in Asia. Mediums who claim to have contact with deceased people include Tyler Henry and Pascal Voggenhuber.


title: Afterlife

text: Research also includes the study of the near death experience. Scientists who have worked in this area include Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Raymond Moody, Sam Parnia, Michael Sabom, Bruce Greyson, Peter Fenwick, Jeffrey Long, Susan Blackmore, Charles Tart, William James, Ian Stevenson, Michael Persinger, Pim van Lommel, Penny Sartori, Walter van Laack among others.


title: Afterlife

text: Past life regression is a method that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations. The technique used during past-life regression involves the subject answering a series of questions while hypnotized to reveal identity and events of alleged past lives, a method similar to that used in recovered memory therapy and one that, similarly, often misrepresents memory as a faithful recording of previous events rather than a constructed set of recollections.


title: Afterlife

text: However, medical experts and practitioners does not agree with that the past life memory gained from past life regression are truly from past life, experts generally regard claims of recovered memories of past lives as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation, because the use of hypnosis and suggestive questions can tend to leave the subject particularly likely to hold distorted or false memories.


title: Afterlife

text: There is a view based on the philosophical question of personal identity, termed open individualism by Daniel Kolak, that concludes that individual conscious experience is illusory, and because consciousness continues after death in all conscious beings, "you" do not die. This position has allegedly been supported by physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger and Freeman Dyson.


title: Afterlife

text: Certain problems arise with the idea of a particular person continuing after death. Peter van Inwagen, in his argument regarding resurrection, notes that the materialist must have some sort of physical continuity. John Hick also raises questions regarding personal identity in his book, "Death and Eternal Life", using an example of a person ceasing to exist in one place while an exact replica appears in another. If the replica had all the same experiences, traits, and physical appearances of the first person, we would all attribute the same identity to the second, according to Hick.


title: Afterlife

text: In the panentheistic model of process philosophy and theology the writers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne rejected the idea that the universe was made of substance, instead saying reality is composed of living experiences (occasions of experience). According to Hartshorne people do not experience subjective (or personal) immortality in the afterlife, but they do have objective immortality because their experiences live on forever in God, who contains all that was. However other process philosophers such as David Ray Griffin have written that people may have subjective experience after death.


title: Afterlife

text: Psychological proposals for the origin of a belief in an afterlife include cognitive disposition, cultural learning, and as an intuitive religious idea. In one study, children were able to recognize the ending of physical, mental, and perceptual activity in death, but were hesitant to conclude the ending of will, self, or emotion in death.


title: Afterlife

text: In 2008, a large-scale study conducted by the University of Southampton involving 2060 patients from 15 hospitals in the United Kingdom, United States and Austria was launched. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study examined the broad range of mental experiences in relation to death. In a large study, researchers also tested the validity of conscious experiences for the first time using objective markers, to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events. The results revealed that 40% of those who survived a cardiac arrest were aware during the time that they were clinically dead and before their hearts were restarted. One patient also had a verified out-of-body experience (over 80% of patients did not survive their cardiac arrest or were too sick to be interviewed), but his cardiac arrest occurred in a room without markers. Dr. Parnia in the interview stated, "The evidence thus far suggests that in the first few minutes after death, consciousness is not annihilated." The AWARE study drew the following primary conclusions:


title: Afterlife

text: Studies have also been done on the widely reported phenomenon of Near Death Experiences. Experiencers commonly report being transported to a different "realm" or "plane of existence" and they have been shown to display a lasting positive aftereffect on most experiencers.


title: Afterlife

text: Children who fantasize about being reunited with loved ones after death are at higher risk of suicide.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( "Zahā Ḥadīd"; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building."


title: Zaha Hadid

text: She was described by "The Guardian" as the "Queen of the curve", who "liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity". Her major works include the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the Broad Art Museum, Rome's MAXXI Museum, and the Guangzhou Opera House. Some of her awards have been presented posthumously, including the statuette for the 2017 Brit Awards. Several of her buildings were still under construction at the time of her death, including the Daxing International Airport in Beijing, and the Al Wakrah Stadium (now Al Janoub) in Qatar, a venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Hadid was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. She received the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize, in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, she was made a Dame by Elizabeth II for services to architecture, and in February 2016, the month preceding her death, she became the first woman to be individually awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (Ray Eames and Sheila O'Donnell had previously been awarded it jointly with Charles Eames and John Tuomey respectively).


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Zaha Hadid was born on 31 October 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq, to an upper class Iraqi family. Her father, Muhammad al-Hajj Husayn Hadid, was a wealthy industrialist from Mosul. He co-founded the left-liberal al-Ahali group in 1932, a significant political organisation in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the co-founder of the National Democratic Party in Iraq and served as minister of finance after the overthrow of the monarch after the 1958 Iraqi coup d'état for the government of General Abd al-Karim Qasim. Her mother, Wajiha al-Sabunji, was an artist from Mosul while her brother Foulath Hadid was a writer, accountant and expert on Arab affairs. Hadid once mentioned in an interview how her early childhood trips to the ancient Sumerian cities in southern Iraq sparked her interest in architecture. In the 1960s Hadid attended boarding schools in England and Switzerland. Hadid was unmarried with no children.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before moving, in 1972, to London to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. There she studied with Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis and Bernard Tschumi. Her former professor, Koolhaas, described her at graduation as "a planet in her own orbit." Zenghelis described her as the most outstanding pupil he ever taught. 'We called her the inventor of the 89 degrees. Nothing was ever at 90 degrees. She had spectacular vision. All the buildings were exploding into tiny little pieces." He recalled that she was less interested in details, such as staircases. "The way she drew a staircase you would smash your head against the ceiling, and the space was reducing and reducing, and you would end up in the upper corner of the ceiling. She couldn't care about tiny details. Her mind was on the broader pictures—when it came to the joinery she knew we could fix that later. She was right.' Her AA graduation thesis, "Malevich's Tektonik", was a concept and design for a 14-level hotel on London's Hungerford Bridge executed as an acrylic painting, inspired by the works of the Russian suprematist artist Kazimir Malevich.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: After graduation in 1977, she went to work for her former professors, Koolhaas and Zenghelis, at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Through her association with Koolhaas, she met the architectural engineer Peter Rice, who gave her support and encouragement during the early stages of her career. Hadid became a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom. She opened her own architectural firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, in London in 1980. During the early 1980s Hadid's style introduced audiences to a new modern architecture style through her extremely detailed and professional sketches. At the time people were focused on postmodernism designs, so her designs were a different approach to architecture that set her apart from other designers.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: She then began her career teaching architecture, first at the Architectural Association, then, over the years at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge University, the University of Chicago, the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Columbia University. She earned her early reputation with her lecturing and colourful and radical early designs and projects, which were widely published in architectural journals but remained largely unbuilt. Her ambitious but unbuilt projects included a plan for Peak in Hong Kong (1983), and a plan for an opera house in Cardiff, Wales, (1994). The Cardiff experience was particularly discouraging; her design was chosen as the best by the competition jury, but the Welsh government refused to pay for it, and the commission was given to a different and less ambitious architect. Her reputation in this period rested largely upon her teaching and the imaginative and colourful paintings she made of her proposed buildings. Her international reputation was greatly enhanced in 1988 when she was chosen to show her drawings and paintings as one of seven architects chosen to participate in the exhibition "Deconstructivism in Architecture" curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley at New York's Museum of Modern Art. This, a conference at the Tate in London and press coverage of her work began to not only get her name out into the architecture world, but allowed people to associate a particular style of architecture with Hadid.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: One of her first clients was Rolf Fehlbaum, the president-director general of the Swiss furniture firm Vitra, and later, from 2004 to 2010, a member of the jury for the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. In 1989, Fehlbaum had invited Frank Gehry, then little-known, to build a design museum at the Vitra factory in Weil-am-Rhein. In 1993, he invited Hadid to design a small fire station for the factory. Her design, made of raw concrete and glass, was a sculptural work composed of sharp diagonal forms colliding together in the centre. The design plans appeared in architecture magazines before construction. When completed, it only served as a fire station for a short period of time, as Weil am Rhein soon opened their own fire station. It became an exhibit space instead, and is now on display with the works of Gehry and other well-known architects. It was the launching pad of her architectural career.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: In 1994, Hadid was commissioned by the city of Vienna to design and construct a three-part scheme for the urban redevelopment of an area adjacent to the Danube Canal. Situated along the Spittelauer Lände, the series of buildings interact with and cross over the railway viaduct by Viennese Modernist architect Otto Wagner, a protected structure. In its initial design consisting of five buildings, the mixed-use scheme, described as a "sculpture-like overbuilding" of the historic Stadtbahn railway, was designed by Hadid's practice ZHA. Hadid, together with British architectural artist Brian Clarke, developed an unexecuted collaborative proposal for the project that incorporated integral artworks by Clarke as part of the Neo-Futurist structures, with interrelated glass mosaic and traditionally-leaded stained glass forming part of the cladding and fenestration of the complex. Clarke developed a new type of mouth-blown glass for the scheme, which he christened 'Zaha-Glas'. Later reduced to three buildings, the project, which experienced delays in construction, was completed in 2006, without the artwork.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Hadid designed a public housing estate in Berlin (1986–1993) and organised an exhibition, "The Great Utopia" (1992), at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her next major project was a ski jump at Bergisel, in Innsbruck Austria. The old ski jump, built in 1926, had been used in the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. The new structure was to contain not only a ski jump, but also a cafe with 150 seats offering a 360-degree view of the mountains. Hadid had to fight against traditionalists and against time; the project had to be completed in one year, before the next international competition. Her design is 48 metres high and rests on a base seven metres by seven metres. She described it as "an organic hybrid", a cross between a bridge and a tower, which by its form gives a sense of movement and speed.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: At the end of the 1990s, her career began to gather momentum, as she won commissions for two museums and a large industrial building. She competed against Rem Koolhaas and other well-known architects for the design of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio (1997–2003). She won, and became the first woman to design an art museum in the United States. At 8,500 square metres, the museum was not huge, and her design did not have the flamboyance of the Guggenheim Bilbao of Frank Gehry, built at the same time. But the project demonstrated Hadid's ability to use architectural forms to create interior drama, including its central element, a 30-metre long black stairway that passes between massive curving and angular concrete walls.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: In 2000 she won an international competition for the Phaeno Science Center, in Wolfsburg, Germany (2002–2005). The new museum was only a little larger than the Cincinnati Museum, with 9,000 square metres of space, but the plan was much more ambitious. It was similar in concept to the buildings of Le Corbusier, raised up seven metres on concrete pylons. Unlike Corbusier's buildings, she planned for the space under the building to be filled with activity, and each of the 10 massive inverted cone-shaped columns that hold up the building contains a cafe, a shop, or a museum entrance. The tilting columns reach up through the building and also support the roof. The museum structure resembles an enormous ship, with sloping walls and asymmetric scatterings of windows, and the interior, with its angular columns and exposed steel roof framework, gives the illusion of being inside a working vessel or laboratory.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: In 2001 she began another museum project, an extension of the Ordrupgaard Museum near Copenhagen, Denmark, a museum featuring a collection of 19th century French and Danish art in the 19th-century mansion of its collector. The new building is 87 metres long and 20 metres wide, and is connected by a five-metre wide passage to the old museum. There are no right angles – only diagonals – in the concrete shell of the museum. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the gallery make the garden the backdrop of the exhibits.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: In 2002 she won the competition to design a new administrative building for the factory of the auto manufacturer BMW in Leipzig, Germany. The three assembly buildings adjoining it were designed by other architects; her building served as the entrance and what she called the "nerve centre" of the complex. As with the Phaeno Science Center, the building is hoisted above street level on leaning concrete pylons. The interior contains a series of levels and floors which seem to cascade, sheltered by tilting concrete beams and a roof supported by steel beams in the shape of an 'H'. The open interior inside was intended, she wrote, to avoid "the traditional segregation of working groups" and to show the "global transparence of the internal organisation" of the enterprise, and wrote that she had given particular attention to the parking lot in front of the building, with the intent, she wrote, of "transforming it into a dynamic spectacle of its own".


title: Zaha Hadid

text: In 2004 she won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture, though she had only completed four buildings – the Vitra Fire Station, the Ski Lift in Innsbruck Austria, the Car Park and Terminus Hoenheim North in France, and the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. In making the announcement, Thomas Pritzker, the head of the jury, announced: "Although her body of work is relatively small, she has achieved great acclaim and her energy and ideas show even greater promise for the future."


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Between 1997 and 2010 Hadid ventured into the engineers' domain of bridge construction, a field also occupied by other top architects including Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava. Between 2005 and 2008 she designed and built the Bridge-Pavilion of Zaragoza, which was both an exhibit hall and a bridge, created for Expo 2008, an event on the themes of water and durable development. The concrete bridge span on which the pavilion rests is 85 metres long, as measured from the Exposition site to an island in the Ebro River. The bridge carries or is attached to four tunnel-like exhibition spaces she termed "pods", which spread onto the island, for a total length of 275 metres. The pods are covered with a skin of 26,000 triangular shingles, many of which open to let in air and light. The bridge-pavilion, characteristic of her designs and buildings of the period, is composed entirely of diagonal slopes and curves, with no right-angles of orthogonal forms. By its curving shape and low profile, the bridge-pavilion fits smoothly into the grassy landscape along the river.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: Between 1997 and 2010, she constructed a much more ambitious bridge, the Sheikh Zayed Bridge, which honors Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, between the island of Abu Dhabi and the mainland of Abu Dhabi, as well as to the Abu Dhabi International Airport. Both the design of the bridge and the lighting, consisting of gradually changing colours, were designed to give the impression of movement. The silhouette of the bridge is a wave, with a principal arch 235 metres long, standing 60 metres above the water. The total span of four lanes is long, and also includes pedestrian walkways.


title: Zaha Hadid

text: The National Museum of Arts of the 21st Century (MAXXI for short), in Rome, was designed and built between 1998 and 2010. The main theme of its architecture is the sense of movement; Everything in the structure seems to be moving and flowing. Hadid took inspiration from the surrounding orthogonal site grids to determine the overall form. The facade belongs to her earlier period, with smooth curving white walls and an austere black and white colour scheme. The building is perched on groups of five very thin pylons, and one gallery with a glass face precariously overhangs the plaza in front of the museum, creating shade. Rowan Moore of "The Guardian" of London described its form as "bending oblong tubes, overlapping, intersecting and piling over each other. The imagery is of flow and movement and it resembles a demented piece of transport architecture. Inside, black steel stairs and bridges, their undersides glowing with white light, fly across a void. They take you off to the galleries, which are themselves works of frozen motion. The design is intended to generate what Hadid called "confluence, interference and turbulence",