The Afterlife, Frankenstein, and Reanimation

The thought of life after death has been with us since the beginning of mankind. This dates back to the Neanderthals and every civilization since. The Egyptians, from approximately 3100 to 332 BC, believed that immortality could be achieved if Pharaohs were mummified, bringing items with them to take to the afterlife. The person’s heart would then be weighed of sins, and depending on whether or not there were any, they would pass on or be devoured by Ammit, a demon. The Greeks, dating back to 800-500 BC, believed the souls of the deceased would be judged by Hades, the god of the underworld, and based on their sins or goodness, would be sent to either the fields of punishment or of peacefulness and content. Similarly, the Vikings, around 800-1066 AD, surmised that warriors would spend their afterlives in Valhalla, sinners in Hel, and others in Fólkvangr, a massive meadow to be reunited with loved ones.

None of these civilizations, however, thought of bringing the dead back to life. In the late Romantic era, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley thought of what might happen if a person were to be reassembled and reanimated through galvanism in the first ever science fiction novel, Frankenstein. The main character, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, is able to successfully put together a creature capable of love, despite (spoiler alert) resulting in the deaths of almost every character. Her work brought forward lots of criticism on the religious and moral aspects of reanimating the dead, and instilled fear in societies that had just begun to embrace electricity.

Flash forward to the present, where patients are revived through resuscitation (CPR), or preserved through cryopreservation (freezing organisms in the hopes of being revived in the future) in almost every modern hospital. Science has come a long way since the Greeks and the Egyptians, and we, at the Royal Liar, can’t help but wonder how much further it’ll advance. Globally, life expectancy rates are increasing, but with this come over population and a strain on resources. All of these are important factors to keep in mind when considering manipulating the inevitable.