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[ TITLE: PSYCHOPOMPS AMONG US ]
[ SUBTITLE: Institutional soul-guides of the 21st century ]
[ VOLUME: II ]
[ AUTHOR: D. S. Jerome, W. Selter ]
[ PUBLISHED: 11/04/2011 ]
[ CATEGORY: Non-fiction, psychology, paranormal, sociology ] 
[ PAGES: 1144 ]

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Introduction

   If an afterlife exists, how does one’s soul arrive there? Is bidirectional transit possible between the realms of the living and the dead? And how must we act before death—or on behalf of the deceased—to ensure that our souls are not lost in the underworld, but guided safely to their eternal rest?
   Such questions are both universal and foundational for the human psyche. Without exception, every major civilization in recorded history has made concerted attempts to answer them, whether through religion, folklore, or the scientific method. It seems that an essential trait for any epistemological framework to survive is the ability to satisfactorily answer - what comes next?
   Across these domains, the presence of a psychopomp (ψυχοπομπός, "soul-guide") is curiously ubiquitous; from the infamous Greek ferryman Charon, paid in obols for his otherworldly passage since at least 500 BC, to the Chinese spirit-guards Fan and Xie (范謝將軍; 范谢将军, "Black and White Impermanence") who are still worshipped today, psychopomps are pronounced figures in virtually all mythologies but for the Abrahamic triad. (And besides, what to make of Saint Peter holding the "keys of the kingdom of heaven", or Azrael fetching souls at the behest of Allāh?)
   Modern interpretations of the psychopomp have even survived in secular and materialist cultures: Jungian psychologists reimagine the psychopomp as a mediator between the conscious and unconscious, while highly empathetic nurses in metropolitan hospitals—those that possess a sufficient quantity of medical staff to permit some degree of specialisation—are oft requested for their ability to ritualise and safeguard the passing of terminal patients.
   This textbook extends Schanger's socioparalogical lens to historical and mythological psychopomps and develops new hypotheses on their manifestation in 21st century institutions, customs, and belief systems. We traverse the topic using two mutually exclusive paradigms: first, by assuming a 'classical' psychopomp responsible for the transition of a completely intact soul, and secondly by speculating 'fractional' psychopomps that carry only a portion of one's soul to the beyond—potentially, once its usefulness in the overworld has been exhausted. Volume I contains the aforementioned classical assessment, and we turn now to fractional speculations in Volume II.
   In Chapter 1, we provide an overview of psychopomps throughout history and philosophy, placing emphasis especially on figures that (as we will see) are deeply analogous to certain establishments at the very core of today's global order. Although some differences exist between our preliminary chapter in Volumes I and II—for instance, both the Akan fisherwoman Amoke and Slavic goddess Morana feature rather more prominently here as a basis for our assessment of the Bretton Woods monetary system—a diligent reader of Volume I may safely skip this chapter without great loss.
   In Chapter 2, we examine the institution of marriage and reconceptualise it as a fractional psychopomp, parting two individual souls from their bodily owners so that their collective soul may flourish. We draw primary parallels firstly between marriage and Japanese shinigami (死神), and secondly with Norse valkyrie, later integrating these models so as to . . .