A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife

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Q. What am I doing here? I feel totally disoriented and helpless. A. This is normal for the newly dead and will pass. Your circumstances have changed as drastically as it is possible for circumstances to change. Every single one of us felt this way initially. Every single one of us eventually learned the ropes and regained our sense of balance and self-possession. The Little Book is designed to serve as a ready first aid to this objective. Q. What's wrong with my legs? It's as though they were made of rubber. A. You have what is popularly known as the staggers, which we all have when we arrive in the Afterlife. You'll be back to normal in a few days. Q. Exactly where am I? A. In life, it seemed to you that you inhabited a universe of stars, galaxies, and so on, and you located yourself as an individual on the planet Earth, on one of its continents or islands, perhaps in one of its cities. In your stay in that universe, this seemed "normal." A quick look round will convince you that you no longer inhabit that universe. It's said that we inhabit "another dimension" or "a parallel universe," but these phrases have no precise meaning. Basically, you're somewhere else, and this somewhere else will soon seem completely normal to you. Q. But everything already looks completely normal. A. Our environment is locally psycho-reactive, which is to say that it responds to our individual expectations in ways that are not explainable in ordinary causal terms. If you are, let us say, an American urbanite of the 1990s, your surroundings will almost certainly look and function like a sort of idealized American city of that era. If, on the other hand, you are a Kayapo Indian of the 1990s, your surroundings will look and function like a rain forest in the interior of Brazil. Q. Is this heaven then? A. Some believe so. Some argue that it cannot be, since no divine presence makes itself felt. Some believe it to be a purgatory from which some or all of us will eventually be delivered. Even in the Afterlife, questions remain. Q. Why do people call this place Detroit [Nepal, Havana, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sheffield, Nebraska]? It isn't at all the way I remember it. A. Place names in the Afterlife are not subject to any objective standard. Several large French cities are named Paris, and they are not all in the same general area (not, in other words, all in "France"). Shades in your area (or at least some of them) have adopted the habit of calling it Detroit (or whatever). It doesn't mean much of anything. Humor them--or call it whatever you please (maybe you'll start a new trend). Q. Are maps available? A. Yes, and they are delightful to look upon. Maps as small as your thumb, maps as large as the landscape. Minutely detailed maps with names of places you've never been. Glorious maps, filigreed, flagged, annotated, and totally impractical. Q. Why is it always overcast? Doesn't the sun ever shine? A. It isn't "overcast," and there is no sun to shine. The light (and the