Abstract
In many religious traditions, the spatial locations of the afterlife are vividly depicted in words and images.1 Siduri’s garden in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation or in the Fourth Book of Ezra, the representation of Paradise on Persian carpets or Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia are diverse illustrations of a recurrent paradox: in these works, remote or otherworldly spaces are portrayed as tangible and present, although they lie beyond human experience, and are inaccessible within the bounds of human life. This chapter deals with this peculiar tension in religious representations of the afterlife. It focuses upon collective ideas of worlds generated and mediated by religious symbol-systems that cannot be experienced in the present life. Afterlife imagery is a good example of religion’s function in providing an orientation for human life by delineating spaces beyond the borders of what can be immediately perceived.2 This aspect is particularly interesting for an approach to religion that is concerned with media and religious communication.3
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