Introduction

When you think of immortality, you might think of the stuff of pop culture and fantasy: the fountain of youth, magical elixirs, or vampires. However, these all speak of physical immortality, the indefinite extension of our life on earth. Although intriguing, the immortality spoken of in the letters is not this. The fear of death that many letter-writers attempt to sequester is not alleviated by the prospects of an indefinite physical existence, but rather the comfort of a spiritual or religious type of immortality. Arnold J. Toynbee’s letter recalls the point from Gulliver’s Travels that echoes this sentiment: “immortality on earth might not be jolly if it were imposed on us.” We see that the fear of death is not often met with the desire to never die, but rather to live on in a different kind of way. Throughout the letters, religious and spiritual beliefs are expressed, as these have often served as vehicles to create perspectives of future lives beyond death for worshippers and practitioners. It is no surprise that an explanation of death from many would then necessarily require referencing God, humans’ immortal spirit, a spiritual being within people, or some other mystical or non-physical element.

Ultimately, the letters in the Kaderli collection treat immortality as a mechanism for minimizing the impact of death, softening the abrupt end to earthly life. This comfort is expressed by the orthodox and non-orthodox letter-writers alike; beliefs in the afterlife, in the eternal nature of the soul, preservation through progeny, art, and memories are just a few of the kinds of immortality that were professed in the letters. In the letters, William C. Menninger writes, “It just so happens that I am not orthodox either but I do believe in an immortality of some sort. It is much more satisfying to feel that way and no one can disprove it.”

Otto Rank, a psychiatrist who first wrote of immortality ideologies, suggested that this desire for immortality arose as a coping mechanism to keep the fear of death at bay (cited in Sheets-Johnstone, 2003). Menninger’s embrace of immortality certainly seems to arise in this way, as a consolation to a little girl’s fear of death. For the many who find meaning in life’s aspects of apparent infinitude (e.g., memory, creation, love, art, God), which the fact of death contradicts, the notion of immortality restores meaning to a life that is not destroyed in death.