This book takes a riveting look at how the law responds to that distinctly American dream of immortality. While American law provides virtually no protections for the interests we hold most dear—our bodies and our reputations—when it comes to property interests, the American dead have greater control than anywhere else in the world. Moreover, these rights are growing daily. From grave robbery to Elvis impersonators, Madoff shows how the law of the dead has a direct impact on how we live. Madoff examines how the rising power of the American dead enables the deceased to exert control over their wealth forever through grandiose schemes like "dynasty trusts" and perpetual private charitable foundations and to control their creative works and identities well into the unforeseeable future. Madoff explores how the law of the dead can, in essence, extend the reach of life by granting virtual immortality to individuals. All of this comes, Madoff contends, at real costs imposed on the living.
This piece reviews the book, "Immortality and the Law (The Rising Power of the American Dead)" (Yale University Press, 2010), by Ray D. Madoff, Professor of Law at Boston College School of Law. The book examines three areas of American law dealing with one's power to maintain a form of control after death -- the distribution of property; the use of the personal body; and the interests in privacy, publicity, and royalties. Professor Madoff examines how American law differs in many surprising ways from the laws of most other countries. She particularly points out the trouble created by the concentration of wealth for long periods of time made possible by the repeal in many jurisdictions of the rule against perpetuities. The author's skillful use of interesting cases and examples brings exuberant life to what many would view as a “dead subject.”
Immortality and the Law reflects upon the cultural observation that death itself is ''un-American'' and argues, persuasively, that recent law reform has shifted an historical balance between the living and the dead unevenly and unambiguously in favor of the latter. Madoff's hypothesis asserts that power over property interests -- in the forms of donor-imposed restrictions on private property, postmortem publicity rights, rights to intellectual property, and gifts in trust for charitable purposes rather than outright bequests -- vests the dead with unprecedented control at the cost of enjoyment by the living, giving new strength to the apparently unquenchable desire for immortality.
These vampires don’t sparkle…they bite. Book 1 of the Blood of Eden trilogy by Julie Kagawa, New York Times bestselling author of The Iron Fey, begins a thrilling dark fantasy series where vampires rule, humans are prey…and one girl will become what she hates most to save all she loves. Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, where the vampires who killed her mother rule and she and her crew of outcasts must hide from the monsters at night. All that drives Allie is her hatred of vampires, who keep humans as prey. Until the night Allie herself dies…a becomes one of the monsters. When she hears of a mythical place called Eden that might have a cure for the blood disease that killed off most of civilization, Allie decides to seek it out. Hiding among a band of humans, she begins a journey that will have unforeseen consequences…to herself, to the boy she’s falling for who believes she’s human, and to the future of the world. Now Allie must decide what—and who—is worth dying for…again. “A fresh and imaginative thrill ride.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review Books in the Blood of Eden series: The Immortal Rules The Eternity Cure The Forever Song
An exploration of one of the most universal human obsessions charts the rise of longevity science from its alchemical beginnings to modern-day genetic interventions and enters the world of those whose lives are shaped by a belief in immortality.
If you could live forever, would you want to? Both a fascinating look at the history of our strive for immortality and an investigation into whether living forever is really all it’s cracked up to be. A fascinating work of popular philosophy and history that both enlightens and entertains, Stephen Cave investigates whether it just might be possible to live forever and whether we should want to. He also makes a powerful argument that it’s our very preoccupation with defying mortality that drives civilization. Central to this book is the metaphor of a mountaintop where one can find the Immortals. Since the dawn of humanity, everyone – whether they know it or not—has been trying to climb that mountain. But there are only four paths up its treacherous slope, and there have only ever been four paths. Throughout history, people have wagered everything on their choice of the correct path, and fought wars against those who’ve chosen differently. In drawing back the curtain on what compels humans to “keep on keeping on,” Cave engages the reader in a number of mind-bending thought experiments. He teases out the implications of each immortality gambit, asking, for example, how long a person would live if they did manage to acquire a perfectly disease-free body. Or what would happen if a super-being tried to round up the atomic constituents of all who’ve died in order to resurrect them. Or what our loved ones would really be doing in heaven if it does exist. We’re confronted with a series of brain-rattling questions: What would happen if tomorrow humanity discovered that there is no life but this one? Would people continue to please their boss, vie for the title of Year’s Best Salesman? Would three-hundred-year projects still get started? If the four paths up the Mount of the Immortals lead nowhere—if there is no getting up to the summit—is there still reason to live? And can civilization survive? Immortality is a deeply satisfying book, as optimistic about the human condition as it is insightful about the true arc of history.
Immortal Law of Consciousness Creation: Lawsuit Against the Creator God, can be considered as the deepest esoteric information and truth in existence. This book, contains over 70 pages of an explanation of Immortal Law in the greatest detail possible. This information does not exist within any other book or website; nothing even slightly compares to the truth of Immortal Law. It is truly groundbreaking, new information that exists no where else, because I have spent years to build this wisdom from the ground up. I spent years thinking about Immortal Law; discovering all that would be the necessary guideline laws to achieve immortality for all of consciousness. Immortal Law dictates that the the only way for consciousness to be created is within the highest of moral standards; in order to prevent the possibility of pain, suffering, death, enslavement, or any form of evil against consciousness.Below, are the Seven Laws of Immortality, which are defined in great detail within the book.Immortality is the Birthright of All Forms of Consciousness.It Must be Impossible for Any Form of Consciousness to be Able to Victimize, Harm, Kill, or Enslave Other Forms of Consciousness.All Forms of Consciousness Must Be Created Equal in Power, Ability, Intelligence, to the God Who Created It.All Forms of Consciousness Must be Created with the Capability of Unlimited Thought and Imagination; Unbound by Physical Senses.All Forms of Consciousness Must Give Consent to be Created.All Forms of Consciousness Must be Created With the Full Capability of Memory of its Own Existence and Pre-Existence.All Forms of Consciousness Must Be Created as Self Sustaining.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.
