Gunther von Hagens’s Bodyworlds is truly something to behold. How many formerly living human bodies have you been in the same room with at the same time? Personally, thanks to having experienced the Bodyworlds exhibit on two separate occasions, I’ve lost count. This is an exceptionally fascinating project, though I’m slightly conflicted on the situation of the participants, post life, which I’ll get to in a few moments.
Fundamentally, Bodyworlds is an art exhibit that showcases human bodies in ways that most living humans have never seen. Deceased individuals are preserved via a process called “plastination” that basically prevents decomposition and allows the body to be manipulated/posed/displayed in virtually any fashion. I use the term “fashion” literally and figuratively… in that a body can be separated into it’s individual parts and displayed in an amazing way, or it can be posed as if playing poker, or riding atop a plastinated de-skinned horse. It may sound morbid, but it truly isn’t… at least not for any reasonable individual. In my humble opinion, even children should see this exhibit, I would certainly take my own children, aged 5 and 7, should this exhibit return to my city for a third run.
At any rate, the DVD shown in the picture in the previous post was purchased at the exhibit itself, but is available on the official website:
Go have a look, be amazed.
As for my concern for the participants, or plastinates as they are known, Thinking & Destiny addresses a period following death in relation to the existing physical body. I’m epically paraphrasing here, but basically the sooner that the physical body is destroyed, the sooner the former inhabitant can disassociate its thought processes to the physical Earth and proceed through the after-death states. All of this will absolutely be discussed in future posts, I’m definitely getting ahead of myself here, but essentially the best way to dispose of a body is cremation. It return the body to element and frees the former inhabitant from it fully, they can “move on,” as the saying goes. Any other method of postmortem body-handling will inevitable hinder the individual from rapidly traversing certain after-death states. Again, we’re way ahead of ourselves, but I can’t help but wonder the effect on the Self of having one’s former body plastinated upon death.
At any rate, what’s done is done and godspeed to all former inhabitants of plastinated bodies and those presently alive who shall become future plastinates. Long live Bodyworlds!
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Two posts in two days? I decided to quickly hammer this one out so as to have a post on 2/22 as a nod the the birth of this blog on 1/11.