Alternative Funerary Practice

From the 'News of the Weird' Department:

I give you two modern practices and one semi-modern one that has been outlawed.

First, the Space Burial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_burial

























http://www.memorialspaceflights.com/images/UP_Aerospace_rocket-tractory.gif

Where apparently you are cremated, part of your remains are stuffed into a canister the size of a tube of lipstick and then fired into space to orbit around the earth. One immediate question comes to my mind... what happens when the orbit of the capsule you are in (and whoever else's remains are up there with yours) degrades to the point where it falls out of orbit and back to the earth?

You're going to freak the heck out of some UFO conspirist in Arizona, is what's going to happen...

Moving on to something with a little less 'pomp', but just as much circumstance... the 'Fireworks' ash scattering method.
I kind of like this idea... pack your loved one's ashes into a firework or set of them and light a match! Hilarity ensues!





















http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1438/723251706_7e02c1f448.jpg

In all seriousness, though... it's rather interesting... either you can arrange for a service such as http://www.heavenlystarsfireworks.com/ to do your fireworks show FOR you, OR you can send an amount of your loved one's remains to the company and they'll pack them int fireworks and send you the box to set up and fire off yourself!
Subject, of course, to local bylaws about shooting fireworks into the night sky, you have the perfect reason to 'celebrate' the passing of your loved on... you MIGHT, however, want to warn people the dust those particles of Uncle Jerry out of their hair...

And finally, I must ask what level of devotion to ANY religion (in this case Buddhism) would cause someone to want to do THIS to themselves?



http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t119/ilkeryoldas/mumonk.jpg

Sokushinbutsu. "Living Buddhas".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu

It took around three thousand days to accomplish this (a practice called "nyūjō")... if it worked at all... one thousand days of a special diet and rigorous exercise to divest the body of body fat, followed by one thousand days of eating nothing but bark and roots and drinking a tea made from poisonous tree sap (inducing vomiting and body fluids) then sealing oneself in a specially-made tomb in the lotus position with nothing but a breathing tube.
Once per day, the monk rang the bell inside to let those on the outside know he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, they sealed the tomb completely for ANOTHER one thousand days and waited.
To those who failed to become mummies (and were, instead, simply rotted corpses) the locals still revered them for their level of dedication. On rare occasion, however, mummification was successful and the remains are declared to be a Buddha and put on display!
Japan banned the unburying of them in 1879 and assisted suicide has since been declared illegal in Japan... and no Buddhist sects today advocate or practice this.