Cremation Totally Explained

Everything about Crematoria totally explained

Cremation is the act of reducing a corpse by burning, generally in a crematorium furnace or crematory fire. Contrary to popular belief, the remains (often called cremains) are not "ashes" in the usual sense, but rather dried bone fragments which have been pulverized in a device called a cremulator.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite which is alternative to the interment of an intact body in a casket. Cremains, which are not a health risk, may be buried or immured in memorial sites or cemeteries, or they may be legally retained by relatives or dispersed in a variety of ways and locations.

Methods of keeping or disposing of the cremated remains

Cremated remains are returned to the next of kin in a rectangular plastic container, contained within a further cardboard box or velvet sack, or in an urn if the family had already purchased one. An official certificate of cremation prepared under the authority of the crematorium accompanies the remains and if required by law the permit for disposition of human remains, which must remain with the cremains.
Cremated remains can be kept in an urn, sprinkled on a special field, mountain, in the sea, or buried in the ground at any location. In addition, there are several services which will scatter the cremated remains in a variety of ways and locations. Some examples are via a helium balloon, through fireworks, shot from shotgun shells or scattered from an airplane (this isn't illegal in most jurisdictions, in part because laws prohibiting it would be difficult to enforce). One service will send a lipstick-tube sized sample of the cremains into low earth orbit, where they remain for years, but not permanently, before re-entering the atmosphere. Another company claims to turn part of the cremains into a diamond in an artificial diamond manufacturing machine. These converted grown diamonds can then be cut, polished, and mounted as would a real diamond into jewelry as a keepsake for the family. Cremains may also be incorporated, with urn and cement, into part of an artificial reef, or they can also be mixed into paint and made into a portrait of the deceased. Cremated remains can be scattered in national parks in the US, with a special permit. They can also be scattered on private property, with the owner's permission. A portion of the cremated remains may be retained in a specially designed locket known as a keepsake pendant. The cremated remains may also be entombed. Most cemeteries will grant permission for burial of cremains in occupied cemetery plots which have already been purchased or are in use by the families disposing of the cremains, without any additional charge or oversight.
The final disposition depends on the personal wishes of the deceased as well as their cultural and religious beliefs. Some religions will permit the cremated remains to be sprinkled or kept at home. Some religions, such as Roman Catholicism, insist on either burying or entombing the remains. Hinduism obliges the closest male relative (son, father, husband, etc.) of the deceased to immerse the cremated remains in the holy river Ganges, preferably at the holy city of Haridwar, India. The Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus immerse the remains in Sutlej, usually at Sri Harkiratpur. In Japan and Taiwan, the remaining bone fragments are given to the family and are used in a burial ritual before final interment (see Japanese funeral).

Reasons for choosing cremation

Apart from religious reasons (discussed below), some people find they prefer cremation for personal reasons. For some people it's because they're not attracted to traditional burial. The thought of a long, slow decomposition process is unappealing to some; some people find that they prefer cremation because it disposes of the body immediately.
   Other people view cremation as a way of simplifying their funeral process. These people view a traditional burial as an unneeded complication of their funeral process, and thus choose cremation to make their services as simple as possible.
   The cost factor tends to make cremation attractive. Generally speaking, cremation costs less than traditional burial services, Another concern is contamination from radioisotopes that entered the body before death or burial. One possible source of isotopes is radiation therapy, although no accumulation of radiation occurs in the most common type of radiation therapy involving high energy photons. However, cremation has no effect on radioisotopes other than to return them to the environment more rapidly (beginning with some spread into the air). Thus, cremation is of no overall help with pollution from this source.
   Yet another environmental concern, of sorts, is that traditional burial takes up a great deal of space. In a traditional burial the body is buried in a casket made from a variety of materials. In America the casket is often placed inside a concrete vault or liner before burial in the ground. While individually this may not take much room, combined with other burials it can over time cause serious space concerns. Many cemeteries, particularly in Japan and Europe as well as those in larger cities, have run out, or are starting to run out, of permanent space. In Tokyo, for example, traditional burial plots are extremely scarce and expensive, and in London, a space crisis led Harriet Harman to propose re-opening old graves for "double-decker" burials..
   However, there's a growing body of research that indicates cremation has a significant impact on the environment:
The major emissions from crematories are: nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, mercury, hydrogen fluoride (HF), hydrogen chloride (HCl), NMVOCs, and other heavy metals, in addition to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP).
   According to the United Nations Environment Programme report on POP Emission Inventory Guidebook, emissions from crematoria contribute 0.2% of the global emission of dioxins and furans.

Religious views on cremation

Indian religions

The Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, mandate cremation. In these religions the body is seen as an instrument to carry the soul. As an example the Bhagavad Gita quotes "Just as old clothes are cast off and new ones taken, the soul leaves the body after the death to take a new one". Hence, the dead body isn't considered sacred since the soul has left the body and the cremation is regarded as ethical by the Eastern religions. In Sikhism, burial isn't prohibited, although cremation is the preferred option for cultural reasons rather than religious.Since Sikhism is having lot of cultural similarity with Hinduism that’s why they prefer cremation; they also used to dissolve ashes of corpse in holy rivers same as Hindus do.
In Islam, Muslims also recognize a fair amount those who cremate rather than bury the deceased, depending on the status of the Muslim. Many Islamics in India, particuraly Hindus in Muslim dominated areas like Jammu and Kashmir, follow their old rituals of cremation, while following Islam. The same term goes for Christians who follow Christianity within the Sanskrit scriptures.
According to Hindu traditions, the reasons for preference of destroying the corpse by fire over burying it into ground, is to induce a feeling of detachment into the freshly-disembodied spirit, which will be helpful to encourage it into passing to 'the other world' (the ultimate destination of the dead). This also explains the ground-burial of holy men (whose spirit is already 'detached' enough due to lifelong ascetic practices) and young children (the spirit hasn't lived long enough to grow attachments to this world). Hindu holy men are buried in lotus position and not in horizontal position as in other religions. Hindus have 16 rituals (Sanskars) like Name, Thread ceremony, beginning of student life, marriage etc. and the last one is Cremation.Cremation is referred to as antim-samskara, literally meaning "the last rites". At the time of the cremation or "last rites" a "Puja" (ritual worship) is performed.Holy text of Rigveda, one of the most oldest Hindu scripture has many Ruchas(small poems) related to cremation stating that Lord Agni (God of Fire) will purify this body so instead of any other method let’s give this Parthiv (dead body) to Agni (Fire).

Christianity

In Christian countries and cultures, cremation has typically been discouraged, but not forbidden.

Roman Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church's discouragement of cremation stemmed from several ideas: first, that the body, as the instrument through which the sacraments are received, is itself a sacramental, a holy object; second that as an integral part of the human person, it should be disposed of in a way that honours and reverences it, and many early practices involved with disposal of dead bodies were viewed as pagan in origin or an insult to the body; third, that in imitation of Jesus Christ's burial, the body of a Christian should be buried; and fourth, that it constituted a denial of the resurrection of the body.
Cremation was, in fact, not forbidden in and of itself; even in Medieval Europe cremation was practised in situations where there were multitudes of corpses simultaneously present, such as after a battle, after a pestilence or famine, and where there was an imminent danger of diseases spreading from the corpses, since individual burials with digging graves would take too long time and body decomposition begin before all the corpses had been interred. However, earth burial or entombment remained the law unless there were circumstances that required cremation for the public good.
Beginning in the Middle Ages, and even more so in the 18th century and later, rationalists and classicists began to advocate cremation again as a statement denying the resurrection and/or the afterlife, although the pro-cremation movement more often than not took care to address and refute theological concerns about cremation in their works. Sentiment within the Catholic Church against cremation became hardened in the face of the association of cremation with "professed enemies of God". but cremation is now freely permitted as long as it isn't done to express a refusal to believe in the resurrection of the body.
Until 1997, Catholic liturgical regulations required that cremation take place after the funeral Mass, so that, if possible, the body might be present for the Mass - the body was present as a symbol, and to receive the blessings and be the subject of prayers in which it's mentioned. Once the Mass itself was concluded, the body could be cremated and a second service could be held at the crematorium or cemetery where the ashes were to be interred just as for a body burial. The liturgical regulations now allow for a Mass with the container of ashes present, but permission of the local bishop is needed for this. The Church still specifies requirements for the reverent disposition of ashes, normally that the ashes are to be buried or entombed in an appropriate container, such as an urn (rather than scattered or preserved in the family home). Catholic cemeteries today regularly receive cremated remains and many have columbaria.

Protestantism

Protestant churches were much more welcoming of the use of cremation and at a much earlier date than the Catholic Church; pro-cremation sentiment wasn't unanimous among Protestants, however. The first crematoria in the Protestant countries were built in 1870s, and in 1908 the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey, one of the most famous Anglican churches, required that remains be cremated for burial in the abbey's precincts. Scattering, or "strewing," is an acceptable practice in many Protestant denominations, and some churches have their own "garden of remembrance" on their grounds in which remains can be scattered. Other Christian groups also support cremation. These include Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Eastern Orthodox and others who forbid cremation

On the other hand, some branches of Christianity oppose cremation, including some minority Protestant groups. Most notably, the Eastern Orthodox Churches forbid cremation. Exceptions are made for circumstances where it may not be avoided (when civil authority demands it, or epidemics) or if it may be sought for good cause, but when a cremation is willfully chosen for no good cause by the one who is deceased, he or she isn't permitted a funeral in the church and may also be permanently excluded from liturgical prayers for the departed. In Orthodoxy, cremation is a rejection of the dogma of the general resurrection, and as such is viewed harshly.

Mormonism

Leaders of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have typically declared that cremation is strongly discouraged. This is based on the LDS belief that the body is holy, and that the body and soul will eventually be reunited. Prominent LDS leader Bruce R. McConkie wrote that "only under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances" would cremation be consistent with LDS teachings.

Judaism

Judaism has traditionally disapproved of cremation in the past. (which was the traditional means of disposing the dead in the neighboring Bronze Age cultures). Traditionally, it has also disapproved of preservation of the dead by means of embalming and mummifying, a practice of the ancient Egyptians. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, as the Jewish cemeteries in many European towns had become crowded and were running out of space, cremation became an approved means of corpse disposal amongst the Liberal Jews. Current liberal movements like Reform Judaism still support cremation, although divided burial remains the preferred option.

Zoroastrianism

Traditionally, Zoroastrianism disavows cremation or burial to preclude pollution of fire or earth. The traditional method of corpse disposal is through ritual exposure in a "Tower of Silence," but both burial and cremation are increasingly popular alternatives. Some contemporary figures of the faith have opted for cremation. Parsi-Zoroastrian singer Freddie Mercury of the group Queen was cremated after his death.

Neopaganism

Of modern Neo-Pagan religions, Ásatrú favours cremation, as do forms of Celtic Paganism.

Other religions that permit cremation

Ásatrú, Buddhism, Christianity (containing Church of Ireland, Church in Wales, United Church of Canada, Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutheranism, Methodism, Moravian Church, Salvation Army, Scottish Episcopal Church), Christian Science, Church of Scientology, Hinduism (mandatory except for sanyasis, eunuchs and children under five), Jainism, Sikhs, Society of Friends (Quakers), and Unitarian Universalism all permit cremation.

Other religions that forbid cremation

The Bahá'í faith forbids cremation. Neo-Confucianism under Zhu Xi strongly discourages cremation of one's parents' corpses as unfilial. In Egyptian Reconstructionism it's believed the Ka will be killed with cremation but it isn't forbidden and during ancient times, was a practice of disposing of criminals who were executed in order for them to be deprived of an afterlife. In Islam the Islamic Law doesn't strictly forbid Cremation.

History

Ancient

Cremation dates to at least 26,000 years ago in the archaeological record with the Mungo Lake cremation.
   Alternative death rituals emphasizing one method of disposal of a body, inhumation (burial, cremation, and exposure), have gone through periods of preference throughout history.
   In the Middle East and Europe both burial and cremation are evident in the archaeological record in the Neolithic. Cultural groups had their own preference and prohibitions. The ancient Egyptians developed an intricate transmigration of soul theology, which prohibited cremation, and this was adopted widely among other Semitic peoples. The Babylonians, according to Herodotus, embalmed their dead. Early Persians practiced cremation but this became prohibited during the Zoroastrian Period. Phoenicians practiced both cremation and burial. Ancient Greeks and Romans practiced both with cremation generally associated with military honours.
   In Europe, there are traces of cremation dating to the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BC) in the Pannonian Plain and along the middle Danube. The custom becomes dominant throughout Bronze Age Europe with the Urnfield culture (from ca. 1300 BC). In the Iron Age, inhumation becomes again more common, but cremation persisted in the Villanovan culture and elsewhere. Homer's account of Patroclus' burial describes cremation with subsequent burial in a tumulus similar to Urnfield burials, qualifying as the earliest description of cremation rites. This is mostly an anachronism, as during Mycenaean times burial was generally preferred, and Homer may have been reflecting more common use of cremation in the period in which the Iliad was written centuries later.
   Criticism of burial rites is a common aspersion in competing religions and cultures and one is the association of cremation with fire sacrifice or human sacrifice. Hinduism and Jainism are notable for not only allowing but prescribing cremation. Cremation in India is first attested in the Cemetery H culture (from ca. 1900 BC), considered the formative stage of Vedic civilization. The Rigveda contains a reference to the emerging practice, in RV 10.15.14, where the forefathers "both cremated (agnidagdhá-) and uncremated (ánagnidagdha-)" are invoked.
   Cremation remained common, but not universal, in both Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. According to Cicero, in Rome inhumation was considered the more archaic rite, while the most honoured citizens were most typically cremated, especially upper classes and members of imperial families. Christianity frowned upon cremation, both influenced by the tenets of Judaism, and in an attempt to abolish Graeco-Roman pagan rituals. By the 5th century, the practice of cremation had practically disappeared from Europe.
   In early Roman Britain cremation was usual but diminished by the fourth century. It then reappeared in the fifth and sixth centuries during the migration era, when sacrificed animals were sometimes included with the human bodies on the pyre, and the deceased were dressed in costume and with ornaments for the burning. That custom was also very widespread among the Germanic peoples of the northern continental lands from which the Anglo-Saxon migrants are supposed to have been derived, during the same period. These ashes were usually thereafter deposited in a vessel of clay or bronze in an 'urn cemetery'. The custom again died out with the Christian conversion among the Anglo-Saxons or Early English, during the seventh century, when inhumation of the corpse became general.

In the Middle Ages

Throughout parts of Europe, cremation was forbidden by law, and even punishable by death if combined with heathen rites. Cremation was sometimes used by authorities as part of punishment for heretics, and this didn't only include burning at the stake. For example, the body of John Wycliff was exhumed years after his death and cremated, with the ashes thrown in a river,. explicitly as a posthumous punishment for his denial of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. On the other hand, mass cremations were often performed because of necessity, when there was a danger of contagious diseases, such as after a battle, pestilence or famine. Retributory cremation continued into modern times. For example, after World War II, the bodies of the 12 men convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials were not returned to their families, but were instead cremated, then disposed of at a secret location, as a specific part of a legal process intended to deny their use as a location for any sort of memorial. In Japan, however, a memorial building for many executed war criminals, who were also cremated, was allowed to be erected for their remains. Many Communist countries used similar obliteration as an aggravated capital punishment: the bodies of the executed were cremated and the ashes ignominiously disposed, thus humiliating the families even further.
Even today, cremation bears the stigma of "human waste disposal" in many ex-Socialist countries and is considered ignominious or shameful.

The modern era

   In 1873, Paduan Professor Brunetti presented a cremation chamber at the Vienna Exposition. In Britain, the movement found the support of Queen Victoria's surgeon, Sir Henry Thompson, who together with colleagues founded the Cremation Society of England in 1874. The first crematoria in Europe were built in 1878 in Woking, England and Gotha, Germany, the first in North America in 1876 by Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne in Washington, Pennsylvania. The second cremation in the United States was that of Charles F. Winslow in Salt Lake City, Utah on July 31 1877. The first cremation in Britain took place on 26th March 1886 at Woking.
   Cremation was declared as legal in England and Wales when Dr William Price was prosecuted for cremating his son; formal legislation followed later with the passing of the Cremation Act 1902, (this Act didn't extend to Ireland) which imposed procedural requirements before a cremation could occur and restricted the practice to authorised places. Some of the various Protestant churches came to accept cremation, with the rationale being, "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as he can resurrect a bowl of dust". The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia was critical about these efforts, referring to them as a "sinister movement" and associating them with Freemasonry, although it said that "there is nothing directly opposed to any dogma of the Church in the practice of cremation". In 1963, Pope Paul VI lifted the ban on cremation, and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies. Australia also started to establish modern cremation movements and societies. Australians had their first purpose-built modern crematorium and chapel in the West Terrace Cemetery in the South Australian capital Adelaide in 1901. This small building, resembling the buildings at Woking, remained largely unchanged from its 19th century style and in full operation until the late 1950s. The oldest operating Crematorium in Australia is at Rookwood in Sydney. It opened in 1925.
   In the Netherlands, the foundation of the Association for Optional Cremation in 1874 ushered in a long debate about the merits and demerits of cremation. Laws against cremation were challenged and invalidated in 1915 (two years after the construction of the first crematorium in the Netherlands), though cremation didn't become legally recognised until 1955.

Negative experiences with cremation in recent history

World War II

During the Holocaust, massive crematoria were constructed and operated by the Nazis within their concentration camps and extermination camps to dispose of the bodies of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, and other prisoners who were killed or died in the camps daily. In addition to the atrocity of mass murder, the remains of Jews were thus disposed of in a manner deeply offensive to Orthodox Judaism because Halakha, the Jewish law, forbids cremation and holds that the soul of a cremated person can't find its final repose. Since then, cremation has carried an extremely negative connotation for many Jews.

The Tri-State Crematory incident

A recent controversial event involved the failure to cremate, known as the Tri-State Crematory Incident. In the state of Georgia in the United States in early 2002, three hundred thirty-four corpses that were supposed to have been cremated in the previous few years at the Tri-State Crematory were found intact and decaying on the crematorium's grounds, having been dumped there by the crematorium's proprietor. Many of the corpses were beyond identification. In many cases the "ashes" that were returned to the family were not human remains - they were made of wood and concrete dust.
Eventually Ray Brent Marsh—who was the operator at the time the bodies were discovered—had 787 criminal charges filed against him. On November 19, 2004 Marsh pleaded guilty to all charges. Marsh was sentenced to two 12-year prison sentences from both Georgia and Tennessee which he's serving concurrently. Afterwards he'll be on probation for 75 years.
Civil suits were filed against the Marsh family as well as a number of funeral homes who shipped bodies to Tri-State. These suits were ultimately settled. The property of the Marsh family has been sold, but collection of the full $80 million judgment remains doubtful. Families have expressed the desire to return the former Tri-State crematory to a natural, park like setting.

The Indian Ocean tsunamis

The magnitude 9.0-9.3 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004 that killed almost 300,000 people, making them the deadliest tsunamis in recorded history. The tsunamis killed people over an area ranging from the immediate vicinity of the quake in Indonesia, Thailand, and the north-western coast of Malaysia, to thousands of kilometres away in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and even as far as Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania in eastern Africa.
Authorities had difficulties dealing with the large numbers of bodies, and as a result thousands of bodies were of necessity cremated together. Many of these bodies were not identified or viewed by relatives prior to cremation. A particular point of objection was that the bodies of Westerners were kept separate from those of Asian descent, who were mostly locals. This meant that the bodies of tourists from other Asian nations, such as Japan and Korea, were mass cremated rather than being returned to their country of origin for funeral rites.

Laws

The state of California has a law that forbids scattering human ashes on privately-owned land, including that of the decedant, although it does allow scattering at sea. Carl Djerassi found this to be a problem after the death of his daughter, Pamela. As he states in the chapter "A Scattering of Ashes" in his autobiography 'The Pill, Pigmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse, he solved the problem by scattering Pamela's ashes into a creek on the family estate that was a tributary to San Francisquito Creek, which eventually runs to the San Francisco Bay.

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