Death In SF

Poul Anderson wrote fantasies in which a hereafter is assumed as a fictional premise and one sf story in which a dying but mentally powerful alien transfers his mental pattern from his neurons to the cosmic wave, thus losing physical parts and senses but gaining:

"'...new psionic abilities which more than compensate. He could speak mind to mind with living Cibarrans, tell them the facts - and then, maybe, go on to the next phase of his existence, like a butterfly leaving the cocoon -'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Martyr" IN Anderson, The Gods Laughed (New York, 1982), pp. 7-32.

There is a "maybe" in there. Nevertheless, these Cibarrans live longer than their bodies. This one dies but then returns to his home planet as a wave pattern.

However:

this is speculative fiction, not a supernaturalist doctrine believed or promulgated by the author;

the kick in the face at the end is that a Cibarran tells a man that human beings do not have immortal souls.

I mention this in order to contrast Anderson with Robert Heinlein and CS Lewis but that will have to wait until a later post.