Imagine attending a funeral where the person who has died speaks directly to you, answering your questions and sharing ...

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work,” Woody Allen once said. “I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” Immortality is more than a punchline these days, however.

This story appears in the July 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. People prayed to these gods for the same reasons we pray today: for health and safety, for prosperity, for a good harvest ...