"...ghosts are, so they say, bits and pieces of other worlds, the beginning of them. There is no reason, of course, why a healthy man should see them, because a healthy man is, above all, a man of this earth and he must, therefore, only live the life of this earth for the sake of order and completeness. But as soon as he falls ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of his organism is disturbed, the possibility of another world begins to become apparent, and the more ill he is, the more closely does he come in touch with the other world, so that when he dies, he goes straight to the other world. I worked it out a long time ago. If you believe in a future life, you could also believe in that."
"I do not believe in a future life," Raskolnikov said.
Svidrigaylov sat lost in thought.
"And what," he said suddenly, "if there are only spiders there, or something of the sort?"
--Fyodor Dostoevski (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment (pub. 1866), tr. by [unknown]
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