The truth about cremation: What really happens — and what it does for the soul

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# The Truth About Cremation: What Really Happens — and What It Does for the Soul

Cremation is one of those subjects people avoid until they have no choice but to confront it.

It lives in the background of our lives, filed under *later*, *someday*, *after*. We whisper about it when someone dies, skim past the details when making arrangements, and often choose it without truly understanding what it means — physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

And yet, cremation is becoming one of the most common ways humans say goodbye.

So what actually happens during cremation?
What is myth, and what is reality?
And perhaps most importantly: **what does it do for the soul — both of the person who has died and the people left behind?**

The truth is quieter, more human, and more meaningful than most people expect.

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## What Cremation Really Is — Without Euphemisms

Cremation is the process of reducing a human body to bone fragments through intense heat. It is not instantaneous, and it is not violent in the way popular imagination often assumes.

After death, the body is prepared with care — just as it would be for burial. It is placed into a cremation chamber, sometimes called a retort, where temperatures reach between 1,400 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Over the course of one to three hours, soft tissue is released through heat, and what remains are bone fragments.

Those fragments are then processed into the fine, sand-like substance people call “ashes,” though they are not ash in the way firewood turns to ash. They are bone, transformed.

Nothing about the process is rushed.
Nothing about it is careless.
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