psychopomp

1. (religion) A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.Examples: "As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog. Sarameias, the Vedic counterpart of Hermes and Odin, sometimes appears invested with canine attributes; and countless other examples go to show that by the early Aryan mind the howling wind was conceived as a great dog or wolf."; "It is generally assumed that the sun goddess functions in the Shapash hymn as psychopomp, transporter of the dead to and from their netherly abode."; "These intermediaries take various forms: the psychopomps of the Neo platonists, the angelic beings of ritual magic, the spirit guides of theosophy, the aliens of modern Ufologists, and the neopagan gods which are a feature of late twentieth-century alternative thought."