What is exactly is Hell?

General Discussion
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I was raised with a Christian concept of hell, a lake of fire, a place of eternal torment for the souls of the sinner, all that usual old stuff. I used to greatly fear someday going there. I was taught that most human souls did indeed go there. Obviously it just sounded like nothing but a bad place no one would want to go or even think much of.

later, as I grew up, learned that it was not a bad idea to consider other ideas, to form my own opinions and and to seek out a little truth and good old common sense, I decided that it was all just fear mongering. It made no sense to imagine a loving God, loving every soul regarding of it’s ‘sins’ letting it burn for eternity. I deiced that that if Hell was real in any way it was clearly not exactly what we were taught it is, I had no real idea what that all meant, but not knowing that didn’t matter. I left it at that, and I and just had no real belief in or opinion of the whole matter. It became irrelevant, as it seemed to not sense as an afterlife for people or any such thing.

Now, as I find myself diving more and more into the left handed path, what I tend to call the "darker’ path, only because I have no proper and more accurate wording for it, I am learning quite fast that Hell is a significant belief after all. That demons actually do seem to live down there. (I say down because I was always taught for some reason to image it as down. I see no real to really see it as directly below us. That would place it in the center of the Earth of course, and I do feel that idea is quite simply silly.) As I understand it now, the black magicians generally don’t believe that we are meant to live there for eternity, but can ask a demon to show it to you, or can soul travel there I would suppose. So then it is a real place in a way, just not as we were told?

So now I find myself in the strange situation of trying once again to grasp a concept of Hell, when I spent so many years finally learning to, and eventually trusting myself, to disbelieve in it. Basically trying to put something back into my line of thinking that I had forced OUT of it once, but to do so in the not so terrifying and dangers way of childhood.

This is loner than I wanted it to be, sorry about that. I am just trying to form my own thoughts on this and somehow am only confusing myself in doing so, likely making it worse. I hope I am actually making since. I am extremely interested in your answers on this one. What exactly is Hell? I can get the concept that the demons might live there. That’s easy enough. But what I can’t see is WHY? Why would someone want to live in a place of fire and smoke and darkness and an unending heatwave? I’m not sure a human soul would be thrown down there for all eternity, but at the same time I can’t see why a demon would like it much either. I suspect I’m either trying to make this way too simply here and missing a whole ton of things I should eventually learn, or I am overthinking. Help me out here.

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Well, why would anything want to live in freezing ice and with no greenery and almost no sunlight for three months a year? Yet polar bears and other arctic and antarctic animals and fish, and sea mammals, all seem to thrive there. :slight_smile:

I think 99% of our preferences are based on our reasonably frail and furless primate bodies, and for beings who are different (even just biologically, like scorpions in the desert, or snakes) different conditions appeal.

And I think the only people who end up in hellish dimensions are those who relish all hellish types of activity, thought, and action whilst alive. The type of people who enjoy “making that (son of a) bitch’s life hell” for no possible reason except jealousy or spite.

This was what I saw when I did psychopomp journeys and the core magnetism of the human soul seems to deliver to people what they like most, the same as when they’re alive.

This isn’t a moral issue, it’s simple (meta)physics - like attracts like. That’s what I saw, anyway. :slight_smile:

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Lady Eva, I’m happy you decided to reply to this topic. You always give such good and enlightening answers on this forum. Thanks :slight_smile:
You make a god point I never really considered. Hmmm
 considering this more carefully I realize I may just never have really gotten over the idea of hell being little more than evil bad and meant for punishment.

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I think hell is a partial cohesion. All religions describe a recycling of awareness, with some having the goal of escaping that recycling process. If you’re not giving your attention back to the source, you need something to contain it, the self.

Upon death, the old self is gone, and you need to recreate it fully. At least that’s my goal, getting off this fucking wheel. I think hell realms are only partial recreations of the self, the negative shit you focus on too much. A use it or lose it situation for one trick ponies.

I visited a hell realm in a dream. I was habitually angry with violent thoughts, and I got myself a nice violent hell realm. Everyone tearing each other apart and continually regenerating, each time regenerating into something a little less human.

Because I was only ever focused on that one aspect of myself, that’s the only aspect I would likely have recreated post death, creating a very limited hell realm.

Of course that doesn’t mean it’s a bad place for the people in it, that’s what they love, what gives them pleasure, their ideal heaven. For that matter, I think heaven is the same kind if incomplete cohesion, a very limited place, only a fraction of the whole.

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Hell is New Jersey.

Kidding, but I cannot give a decent answer right now, I’ll check in later.

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Haha, that made me laugh. :slight_smile:

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There are classes of “Infernal” and “Cthonic” spirits that will manifest underworld imagery. The underground cave imagery tends to come with Saturnal spirits, but the infernal (as in “underground with lots of fire and molten lava”) imagery comes more with “Demonic” initiations. Lake of Fire baptisms are very common and seem to be a burning of worldly attachments (NOT a destruction of the self/body). A recurring idea I’ve encountered with the True Grimoire spirits is of gaining abilities that would only normally be unlocked after death, which is probably closer to the true, de-mystified intention of the ubiquitous Death initiation ceremony, which has taken on a very goofy, morbid, and vague intention in modern occult initiation.
20th century sources claim these sources are on one side or the other of their precious “Abyss,” but I hope I’ve been making my mounting scepticism toward the dubious dogmas of 20th century mystics clear lately. (It’s not just me, folks.)

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This is an extract from Dr.Rampa’s book ‘‘Beyond The Tenth’’

This matter of Hell - there is no such thing, you know. Hell was actually a place of judgement near Jerusalem, Hell was a small village near two very high rocks and between the rocks and extending for some distance around was a quaking bog (myr), which sent up gouts of sulphurous vapours, a bog that was always drenched in the stench of burning brimstone. In those far-off days a person who was accused of a crime was taken to this village and ‘went through Hell’.- He was placed at one end of the bog and was told of the crimes of which he had been accused, he was told that if he could cross the bog unharmed - he was innocent, but if he failed and was swallowed by the bog he was guilty. Then the accused (anklagede) was goaded (drevet) into action - perhaps a soldier poked him in a delicate part with a spear - anyway, the poor wretch ran ‘through Hell’, through all the swirling fog of sulphur and brimstone fumes(damp), along the path surrounded by boiling pitch, where the earth quaked and shook, inspiring terror in the strongest, and if he reached the other side - he had passed through the valley of Hell and had been purged(renset) of any offence and was innocent again. So don’t believe that you will go to Hell. You won’t because there is no such thing. (But some mix described experiences from NDE’s “hell” - with “adventures” on the lower astralplane where confused, rancorous entities stay until they reincarnate or are cleaned/prepared for the normal “holydays” on the astralplane. R.Ø.remark.)

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This precisely describes the initiations that indigenous shamans undergo across the globe, and bear in mind they work direct with spirits, albeit with an overlay of human tradition - but to die and therefore acquire the powers of the dead is to shamanism (traditional and modern) what graduating from high school is in the civic world, it’s the pre-requisite for pretty much all other progress.

You just cannot walk powerfully between worlds until you’ve died in this manner, which also includes a psychological element of dying to the person you were before, and their attachments that placed the physical world uppermost, and then - this bit often gets overlooked - you have to undergo the process of rebirthing yourself into both worlds as a person of power and ability to command both realms - something which, again, the modern white-light slant of core shamanism often overlooks, because the focus is on service to others above all else in that world.

Because you’ve died of your own volition, in pursuit of power and with the belief that what you had as a life wasn’t enough (interestingly, this is something many consider a crime against the will of “god”) you’re responsible for rebirthing yourself and raising yourself back to a new maturity with the guidance of spirits, not your own parents, who were probably mostly blind to your faults etc., and who programmed their own limitations, neuroses and flaws into you without even being aware of it.

I strongly suspect that many of the spirits who oversee this also have an aspect that puts on horns, and pops up looking obligingly “dark and evilzz” when someone cracks open a grimoire.

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Here’s an excerpt from the ‘Lotus Sutra’:

“Seen too are Bodhisattvas
in silence and tranquility;
though worshipped by the gods and dragons,
they do not find it cause for joy.
Also seen are Bodhisattvas
dwelling in forests, emitting light,
relieving those suffering in the hells,
and leading them to the Buddha Way.”
[url=http://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/resources/sutras/lotus/sources/lotus1.htm]http://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/resources/sutras/lotus/sources/lotus1.htm[/url]

An excerpt from the ‘Garuda Purana’, a Hindu text:

An Account of the Kinds of Sins which lead to Hell.

"1. Garuឍa said: For what sins do they go on that great Way? Why do they fall into the Vaitaraáč‡Ä«? Why do they go to hell? Tell me this, O Keƛava.

  1. The Blessed Lord said: 'Those who always delight in wrong deeds, who turn away from good deeds, go from hell to hell, from misery to misery, from fear to fear.

  2. The righteous go into the city of the King of Justice by three gateways, but the sinful go into it only by the road of the southern gate.

  3. The Vaitaraáč‡Ä« River is only on this very miserable way. I will tell you who the sinners are who go by it.

p. 31

5-12. Slayers of Brāhmiáč‡s, drinkers of intoxicants, slayers of owe, infanticides, murderers of women, destroyers of the embryo, and those who commit secret sins,

Those who steal the wealth of the teacher, the property of the temple or of the twice-born; those who take away the possessions of women, and those who steal the possessions of children;"

As you can see, the concept of Hell predates that of Christianity and Islam, albeit different; Hell, in Buddhism and Hinduism is not eternal (but may last up to a few thousand years, after which the soul reenters the reincarnation process). Hell may be seen as a purge, a place of purification. What is and isn’t a sin differs from a belief system to another.

But in Satanism (whether Theistic or Atheistic), the concept of Hell, seen as a place of partying, pleasure and indulgence, changes greatly:
[url=http://www.blackmagick.com/infernal_tarot_cards1.html]http://www.blackmagick.com/infernal_tarot_cards1.html[/url]
[url=http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/DEMONSII.html]http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/DEMONSII.html[/url]
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BEHEMOTH
Rank: Night Watchman
Behemoth presides over all of the feasts and parties in Hell.

CARD #27:
BEHEMOTH - DUKE - TEMPTERS, OR ENSNARERS - 9 - BLUE
Voyage. Moving away from problems. Enjoyment of life. Excess in everything. For all of the above.

According to white magicians (and the Christian Church), Carnivean is invoked during Witches’ rituals, and is the patron devil of lewdness, lasciviousness and obscenity. But according to black magicians, he bestows confidence, boldness and strength.

According to white magicians (and the Christian Church), Gressil tempts mortals into acts of impurity and sloth. But according to black magicians, he encourages one to comfort, luxery and indulgence.

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Emmanuel Swedenborg’s “Heaven and Hell”.

[url=http://www.newcenturyedition.org/HH_Translation.pdf]http://www.newcenturyedition.org/HH_Translation.pdf[/url]

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Hell is earth, we are there. The second hell is a state of mind, continual discomfort. Even in paradise there are some who will complain, who will have a hellish mindset.