Hell is not a state; hell is real and actual.

Hell is not a state; hell is real and actual.

In what follows, my friends will understand that, in the minds of most folk on earth, the word hell means the lower regions of the spirit world and the exact antithesis of heaven. 

Hell is everything that is horrible. 

In the spirit world, we do not designate the dark regions under the appellation of hell.

Speaking from my own experience, and that of hosts of others, hell must be a state that is easily recognised from a distance, having a great many distinctive features nowhere else to be found—a state, moreover, which is highly malodorous and can be perceived by way of the nostrils—very readily perceived.

I have clambered over the rocky places in hell, seen first-hand the disgusting pools with their reeking stench, examined the filthy, greenish slime upon the surface of the rocks and observed at close quarters, the denizens of those festering regions, many of them habited with but tattered remnants of clothing.

Accompanied by friends, I set out in a deliberate manner to visit these realms of darkness. We went from here to there, from one place to another, from light to darkness. We went on foot as ordinary pedestrians. We left all our beautiful surroundings behind us—the flowers, the grass, the trees, the pure crystal water, and many delightful friends.

As we proceeded on our way, the country gradually deteriorated and the light diminished until we were fairly in the midst of darkness and horrors. 

And that learned churchman would have it that hell is only a state. In other words, a condition created by the mind, without substance and locality.

That is precisely what it is not. 

It is a place created by the mind—and that is something very different. For the mind in these lands—whether of darkness or light—can—and does create solidly.

The minds of the unfortunates in the lightless realms have no beauty in them—either spiritual or material beauty. They can think only in terms of brute beastliness, and the result—according to natural law—is grim-faced, cruel rocks, surfaced with a loathsome slime, rocky hollows containing thick, viscid liquid of reeking offensiveness.

The evil mind—through evil deeds—will produce the most hideous and abhorrent parodies of the human form and features. 

I have seen hands upon one of the denizens of these regions, which resembled nothing so much as the wicked talons of some carnivorous beast of the earth, and whose teeth were veritable fangs. These were not a state; they were real and actual.

—Spirit Robert Hugh Benson

The hands of hell at the White Temple of Wat Rong Khun | Debora Ratliff | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported