The Moving-springs of Hell

The Moving-springs of Hell

There is, in hell, not only a certain natural succession of time but also something of social and political order. Families herd together and souls of one and the same century like to congregate. And there is a kind of progressive development. The most recent arrivals take the lowest place, advancing to make room for fresh troops appearing. Those who, in the world, were of one way of thinking or alike in manner of acting soon meet here though of a different nationality or separate centuries. Thus there is here, a town of injustice called also the town of politicians; there is a town of the Holy Inquisition; a gigantic city of Jews, of Mormons; a town of Antediluvians, and many others.

I begin to understand the moving-springs of hell. It is an insatiate desire on the one hand and remorse on the other—I had almost said sorrow, but that is too sweet a grace, admitting of sorrow for sin, for opportunity wasted, and that is unknown here; it is a dull, flinty grief, a mere wailing for pain. 

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The punishment of hell is twofold, but it is the self-same retribution. Some are driven continuously to brood over the same evil passions they indulged in on earth, satisfaction alone being absent, or, with horror and loathing, are obliged again and again to commit, in the spirit, the self-same crimes that polluted their days in the flesh. The miser forever is dreaming of riches, the voluptuary of uncleanness, the glutton of feasting, the murderer of his bloody deed. Others are pursuing the very things they neglected on earth; they know it is hopeless, but pursue them they must. Thus men of unjust dealing are anxiously trying to right the wrong, the unmerciful to do deeds of charity, the unnatural parent to live for her children, the suicide to prolong his days.

But whatever we suffer, our torment is not to be viewed in the light of the final punishment that is coming, and they await the day of doom—no; it is merely the natural consequence of their life on earth. 

Oh; men and women yet walking on earth, consider this! that all sin—great or small—has its own irretrievable consequence, which—ay; think of it—extends far beyond the limits of life even into hell. And if mere consequence may be so terrible, what must be the punishment to come?

L. W. J. S., Letters from Hell, 1889, Richard Bentley & Son, London

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Minds in Hell can and do create solidly.

Hell is a place created by the mind, for the mind in these lands—whether of darkness or light—can—and does—create solidly.

Flying Skeleton | Nevit Dilmen | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

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

States of Hell | The Land of Ice and Snow

States of Hell

The Land of Ice and Snow—The Frozen Land

All those who have been cold and selfishly calculating in their earthly lives live in the Land of Ice and Snow—the Frozen Land. These have crushed out and chilled and frozen from their own lives and the lives of others all warm impulses and affections, which make the life of the heart and soul. They have so crushed and killed Love that its sun cannot shine where they are and only the frost of life remains. When there is even a little tiny drop of warmth, such as one tear of sorrow, then the ice begins to melt and there is hope for that poor soul.

Spirit Franchezzo describes a man who appears to be enclosed in a cage of ice—

This man had been one of the Grand Inquisitors of the Inquisition in Venice and had been one of those whose very names sent terror to the heart of any unfortunate who fell into their clutches; a most celebrated name in history yet, in all the records of his life and acts, there was not one instance where one shade of pity for his victims had touched his heart and caused him to turn aside—even for one brief moment—from his awful determination in torturing and killing those whom the Inquisition got into its toils. A man known for his own hard austere life that had no more indulgence for himself than for others. Cold and pitiless, he knew not what it was to feel one answering throb awake in his heart for another's sufferings. 

Franchezzo observes his face as a type of cold, unemotional cruelty; the long, thin, high nose, pointed sharp chin, high and rather wide cheekbones, thin, straight, cruel lips like a thin line across the face, head somewhat flat and wide over the ears while the deep-set penetrating eyes glitter from their penthouse brows with the cold, steely glitter of a wild beast's.

Like a procession of spectres, Franchezzo sees the wraiths of some of this man's many victims glide past him, maimed and crushed, torn and bleeding from their tortures—pallid ghosts, wandering astral shades, from which the souls have departed forever, but which yet cling around this man, unable to decay into the elements while his magnetism attaches them like a chain to him.

Other spirits haunt this man and taunt him with his own helplessness and their past sufferings but these are very different-looking; they are more solid in appearance and possess power and strength and intelligence wanting in those other misty-looking shades. These are spirits whose astral forms still hold the immortal souls imprisoned in them though they have been so crushed and tortured that only the fierce desire for revenge remains. These spirits are incessant in their endeavour to get at their former oppressor and tear him to pieces and the icy cage seems to be regarded by him as being as much protection from them as a prison for himself. One cleverer than the rest has constructed a long, sharp-pointed pole, which he thrusts through the bars to prod at the man within.  Others have sharp short javelins, which they hurl through the bars at him. Others again squirt foul, slimy water and the whole crowd combines in trying to hurl themselves en masse on the sheltering bars to break through, but in vain. The wretched man within whom long experience has taught the impregnability of his cage taunts them in return with a cold crafty enjoyment of their fruitless efforts.

Blue gorge | Author rachel_thecat| Wikimedia Commons | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

States of Hell | The Great Valley of Grey Stones

 States of Hell

The Great Valley of Grey Stones

One place is a great valley of grey stones with dim, cold, grey hills shutting it in on every side; and this twilight sky overhead. Not a blade of grass, not one stunted shrub is to be seen, not one touch of colour or brightness anywhere, only this dull desolation of grey stones. Those who dwell in this valley have centred their lives and affections on themselves and have shut up their hearts against all the warmth and beauty of unselfish love. They have lived only for themselves, their own gratification, and ambitions, and now they see nothing but themselves and the grey desolation of their hard selfish lives around them. 

A great many beings flit uneasily about in this valley but they have lost the power to see anyone else.

These unhappy beings remain invisible to each other until such time as the thought of another and the desire to do something for someone besides themselves awakens and they become conscious of those near to them. Through their efforts to lighten another's lot, they improve their own until their stunted affections expand and the hazy valley of selfishness no longer holds them in its chains.

Aulis Nyqvist | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

States of Hell | The Caverns of Slumber

States of Hell

The Caverns of Slumber

These awful caves—these terrible stupefied spirits—can any words point to a fate more fearful than theirs?

A great multitude of spirits, in a state of complete stupor and unconscious of all around them, lies in vast caverns called the Caverns of Slumber. These are individual spirits who have killed themselves through drug abuse and whose spirits have thus been deprived of all chance of development, and so have retrograded instead of advancing and growing— just as a limb tied up and deprived of motion withers away—and now they are feebler than an unborn infant and as little able to possess conscious life.

In many cases, their sleep lasts for centuries; in others, where their indulgence has been less, it might only last for twenty, fifty, or a hundred years. These spirits live, and that is all; their senses are little more developed than those of some fungus growth, which exists without a spark of intelligence—yet the soul germ lingers and is alive.

Yet the soul germ lingers and is alive.

These caverns are full of life-giving magnetism and attendant spirits—who have themselves passed through a similar state in their own earthly lives—are engaged in giving what life they can pour into those comatose spirit bodies, which lie like rows of dead people all over the floor.

By slow degrees, according to as the spirit has been more or less injured by the drug taken in earthly life, these wretched beings awake to consciousness and all the sufferings experienced when deprived of their deadly drug. By long and slow degrees, they awaken sense by sense until—like feeble-suffering children—they become fit for instruction and are sent to institutions where the dawning intellect is trained and helped to develop and recover those faculties, which have been all but destroyed in earth life.

These poor souls only learn very slowly; they have paralyzed brain and senses and have avoided—not learned—the lessons of their earthly life and its development of the spirit.

These Caves of Slumber are inexpressibly sad to behold—not less so that these wretched slumberers are unconscious for so long and awaken at last with the intellects of idiots—to grow through hundreds of years back to the possession of the mental powers of children. Their development is necessarily slow even then, for—unlike ordinary children—they have almost lost the power to grow and take many generations of time to learn what one generation on earth could have taught them.