Research

Research notes

Hell.

·      Eternal place of endless torture and punishment.

·      Typically by religious traditions hell is located under the Earths external surface and often include entrances on earth.

·      Other afterlife destinations: heaven, purgatory and limbo

·      Some traditions just depict hell as a home for the dead, a neutral place: the underworld and Hades.

·      Hell is portrayed as populated with demons who torment those that live there- many are ruled by demons/death gods such as Nergal, hades, Enma, Devil

·      Dantes’s devine comedy, Plato’s myth of Er

·      Punishments in hell often correspond to the sins committed during life.  Often sinners are subjected to several chambers of hell or levels of suffering.

·      Depicted as fiery, painful, guilt inflicting and suffering. Others sometimes portray hell as cold.

·      Buddhist (especially Tibetan Buddhist) describes hell as having equal number of hot and cold hells.

·      In Dante’s inferno portrays the innermost circle of hell as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.

·      Greek mythology: Tartarus. Deep gloomy place, a pit or abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering within Hades(the whole of the underworld)  souls were judged after death and those who received punishement wee sent to tartarus.

·      Native American: mayan- dangerous underworld of 9 levels ruled by the demons Vucub Caquix and Hun Came. The road in and out is said to be steep, thorny and very forbidding. Metnal is the lowest and horrible of the 9 hells and is ruled by ah Puch. Healers would perform rituals to banish diseases and illness to Metnal.  

The Aztecs- the dead travelled to Mictlan, a neutral place in the north, which was always dark and grew white flowers and was home to the gods of death.  Took 4 years to travel to Mictlan and the travellers had t overcome difficult tests, such as pasing a mountain range where mountains crashed into each other, a field where the wind carried flesh scrapping knives and a river of blood with fearsome jaguars.

·      Christianity. : The Roman Catholic Church defines Hell as "a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God. you would end up in Hell as the result of dying in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love, becoming eternally separated from Him by one's own free choice. Hell is taught as the final destiny of those who have not been found worthy after the general resurrection and last judgment, where they will be eternally punished for sin.

·      Islam: In the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, there are literal descriptions of the condemned in a fiery Hell. In addition, Heaven and Hell are split into many different levels depending on the actions perpetrated in life, where punishment is given depending on the level of evil done in life, and good is separated into other levels depending on how well one followed God while alive. The gate of Hell is guarded by Maalik who is the leader of the angels assigned as the guards of hell also known as Zabaaniyah.

Although generally Hell is often portrayed as a hot steaming and tormenting place for sinners, there is one Hell pit which is characterized differently from the other Hell in Islamic tradition. Zamhareer is the Hell of extreme coldness, of unbearable blizzards, ice, and snow.

The lowest pit of Hell is Hawiyah, meant for those hypocrites who claimed aloud to believe in Allah and His messenger but denounced both in their hearts

·      Buddhism: Buddha teaches about the hell in vivid detail. Buddhism teaches that there are five (sometimes six) realms of rebirth, which can then be further subdivided into degrees of agony or pleasure. Of these realms, the hell realms, or Naraka, is the lowest realm of rebirth. Of the hell realms, the worst is Avīci or "endless suffering".

However, like all realms of rebirth, rebirth in the Hell realms is not permanent, though suffering can persist for eons before being reborn again.

The Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, according to the Ksitigarbha Sutra, made a great vow as a young girl to not reach Nirvana until all beings were liberated from the Hell Realms or other unwholesome rebirths. In popular literature, Ksitigarbha travels to the Hell realms to teach and relieve beings of their suffering.

Beelzebub.

·      Literally in Arabic means lord of the flies, with numerous archaic variants

·      Another name for the devil (biblical) and is one of the 7 princes of hell according to the catholic church.

·      Prince of demons. Formerly a heavenly angel. Claims to cause destruction through tyrants, to cause demons to be worshiped among men, to cause jealousies, lust, murder and wars.

·      Placed high in hell’s hierarchy.

·      Led a successful revolt against the devil and presides over the order of the fly.

·      One of the 3 most prominent fallen angels.

·      Associated with the sin of pride and gluttony.

·      Also known as the prince of false gods.

·      Often used by witches in their confessions. Salem witch trials.

·      Beelzebub- responsible for many demon possessions.