Hell is, according to many religious beliefs, a place or a state of painful suffering. The English word 'hell' comes from the Teutonic 'Hel', which originally meant "to cover" and later referred to the goddess of the Norse underworld, Helgardh. Compare Anglo-Saxon helan, Greek kalyptein and Latin celare = "to hide, to cover" (all from IE *kel). In many religions, after death, evildoers either suffer eternally or until they have paid for their bad deeds before reincarnation or redemption. In monotheis ...

Including:

Hell - Origins Hell - Religious accounts
Hell - Rabbinic Judaism Hell - Ancient Greek religion Hell - Christianity Hell - Islam Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions Hell - Hinduism Hell - Buddhism Hell - Bahá'í Faith Hell - Taoism
Hell - Hell in Literature Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture Hell - Non-religious context
Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell Hell - Language edits Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia - Hell

See also:

Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Religious accounts

Hell appears in several mythologies and religions in different guises, and is commonly inhabited by demons and the souls of dead people. Some accounts of Hell describe it as a series of numbered layers or levels. What the layers consist of differ from religion to religion, but the descriptions of certain numbered layers often coincide even between different relgions. Examples of these coincidences include a layer of intense flames numbered 54 in several religions or a layer where the world looks like earth but is inhabited by demons; ...

See also:

Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Religious accounts

Hell is, according to many religious beliefs, a place or a state of painful suffering. The English word 'hell' comes from the Teutonic 'Hel', which originally meant "to cover" and later referred to the goddess of the Norse underworld, Helgardh. Compare Anglo-Saxon helan, Greek kalyptein and Latin celare = "to hide, to cover" (all from IE *kel). In many religions, after death, evildoers either suffer eternally or until they have paid for their bad deeds before reincarnation or redemption. In monotheis ...

Including:

Hell - Origins Hell - Religious accounts
Hell - Ancient Greek religion Hell - Christianity Hell - Islam Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions Hell - Hinduism Hell - Buddhism Hell - Bahá'í Faith Hell - Taoism
Hell - Hell in Literature Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture Hell - Non-religious context
Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell Hell - Language edits Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia - Hell

Orpheus (Greek) An early religious teacher and reformer in Greece about whom clustered so many legends that in course of time his historic existence came to be disputed. He was, however, an actual historic character, probably born in Thrace about the 13th century BC, lived and taught at Pimpleia on Mount Olympus, revived the ancient wisdom-religion, reformed the then degraded popular religion, and was killed -- according to the story -- because of it.

He gathered pupils or disciples about him, and founded a famous Mystery school from which in time emanated a vast literature, now perished with the exception of the Orphic Hymns, the Lithica (a poem on the nature of precious stones), the Argonautica (which recites the connection of Orpheus with the Argonautic expedition), and some other fugitive fragments -- and in our time these are supposed to be apocryphal or of a far later date than Orpheus himself, although certainly containing Orphic elements.

There appears to have been no question in antiquity as to the actual historical existence of a godlike man who founded the Orphic religion or Mysteries, and whose work was continued by others in direct line, some of whom took his name, for no less than six different teachers by the name of Orpheus were known. When we add to the historic account the story of Orpheus as the Magician-Bard, and the legends of his divinity, his marriage with Eurydice (esoteric wisdom), his teaching, his agony and passion, and finally his martyr's death -- legends almost identical with some of those attached to world-saviors such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Mithra -- it is clear that he was not only a great teacher in himself, but an important link in the Hermetic Chain of esoteric succession.

The legendary Orpheus was the son of Apollo, god of music and the sun, and of Calliope, muse of epic poetry. With his seven-stringed lyre, the symbol of the cosmic and human constitution, he became the magical musician: rocks moved, trees bent, flowers sprang forth, mountains bowed themselves before his song. He journeyed with the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. His mystic union with Eurydice, like the Argonautic quest, is clearly allegorical. Orpheus won his mystic bride by the power of his music and after the mystic union returned to Pimpleia on Mount Olympus where he lived and taught in a cave (recorded also of other great teachers).

When Eurydice died from the bite of a venomous snake, Orpheus visited the Underworld to reclaim her, and his descent there is a veiled record of initiation. Orpheus was permitted to take Eurydice back with him on condition that he did not look back, symbolic of a stern condition for successfully traveling the mystic path. But Orpheus did look back and his union with the esoteric doctrine, personified as Eurydice, was broken. After mourning, he withdrew to Mount Rhodope, where a group of Maenads or Bacchanals tore him limb from limb.

Blavatsky identifies Orpheus with Arjuna, son of Indra and disciple of Krishna, who taught mankind, established Mysteries, and went to Patala (hell or the Antipodes) and there marries the daughter of the naga king (TG 242).

Orpheus may be regarded both as an ideal or as a man and teacher. In either case, whether cosmic or terrestrial, Orpheus corresponds to the unceasing attempts of the higher or spiritual ego to raise the lower ego out of the toils of matter, much as in the Gnostic story the Christos attempts to raises the Sophia, his own lower self or vehicle, out of the mire and toils of the inferior worlds. If the call of impersonal compassion be so strong that it become personal, in other words if Orpheus looks back to

See and becomes attracted to the lower planes, he loses his Eurydice. Eurydice means "wide judgment," the function of reason in the human constitution. Orpheus here would represent intuition, and Eurydice the reason: manas sunk in the earthly nature is raised to wisdom through budhi.

When the ideal Orpheus in the neophyte conjoins with Orpheus the struggling soul, then Orpheus becomes the initiate who during the trials in the Underworld secures the safety of mind (Eurydice) and thus becomes a son of the sun. Should, however, Orpheus look back -- should buddhi itself become entangled in the lower morass -- then Eurydice is not rescued, Orpheus is enchained, and the task must be essayed anew.

(See also: Orpheus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

APO PANTAS KAKODAIMONES!

False banishing mantram ("Away all evil demons!")

APOCALYPSE

We are aware that the muslims insist that there can be no Universal Eschatonic Implosion until the world has endured "40 years of rain." We would remind them that we have endured *more* than forty years of the "rain" of nuclear radiation and pollution. Aztec prophesies place the end of the world in the 20th Century (who can doubt it?). The Great Pyramid is said to contain, in its mystical measurements, similar predictions in stone of which the last is Sept. 17, 2001 A.D. Two thousand is commonly believed by western civilization to be the year of the Eschaton. The date given by Nostradamus, on the other hand, is slightly pre-millennial: 1999. This is just 13 years prior to the end of the great 160,000-year Mayan Cycle and Terence McKenna's Timescape Zero (based on Ancient Chinese cycles), both at 2012 C.E. And although many others cite 2020, there are interesting reasons for seizing on 1999.

First of all, there is a scientific reason. As meteorologists have noted, the 11-year sunspot cycles which serve to heat the earth, have not only been increasing in severity, they have progressively exacerbated the greenhouse effect. This resulted, during the drought of 1988, in the first of the summer-long record-breaking temperatures that continue to plague us. In '99 the sunspot activity could well have a cataclysmic effect.

Metaphysically, however, there are more compelling reasons. Since the exact interface betweeen the end of the Christian Aeon of Pisces and the beginning of the Humanist Aeon of Aquarius is impossible to pipoint, we are thrown back on sheer numerology. 1+9+9+9 = 28 = 2+8 = 10; numerologically and Pythagoras-wise ten is the number of perfect completion. In other words 1999 is the natural culmination of the Aeon, whereas 2000 is simply a thousandfold manifestation of the Duality: Two - that epitome of evil amongst numbers (from the cosmic point of view, the end of the world isn't necessarily evil). The date, January 16, 1999 adds up to 9. That date is also Julian Day number 2,451,195, which adds up to 9 as well. Ironically enough, most computer projections of disaster, based on current ecological trends, ozone depletion, demographic patterns, etc. predict the peak somewhere between January, 1999 and September, 2013 - by which time the population of the earth will be nine billion and the "end" of the human yardstick on this planet will have come.

And although the Bible stipulates that "no man knoweth the day or the hour" of the last day, I do not hesitate to name the 9th second of the 9th minute of the 9th hour of January 16, 1999 as the eschaton (or the 9th day of the 9th month September).

As one of the Archons of the Ending Aeon, however, I have chosen 999 as my personal sigil, not 1999, because I want to ally myself with the spirit of the ending process, rather than with the End itself. Moreover, from an opitimistic point of view, 999 is qabalistically virginal - it has nothing written on it. Yet I see no reason to dispute '99 as the Climax of the Apocalypse, and I take that most useful point of the Eschaton as the date of my own eschaton-count. My Newtime (13 month) calendar begins approximately on the winter solstice of 2000 (Newtime Year Zero), displacing Gregorian time forever. Hence I count forward from 1999, calling 1997 "Year Minus 3", etc.

It should be noted that "end of the world" predictions are always cropping up. For instance, there was Rev. Whisenant's eschatonic prediction that September 13, 1988 would be the Great Day. Newspapers were gleeful in reporting that the date came and went. What they failed to realize was that 1988, in fact, the beginning of the end - since it was in that year that the greenhouse effect was finally accepted by the planetary powers and acknowledged as the harbinger of the end. If nothing else, 1988 was the year in which the Shroud of Turin was finally pronounced an error by the Vatican. At any rate, the good Rev's numerology may have been naive and the particular fate he chose may have had little synchronistic sparkle, but his prediction wasn't entirely off the wall. Isn't it always the 11th hour? At least sub specie aeternitatis?

But with the 20th Century we leave eternity behind and enter the dimensional worlds. The date Whisenant gave has another meaning. As you know, we stand in the slough of time and at the perimeters of various magico/religious aeons - including the multitudinous segments of the Galilean era - all of which end at different points. The prophecies are fulfilled at different velocities in different ways. The world "ends" perennially because "World" derives from Anglo-Saxon wer-µld ("Man's Era" or "human time.")

Part of our confusion has to do with the fact that we tend to use "the world" and "the earth" as though they were synonyms. The earth is merely one of the stages on which the drama of the world is enacted. From the Olympian point of view, the end of a world isn't a tragedy. Everything has its ?ld. Even the gods have their time. Even the dinosaurs had an "Age" so the toymakers tell us. The word for "world", in every language, is invariably linked to the notion of time. Arabic duniya, "the present (world)", Hebrew olam "eternity", Latin mundus, originally a division into sections (of time), like the Greek kosmos. Religion is always, sooner or later, part of that chronometry.

It amazes me that people, especially gullible Xtians, can be so blind as to expect everything to go on as it has done for millions of years when the end has, in fact, arrived. By now it should be clear even to rotting elephants and establishment flakes that the fulfillment of the prophesies is at hand. Even technocratic corporationism concedes that any time between now and the early 21st Century pollution, population, drought, disease and famine will have hit their strides (the "four horsemen" as the four elements: polluted air, sewage-laden water, barren earth, radiocative fire). Therefore 2000 also marks the beginning of the Age of Aquarius and the official end of the Piscean "Age of Jesus". After that date the Christians (all of whom by then will have been swept up into the arms of their Redeemer) will find themselves, or so asserts self-styled Neo-Xtian, Constance Cumbey, "preserved in their own bubble of spiritual sterility on the dimensional shelf of an alternate reality," where they may eternally contemplate the wonder of their salvation. Meanwhile, mankind's post-holocaustic, enlightened remnant (should such a remnant, by any miracle, remain) will be free to move ahead...to? Incidentally, by the word "holocaust" I do not refer to war but to the destruction of the biosphere by the ravages of unchecked human growth.

For remarks on the return of Christ or "Second Coming" (see PAROUSIA). Meanwhile, the elect, who are still being sacrificed, already inhabit the New Jerusalem. The safe and sound remainder are not saved at all, despite their belief. They call themselves Xtians, but they are Philistines. The zealous guardians of the faith are precisely those about whom Matthew was shouting: "Not everyone who saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!", and of whom Mark said, "But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days." Those who remain are increasingly damned to the hell that earth is henceforth becoming. September 13, 1988 was the last day before it would be too late to begin the task of repairing the biosphere and reversing daily descent to terracide. So the jubilant laughter of Whisenant's scoffers begins to sound increasingly hollow, doesn't it?

 Obviously, there are many of us who, though raised in the Xtian tradition, can view the Apocalyptic experience which the world is undergoing even now, without falling gibbering to our knees in a final paroxysm of millennial conversion. . . No matter what happens henceforth, will retain our Neo-Gnostic and Neo-Pagan allegiances and avoid the horror of "Salvation."

Other cultures are more confrontational. Coinciding with the Xtian Apocalypse is the Hopi ending of the "Fourth World". In their system, evolution produces new strengths but also creates new bad habits which must periodically be burned away. Those who have not been corrupted will become the seed people of the next world. Hindus and Yogis (q.v.) rather than living in the world, tend to think of themselves as living in an "age" - at present, that age is the evil "Kali Yuga" (quite similar, in fact, to our own "apocalyptic era" and not necessarily lengthier). The Chinese also live in an older world. As of this writing (1988), this is the year 4686 for them. And for the Jews it's 5748. But the Mayans (q.v.) dwell in almost inconceivably vast ages, called baktuns and the current one ends in 2012, our time. The "Harmonic Convergence" of July, 1987, marked the entry, for the Mayans, into the final lustrum of the penultimate 20-year period, before the "hotting up" time of 1992, which is the beginning of the final 20 years of a 160,000 year cycle!

The "world" is, in a very real sense, however, the creation of those who inhabit it. Thus, when our forefathers created the United States, they quite deliberately and correctly referred to this as a "new world" and gave the Great Seal the designation NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM ("New Order of the Ages"), which you can still read on every dollar bill. But every maker of a "new" world, whether secular or religious, brings in his own "Age." The makers of the R_publique Fran_aise, after the Revolution of 1789, even came up with a brand new calendar to mark their "new age," complete with new names for the months. Anton LaVey, high priest of the "San Francisco Church of Satan", proclaimed 1966 as the beginning of the "New Satanic Age". Jesus Christ, arriving at the beginning of the Piscean Age, brought with him an automatic 2000-year non-renewable lease on time, which runs out in this century, the beginning of the Aquarian Age. Magicians also fabricate their own elaborate times - Aleister Crowley, for instance, began his "Age of Horus" in 1904. Moreover, although it might be expected to have ended at his death in 1947, his followers, seeing him as an immortal, still maintain Crowley's "Thelemic" calendar in that system, 1996 C.E. would be AN 72.

Crowley's aeon was itself superseded in 1947 (the year of the saucers) when the doorway to the Hell of Universe B was opened by Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard, whence the "Forgotten Ones" are now penetrating this world.

In 1980 Mickey Mouse and Jesus joined forces to end personal liberty in the United States (the end of the Democratic Party forever). In 1983 the Hopis announced the end of the 5th World - henceforth man would be obliged to boost his own stock, somehow. In July of 1987, the world entered the final lustrum of the penultimate katun of the Mayan aeon - another time of tribulation. 1992 was the beginning of yet another 20-year battle of armageddon. On January 6, 1999 Julian Day 2,415,195, the world will end by Nostradamus's calculation. Few will notice, perhaps, sind the "end" refers merely to the official passing of the Galilean Age and the world will be so desperately struggling to survive that there will be little time for outmoded messiahs.

Zoroaster, who died in 1000 B.C., will be reborn and complete the end of futility and Ahriman's rule. His seed at the bottom of a lake, it was prophesied, would thrice conceive maidens at three millennial points. The final chapter in the Zoroastrian cycle and yet another eschaton in our time.

Finally, it should be noted, in 2012, Terence McKenna's Timescape reaches Absolute Zero, the point of infinite novelty (See AUTOPOETIC LAPIS). And, interestingly, Jung also predicted the outer limit as occurring approximately fifty years after his death, which was in 1961.

You will understand that these 'end of the world' dates constitute a map of reality, but are obviously not Reality itself (apart from the fact that there is no "reality", as such). One doesn't necessarily visit every town on the map. We can choose to live out our allotted span to 1999 or 2012, and perhaps save the world, after all, or we can commit mass suicide beforehand in any of a hundred different ways, thus escaping the horror that is building up. The date of the Apocalypse isn't important. What matters is its immediacy. We have to understand that we've reached the outer limit of our dimension - THERE IS NO FUTURE - or at least very little. Like the amoeba in his drop of water it's time to turn away from the edge and move back to the center.

At any rate, by now it should be clear that we're moving quickly, not only metaphysically and synchronistically, but literally into the charged nexus of all the "ending aeons", into a kind of central transformer which is approaching its limit like an overworked fuse. The task of the archons of the ending aeons is to guide the confused through the wreckage of our disintegrating society.

(See also: APO PANTAS KAKODAIMONES!, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Hell appears in several mythologies and religions in different guises, and is commonly inhabited by demons and the souls of dead people. Hell - Rabbinic Judaism. Gehenna is fairly well defined in rabbinic literature. It is sometimes translated as "Hell", but this doesn't effectively convey its meaning. In Judaism, Gehenna is not hell, but rather a sort of Purgatory where one is judged based on their life's deeds. The Kabbalah describes it as a "waiting room" (commonly translated as an "entry way") for all ...

See also:

Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Religious accounts

Philip José Farmer in his Riverworld series (1971) created perhaps the best science fiction depiction of a "man" made hell created with advanced technology that ensures immortality and sustenance but allows suffering. While it is never meant to be hell it quickly becomes hellish because the good and evil are both repeatedly resurrected. Immortal and immoral Dictators end up running many areas. It may be called a humanist model of hell. Yet the author car ...

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Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture

Hell, as it exists in the Western popular imagination, has its origins in Hellenized Christianity, particularly taken from adaptation of the Hellenistic afterlife known as Tartarus. Judaism, at least initially, believed in Sheol, a shadowy existence to which all were sent indiscriminately. Sheol may have been little more than a poetic metaphor for death, not really an afterlife at all: see for example Sirach. However, by the third to second century B.C. the idea had grown to encom ...

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Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Origins

Many of the great epics of European literature include episodes that occur in Hell. In the Roman poet Virgil's Latin epic, the Aeneid, Aeneas descends into Dis (the underworld) to visit his father's spirit. The underworld is only vaguely described, with one unexplored path leading to the punishments of Tartarus, while the other leads through Erebus and the Elysian Fields. In his Divina commedia ('Divine comedy'; set in the year 1300), Dante Alighieri employed the conceit of taking Virgil as his guide through Inferno (and ...

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Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Hell in Literature

The word "Hell" used away from its religious context was long considered to be profanity, particularly in North America. Although its use was commonplace in everyday speech and on television by the 1970s, many people in the US still consider it somewhat rude or inappropriate language, particularly involving children.[2] Many, particularly among religious circles and in certain sensitive environments, still avoid casual usage of the word. In British English and some parts of North America, the word has fallen into common use and is not considered profane; often considered to be a saf ...

See also:

Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Non-religious context

The word "Hell" used away from its religious context was long considered to be profanity, particularly in North America. Although its use was commonplace in everyday speech and on television by the 1970s, many people in the US still consider it somewhat rude or inappropriate language, particularly involving children.[3] Many, particularly among religious circles and in certain sensitive environments, still avoid casual usage of the word. In British English and some parts of North America, the word has fallen into common use and is not considered profane; often considered to be a saf ...

See also:

Hell, Hell - Origins, Hell - Religious accounts, Hell - Rabbinic Judaism, Hell - Ancient Greek religion, Hell - Christianity, Hell - Islam, Hell - Chinese and Japanese religions, Hell - Hinduism, Hell - Buddhism, Hell - Bahá'í Faith, Hell - Taoism, Hell - Hell in Literature, Hell - Hell in entertainment and other popular culture, Hell - Non-religious context, Hell - Euphemistic ways of saying hell, Hell - Language edits, Hell - Places named Hell

Read more here: » Hell: Encyclopedia II - Hell - Non-religious context