Michael Wynn's Occult Reference Library
PURGATORY

Return to Occult Library Index

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE SWORD OF SONG

n browning s masterpiece as a judas without the decency to hang himself. so (i.e, by suddenness of fate) may the truth be flashed out by one blow, and guido see one instant and be saved. else i avert my face nor follow him into that sad obscure sequestered state where god unmakes but to remake the soul he else made first in vain: which must not be* probably a record for a bishop. a.c. this may be purgatory, but it sounds not unlike reincarnation. it is at least a denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment. as for myself, i took the first step years ago, quite in ignorance of what the last would lead to. god is indeed cut away a cancer from the breast of truth. of those philosophers, who from unassailable premisses draw by righteous deduction a conclusion against god, and then for his sak

ALICE A BAILEY10 FROM BETHLEHEM TO CALVARY

he possibility of his rising, and whether he rose as a human being- 144- from bethlehem to calvary copyright 1998 lucis trust or as the son of god. they have been deeply concerned to prove that because he rose again, so shall we rise, provided we believe in him. in order to meet the theological need of proving that god is love, we have invented a place of discipline, called by many names, such as purgatory, or the various stages of the different faiths on the road of departed spirits to heaven, because so many millions die, or have died, without ever having heard of christ. therefore belief in him as an historical figure is not possible for them. we have evolved such doctrines as conditional immortality, and the atonement through the blood of jesus, in an endeavour to glorify the personali

fection is to be ultimately achieved, the question is merely one of time and location. the christian may believe in a sudden perfecting through the process of death itself, or- 153- from bethlehem to calvary copyright 1998 lucis trust in a mental acceptance of the death of jesus, which he calls "conversion; he may regard death as the door into a place of discipline and development which he calls "purgatory" where a purificatory process goes on; or he may believe that in heaven itself adjustments are made and expansions of consciousness are undergone which render him a different man from what he was before. the oriental may believe that the earth provides adequate facilities for the training and developing processes, and that again and again we return, until we have reached perfection. the

ALICE A BAILEY20 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME IV ESOTERIC HEALING

ill end before long, and man will know and also see. as regards those who have passed into the light, whom you want to help, follow them with your love, remembering that they are still the same people, minus the outer limiting shroud of body. serve them, but seek not that they should serve your need of them. go to them, but seek not to bring them back to you. it is physical plane life that is the purgatory, and life experience that is the school of drastic discipline. let us not fear death, or that which lies beyond it. the wise disciple labours in the field of service but looks forward steadily to the dawn of the "clear, cold light" into which he will some day enter, and so close the chapter for a while upon the fever and the friction and the pain of earth existence. but there are other p

BLAVATSKY H P COSMOGENESIS

e, which is the first starting point of the departure of every atom- its primitive laya state. but the primitive meaning of gilgoolem, or "revolution of souls" was the idea of the re-incarnating souls or egos "all the souls go into the gilgoolah" into a cyclic or revolving process; i.e, they all proceed on the cyclic path of re-births. some kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. but this is not so[[vol. 1, page] 569 pantheism versus materialism. soul (entirely distinct from immortal spirit when the former is enshrined latent in it, as it is in every atomic speck, was composed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the smoothest, roundest, and finest atoms. and this shows that the ancient initiates, who were followed more or less clos

BOOK OF PLEASURE

implies by a process of time in the conception; creation is caused by this bondage to formula. the book of pleasure (self love) get any book for free on: www.abika.com 3 actions are the expressions of ideas bound up in the belief; they being inherent are obscure, their operation indirect, easily they deceive introspection. fruits of action are two-fold, heaven or hell, their unity or nothingness (purgatory or indifference. in heaven there is desire for women. hell the desire intense. purgatory is expectation delayed. indifference but disappointment till recovery. then verily they are one and the same. the wise pleasure seeker, having realised they are "different degrees of desire" and never desirable, gives up both virtue and vice and becomes a kiaist. riding the shark of his desire he cro

DION FORTUNE MYSTICAL QABALA

ared the correspondence in the [page 292] microcosm to be with the anus. whatever in life is effete has to be excreted, and the macrocosmic excretion is into the qliphothic spheres which depend below malkuth, whence the cosmic excreta cannot return to the planes of organised form until they find balance in equilibrium. there is, there-fore, in the qliphothic world, a sphere which is not hell, but purgatory; it is a reservoir of disorganised force emanated from broken-up forms, cast out from evolution; it is chaos upon a lower arc. it is from this reservoir of force that is accustomed to form, and therefore organises readily, that the shells, or imperfect entities, build up their vehicles. it is also said to be drawn upon for the lower types of magic of an evil kind. the tendency of such fo

DION FORTUNE PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE

of things to realise that something abnormal was happening in the house under her charge. she consulted a mental healer, who in her turn consulted me. i made a psychic diagnosis of the case, and reported that in my opinion the house had at some time been occupied by someone who had a knowledge of occultism, and who, being upon the left-hand path, objected strongly to going to face his portion of purgatory after the death of the physical body, and that he was maintaining himself in an intermediate state as an earth-bound spirit by drawing upon the vitality of the unfortunate children, and had accidentally drawn too much from one, thus killing it outright. working on this hypothesis, the healer undertook to give the case "absent treatment" needless to say, the officials of the home were not

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 1

om otherwise unattainable (and thus resembles the guru in the hindu tradition) and helps the apprentice by communion and inspiration. helena petrovna blavatsky alleged that she was the apprentice of such masters and claimed that they dwelled in the tibetan mountains. the term adept was also employed by medieval magicians and alchemists to denote a master of their sciences. adhab-algal the islamic purgatory, where the wicked are tormented by the dark angels munkir and nekir. adjuration a formula of exorcism by which an evil spirit is commanded, in the name of god, to do or say what the exorcist requires of him. adler, margot (1946) margot adler, author and wiccan priestess, is the granddaughter of renowned psychotherapist alfred adler. she was raised in a nonreligious setting and attended t

oubts. the bishop of lyons and the narrator, adrien de montalembert, were called in to deal with the evil spirit. after many prayers and formalities, the spirit of alis was found to be an innocent one, attended by a guardian angel. she answered a number of questions regarding her present state and her desire for christian burial, and confirmed the doctrines of the catholic church, notably that of purgatory. the remains of sister alis were conveyed to consecrated ground, and prayers made for the release of her soul from purgatory, but she continued to follow the young nun for a time, teaching her, on her last visit, five secret prayers composed by st. john the evangelist. the alister hardy research centre see religious experience research centre alford, alan f. encyclopedia of occultism& pa

e of precious stones, in alchemy, in the various languages of mankind and of the lower animals, in belles lettres, in moral philosophy, pneumatology, divinity, magic, history, and prophecy, it was told. the demons could control the winds, the waters, and the influence of the stars; they could raise earthquakes; induce diseases or cure them; accomplish vast mechanical tasks; and release souls from purgatory. it was said that they could influence the passions of the mind, procure the reconciliation of friends or foes, engender mutual discord, induce mania and melancholy, or direct the force and objects of sexual affection. hierarchy of demons according to johan weyer, the prominent sixteenthcentury protestant demonologist, demons were divided into a great many classes, into regular kingdoms

also acknowledged virgil as his master and followed him in many descriptions of tartarus. the semitic idea crops up here and there, however, such as in the beginning of one of the cantos, where what looks suspiciously like a hebrew incantation is recorded. in later medieval times the ingenuity of the monkish mind introduced many apparently original concepts. for instance, hell obtained an annex: purgatory. its inhabitants took on a form that may be alluded to as european, in contrast to the more satyrlike shape of the earlier hierarchy of hades. it featured grizzly forms of birdlike shape, with exaggerated beaks and claws, and the animal forms and faces of later medieval gargoyles could well be what the denizens of hades seemed like in the eyes of the superstitious of the sixteenth and se

y christianized, there is little doubt that the early medieval irish retained many remnants of their former paganism, especially those with elements of magic. the writings of the welsh historian giraldus cambrensis (ca. 1147.1220) point to this. this is the first known account of irish manners and customs after the invasion of the country by the anglo-normans. his description, for example, of the purgatory of st. patrick in lough derg, county donegal, suggests that the demonology of the catholic church had already fused with the animism of earlier irish tradition. he states: there is a lake in ulster containing an island divided into two parts. in one of these stands a church of especial sanctity, and it is most agreeable and delightful, as well as beyond measure glorious for the visitatio

im such unutterable sufferings by fire and water, and other torments of various kinds, that when morning comes scarcely any spark of life is found left in his wretched body. it is said that any one who has once submitted to these torments as a penance imposed upon him, will not afterwards undergo the pains of hell, unless he commit some sin of a deeper dye. this place is called by the natives the purgatory of st. patrick. for he, having to argue with a heathen race concerning the torments of hell, reserved for the reprobate, and the real nature and eternal duration of the future life, in order to impress on the rude minds of the unbelievers a mysterious faith in doctrines so new, so strange, so opposed to their prejudices, procured by the efficacy of his prayers an exemplification of both

h of persons possessed of demons, of the countries and dwelling-places of these specters and demons, and of marvelous portents; the fifth treats the science of the soul, of its origin, nature, its state after death, and of haunting ghosts; the sixth division is entirely taken up with the apparition of souls, and shows how the happy do not return to earth, but only those whose souls are burning in purgatory; in the seventh book the case of the witch of endor and the evocation of the soul of samuel are dealt with, as is evocation in general and the methods practiced by wizards and sorcerers in this science; and the last book gives some account of exorcism, fumigations, prayers, and other methods of casting out devils, and the usual means employed by exorcists to destroy these. the work, thou

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 2

s. london, 1863. yarbro, chelsea quinn. the vampire stories of chelsea quinn yarbro. white rock, bc: transylvania press, 1994. saint-jacques, r. p. de a monk of the seventeenth century, who published a book entitled lumiere aux vivants par l experience des morts, ou diverses apparitions des ames du purgatoire (light to the living by the experiences of the dead, or divers apparitions of souls from purgatory) in lyons in 1675. saint-martin, louis claude de (1743.1803) french mystic and philosopher, commonly known as le philosophe inconnu (the unknown philosopher, the pseudonym under which his books were published. the name of louis de saint-martin is a familiar one, which is partly due to his having been a voluminous author, and partly due to his being virtually the founder of a sect, the ma

ogether and separating them in a gesture of sympathy. thousands of witnesses attested to the phenomenon, and similar moving statues were reported in other towns. after the crisis, such miracles ceased. a similar event took place in 1716, when turkish forces threatened war on venice. one man claimed that the virgin mary had appeared to him in a vision and stated that if enough prayers for souls in purgatory were offered up, the infidels would be defeated. a crowd assembled in front of a statue of the virgin mary, and some of those present later declared that the statue opened and closed its eyes to confirm what the visionary had stated. the senate of the city and the local bishop affirmed their belief in the reality of the phenomenon. eighty years later, when the french revolutionary forces

FAUST

heles behold how happy is this folk- it s free! faust i think now i would like to go away. mephistopheles but first give heed to a display of glorious bestiality. siebel [drinks carelessly; the wine is spilt upon the ground and turns into flame. help! hell s on fire! it s burning me! mephistopheles [conjuring the flame. be quiet, friendly element! to the young men. this time twas but a flame that purgatory sent. siebel what s that? just wait! for that you will pay dear. you don t know who we are, that s clear. frosch don t try that game a second time, i say! altmayer i think we d better bid him gently go away. siebel what, sir! you venture to provoke us and carry on your hocus-pocus? mephistopheles silence, old wine-butt! siebel broomstick, you! will you insult me to my nose? brander just

GILBERT THE MAGICAL MASON

ll a third opinion is that a succession of personal li veson earth constitute an individuality. one must remember, of course, that those who believe in the christian doctrine of a future life are again set into two great groups: the one being of opinion that at death the soul passes to a court of judgment for acquittal or condemnation, while the other alleges that the soul endures a long state of purgatory before any reward or punishment, which will be awarded at the last day of judgment. the great majority of our nation certainly believe that there is a human soul which survives bodily death, while the smallminority is convinced that death is a final extinction of the individual. these considerations bring us once more to the several notions which have been, or are, held by students as to

h' or 'air; and, of course, it has come to be applied to certain liquids of alcoholic type. st paul, in his epistle to the corinthians, associates the wordspiritwith a body or vehicle. he says there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body, and that the material body is sown, and a spiritual body is raisedup,apparently as a vehicle to carryupthe immortal soul to another sphere of being- to purgatory, hades, the judgement, to heaven or hell. here we have a resemblance in christian teaching to the ideal constantly found in indian religions that the immaterial principles of a man have each a more or less tenuous sheath of matter for each plane of existence to act as a vehicle orvahan.theold testament of the hebrews does not show any complex analysis of man as the crown of creation. in

taught by irenaeus, justin martyr, clement, origen and gregory, and theoretically admitted by st augustine (dieda.d.430; yet for a thousand years it has dropped out of the teaching of the church.theidea is not now taught by any notable theologian.thesoul or immaterial part of man is endowed with the special faculties of intellect, free will, etc, it can exist apart from the body and will exist in purgatory or heaven until the last day- it is immortal. man is the only being capable of religion' in ancient greece there is no record of any distinction having been recognised between the body and an immaterial soul dwelling therein, until the era of pythagoras who taught aboutb.c.540, and we have no well-defined theory on the subject until the time of plato who elaborated the views of socrates

GNOSTIC HANDBOOK

d that you would be very, very wrong. in the early christian church there were many that taught reincarnation. clement of alexandria, origen, jerome, gregoras, augustine and irenaeus- to name but a few. it was only during the council of nicea in 325 ad that the concept of reincarnation became unpopular and this was coupled with the development of teachings regarding the trinity, eternal hellfire, purgatory and other dogma's which were imported into the church for political reasons by emperor constantine. it was only in ad 553 at the second council of constantinople that reincarnation was finally and formally condemned. in regards to scripture itself it is obvious that church copyists have removed many of the classic reincarnation references, however, references still do occur if you look c

GNOSTIC STUDIES THE GNOSTIC HANDBOOK II GNOSTIC THEURGY

eligions. in the early christian church there were many who taught the doctrine of reincarnation. clement of alexandria, origen, jerome, gregoras, augustine and irenaeus to name but a few. it was only during the council of nicea in 325 ad that the concept of reincarnation became unpopular. this disavowal was coupled with the development of new teachings regarding the trinity, eternal hellfire and purgatory that were imported into the church for political reasons by emperor constantine. it was only in ad 553 at the second council of constantinople that the church finally and formally condemned the doctrine of reincarnation. in both hinduism and buddhism reincarnation is a central doctrine. in the bhagavad gita, we find krishna expounding the theory of reincarnation to arjuna, a wise and pow

GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 3

re and a devil. i have already affirmed on p. 132 a connexion between this u'utende heer ^nd wuotan, the god being linked with it in name 1 braunsehw. anz. 1760 no. 86, 35. praetorii weltbeschr. 1, 262-9. laus. monatss. 1797 p. 747. so far back as the anegenge 180^ 190 'w4 mit dm armen chiutleliu dazfiwcr liaben geschoufet, diu da ungetoufet an ir schulde scheuleut von hinne' but here the fire of purgatory is meant^ 2 ungerechte siebner, moser's patr. phant. 3, 309 'filrig marcher, will o wisps, in hebel's poem. mone's anz. 1835, 408. 1838, 223. westendorp p. 511. 3 yet there are some hrausende gcistcr (blustering spmts) that go singly too, as' jungfer eli' in the davert, deut. sag. no. 121. their name of' braus. g' is vouched for by plitt's nachr. von wetter p. 42. fueious host: wuotax. 9

GRIMM TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 2 1883 COMPLETE

it still was down in the depths of the earth, with the human world spread out above it. it is therefore called abyssus (ducange sub v, and forms the counterpart to heaven: f a coelo usque in abyssum. from abyssus, span, abismo, fr. abime, is to be explained the mhg. aus (altd. bl. 1, 295; in abisses grunde, msh. 3, 167, later obis, nobis (en abis, en obis, in abyssum. os. helligrund, 1 of one in purgatory the esthonians say: ta on kahha ilma waliliel, he is beticeen two worlds. 806 time and world. hel. 44, 22; in afgrunde gan, roth. 2334; ir verdienet daz afgrunde, 1970; varen ter helle in den donkren kelre, dark cellar, floris 1257.1 as. se neowla grund (imus abyssus, caedm. 267, 1. 270, 16; j?aet neowle genip (profunda caligo) 271, 7. 275, 31. this neowel, niwel (profundus) may explain

names the bridge of dread, no brader than a thread, over which the soul has to pass in the under world (j. thorns anecd. and trad. pp. 89. 90. the same bridge is mentioned in the legend of tundalus (hahn s ed. pp. 49. 50: the soul must drive a stolen cow over it. 3 the same meaning as in the voyage of souls over the gulf or 1 owen s diet. 2, 214. villemarque 1, 135. 2 the narrow bridge is between purgatory and paradise, even owain the hero had to cross it (scott s minstr. 2, 360-1. in striking harmony with it (as supra p. 574) is a mahom. tradition given in sale s koran (ed. 1801, introd. 120: in the middle of hell all souls must walk over a bridge thinner than a hair, sharper than the edge of a sword, and bordered on both sides by thorns and prickly shrubs. the jews also speak of the hell

HEAVEN HELL

siris, which is eternal; he is righteousness itself, and they are righteous, and they live by eating the body of their god daily. on the other hand, the p. xii wicked, i.e, those who did not believe in the great god or make offerings, are hacked to pieces by the divine messengers of wrath, and their bodies, souls, and spirits are consumed by fire once and for all. the egyptians had no belief in a purgatory. the fires of the other world were, it is true, occupied daily in burning up the damned and the opponents of the sun-god, but each day brought its own supply of bodies, souls, spirits, demons, etc, for annihilation. in all the books of the other world we find pits of fire, abysses of darkness, murderous knives, streams of boiling water, foul stenches, fiery serpents, hideous animal-heade

ll the blessed, depended upon him for light and food, which they received from p. 199 him in return for the services which they rendered to him as their overlord. those who held not these views, and were not followers of osiris, believed, as did all the primitive egyptians, that the tuat was a place of darkness, hunger, thirst, and misery, and finally of annihilation. they had no belief either in purgatory or in everlasting punishment; the beings in the tuat lived just so long as their friends and relatives on earth made the prescribed funeral offerings on their behalf, and no longer. the shadows, souls, and bodies of those who were without food in the tuat were, together with the fiends and monsters which opposed the progress of the sun-god, destroyed by fire each day, utterly and finally

INITIATION INTO HERMETICS

agician is not afraid of death, for he believes the physical death to be only a transition to a subtler sphere, the astral plane, and from there to the spiritual level, and so on. consequently he will not believe in heaven nor in hell. the priests of the various religions stick to these fancies solely to keep their kids to the point. their moralizing serves only to provoke fear of the hell or the purgatory and to promise heaven to morally good people. average people, as far as they are religiously inclined, are favorably influenced by such a point of view for, from fear of hell, they will try to be good. but as for the magician, he sees the purpose of the moral laws in ennobling the mind and the soul, for it is in an ennobled soul only that the universal powers can do their work, especiall

ISIS UNVEILED

y lived before the time of jesus, and, therefore, could not be benefited by the redemption! he also assures us that the virgin mary person- ally testified to this truth over her own ugnature in a letter to a saint. therefore this is also a revelation "the spirit of god himself" teaching such charitable doctrines. we have also read with great advantage the topographical descrip- tions of hell arfd purgatory in the celebrated treatise of that name by a jesuit, the cardinal bellannine. a critic found that the aifthor, who gives the description from a dwine vision with which he was favored "appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer about the secret tracts and formidable divisions of the bottomless pit" justin martyr having actually committed to paper the heretical thought that af

JENNINGS HARGRAVE ROSICRUCIANS RITES MYSTERIES

me, the suspicion assents that there must somehow be truth in the foundation; not fanciful, legendary, philosophical creed-truth, unexplainable (and only to be admitted without question) truth; but truth, however mysterious and awing, yet cogent, and not to be of philosophy (that is, illumination) denied. the death and descent of balder into the hell of the scandinavians may be supposed to be the purgatory of the human unit (or the god-illuminate, from the light (through the god-dark phases of being, back into its native light. balder was the scandinavian sun-god, and the same as the egyptian osiris, the greek hercules, bacchus, and phoebus, or apollo, the indian crishna, the persian mithras, the aten of the empires of insular asia; or, even of the sidonians, the athyr or ashtaroth. the pr

xterior, unknown world surrounding this world: which world men reason against as if it had no existence, when it has real existence* it is this other world (just off this* and in which they were in ignorance in their pre-state, as they will be (perhaps also in ignorance) in, their "after-state. in respect of which state( before and after this life, all people, in all time, have had an idea. it is purgatory it is limbus 192 the rosicrucians. real world) into which the rosicrucians say they can enter, and bring back, as proofs that they have been there, the old things (thought escaped, metamorphosed in to new things. this act is transmutation. this product is magic gold, or fairy gold, condensed as real gold. this growing gold, or self-generating and multiplying gold, is obtained by invisibl

LEWIS JAMES SATANISM TODAY AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION FOLKLORE AND POPULAR CULTURE

he summa deals with immortal life, which humanity reaches through the savior by the resurrection,when the soul is rejoined to the body. death is a necessary circumstance in the process whereby human beings, even the people alive at the end of the world, become immortal. all people are directed to one last fixed end, and after death both intellect and will of all the dead,whether they are in hell, purgatory, or in heaven, whether before or after resurrection, become immutable and they are brought to eternity. according to aquinas, the localities of life after death are: limbus patrum, where the good went who died before christ; limbus infantum, where are allocated the children who died unbaptized; purgatory, the place where all sinners stay until they are purified or redeemed by the church

or redeemed by the church, or until the last day; hell, or gehenna, where the wicked are condemned; and finally heaven, where the good are admitted. at the day of judgment, all the souls will reassume their bodies. the intermediate states will then be destroyed and, when the last sentence is pronounced, the condemned will depart for hell and the good will go to heaven forever, while the souls in purgatory may be redeemed and transferred to heaven through the prayers of the living for them, and the transfer of good works to their account. aquinas accepted the tradition that satan and his demons were fallen angels. his view of angels was based on the assumption that humans cannot be the highest beings in the created order. angels were thus a race of superior beings characterized by capaciti

te s most original contribution to philosophical thought. the actual life of his own times, interpreted by the story of his own inner anguishes, represents dante s primary source of inspiration for the divina commedia, an allegory of the human condition and destiny in the form of a vision of the state of the souls after death. dante himself is the pilgrim of the visionary journey through hell and purgatory, to heaven, during a week at easter in the year 1300 when, at the age of thirty-five, he d 61 62 dante s inferno feels lost in the dark wood of his own moral confusion. the latin poet virgil, representing secular learning, is his guide through the depths of hell and up the mountain of purgatory, and beatrice, representing the higher divine inspiration, leads him to heaven and to the inex

thirty-five, he d 61 62 dante s inferno feels lost in the dark wood of his own moral confusion. the latin poet virgil, representing secular learning, is his guide through the depths of hell and up the mountain of purgatory, and beatrice, representing the higher divine inspiration, leads him to heaven and to the inexpressible divine source of all love. dante adopted a punitive inferno, and added a purgatory, for those who were not cut off from hope. paradise follows in one continuous line of ascent. hell, in dante s scheme corresponding to the general medieval view of the world, is placed in the interior of the earth, and is portrayed as the place of eternal isolation of the souls. it consists of nine concentric circles that, from the hemisphere of the earth and across the river acheron, pr

onster, champing with his teeth the three arch-sinners against church and state, judas iscariot, brutus, and cassius. the extremity of torture is inflicted by cold, not by heat. satan s wings, perpetually beating, send forth an icy blast that freezes the river cocytus to a glassy hardness, and in it are immured the four last grades of sinners. a hidden path connects the center of the earth to the purgatory, the place of purgation and of preparation for the life of eternal blessedness. it is imagined as a mountain formed by the earth that retreated before lucifer as he fell from heaven into the abyss of hell, and it is located at the exact antipodes of jerusalem and mount calvary, in the center of the southern hemisphere. after the antepurgatory, where are placed the excommunicated and the

est visible region of the celestial world, and the ninth heaven, the primum mobile, governs the general motion of the heavens from east to west, and by it all place and time are ultimately measured. finally, beyond and outside the heavens, lies the empyrean, where there is neither time nor place, but light only, and which is the special abode of the deity and the saints. see also hell and heaven; purgatory; satan for further reading: bemrose, stephen. dante s angelic intelligences. their importance in the cosmos and in pre- christian religion. roma: edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1983. edwards, paul, ed. the encyclopedia of philosophy. new york:macmillan, 1967. eliade,mircea, ed. encyclopedia of religion. new york:macmillan, 1987. macgregor, geddes. angels.ministers of grace. new york:

ntaining the old testament patriarchs, rather than hell, as the patriarchs are merely being held as prisoners rather than being tortured in a realm of fire and sulfur. rather than being imprisoned, jesus does battle with satan and his minions, defeats them, and frees everyone in hell, from adam and eve to moses. the gospel of nicodemus was popular long before the full development of the notion of purgatory, which eventually supplanted the idea of limbo. limbo had been necessary because christians of the first few centuries of the common era imagined that only christian souls could go to heaven. this, however, creates the problem of what happened to such righteous and deserving individuals as the old testament patriarchs (e.g, abraham, moses, etc) who died before the christian gospel was pr

ll then perform a ritual in which he or she enters a trance state in order to seek out the lost soul, which has often wandered off to the realm of the dead (often an underworld. if the rite is successful, the wandering spirit will be persuaded to return, and the ill person will recover. this seems to be the cross-culture archetype in which the story of the harrowing of hell participates. see also purgatory; underworld for further reading: eliade,mircea, ed. encyclopedia of religion. new york:macmillan, 1987. eliade,mircea. shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy. princeton, nj: princeton university press, 1964. mcdannell, colleen, and bernhard lang. heaven: a history. 1988. new york: vintage, 1990. turner, alice k. the history of hell. new york: harcourt brace& co, 1993. harut and marut j

leave heaven to accomplish this purpose, with the reconstructed body on earth. another issue with which serious thinkers have grappled across the centuries is the fate of souls who, while not moral athletes, have nevertheless not committed outrageous sins. this has led to the development of ideas of intermediate afterlife abodes in which mixed souls are purified and made fit for heaven. catholic purgatory is the most well known of these realms, but the same basic idea is incorporated in other ways into other traditions. yet another solution is to postulate a series of multiple heavens and hells, or levels of heaven and the torments of hell (dover pictorial archive) 110 hellhole hell, in which good people and sinners are rewarded or punished according the degree of their noble deeds or sin

f sinners, each experiencing a punishment appropriate for their crime. dante s heaven is somewhat different. although there are concentric spheres of light and nine levels of angels, righteous souls are not ordered according to a hierarchy of virtue. the case is different in other visions of the afterlife. mormons, for example, believe in a hierarchically ordered heaven. see also dante alighieri; purgatory; underworld; zoroastrianism for further reading: eliade,mircea, ed. encyclopedia of religion. new york:macmillan, 1987. mcdannell, colleen, and bernhard lang. heaven: a history. 1988. new york: vintage, 1990. turner, alice k. the history of hell. new york: harcourt brace& co, 1993. zimmer, heinrich. philosophies of india. new york: bollingen, 1951. hellhole hellhole is a common expressio

logians, particularly those of the asharite school, believed that if a believer entered hell, god could forgive his sins or nonconformities and remove him, either immediately or after a certain period during which imperfections had been burned away. the basis for this doctrine is the hadith, he shall make men come out of hell after they have been burned and reduced to cinders. in addition to this purgatory of suffering, there is another muslim limbo al-a raf, the heights or ramparts, described in a chapter of the koran by that name in which those souls reside who do not merit damnation, yet who are unable to enter paradise. see also harut and marut; iblis; jinn for further reading: arberry, a. j. the koran interpreted. 1955. reprint, new york:macmillan, 1969. the encyclopaedia of islam. le

minos. in early judaism the deeds of the dead were recorded and a judgment of the dead mentioned to establish punishment for the sinners or reward for the righteous (culminating in resurrection. in christianity the judgment of the soul is believed to occur upon the death of the individual, who will be assigned either eternal condemnation or reward (hell or heaven) or, in some christian churches, purgatory. some texts also mention a final judgment day, held at the end of time by god or by the son, jesus christ, which will culminate in the resurrection of the righteous and eternal damnation for sinners. in islam a notion of an imminent judgment day draws primarily from jewish literature; in the koran a description of a trial of the soul refers to a scale weighing good and evil deeds, and co

that distinguish between the afterlife fates of morally good and morally bad individuals, there are different mechanisms by which souls can be sent to happy or unhappy states. in christianity and related religions, the judgment of souls is believed to occur upon the death of the individual, who will be assigned either eternal condemnation or reward (hell or heaven) or, in some christian churches, purgatory. beyond this particular judgment, western religions also propagate the idea of a final judgment day at the end of time, which usually culminates in the resurrection of the righteous for life in paradise and the resurrection of sinners for either extinction or eternal damnation. in western religions, the notion of a final judgment originated in zoroastrianism. the religion of zoroaster is

bodies? poets, trembling not before the judgment seat of rhadamanthus or of minos, but of christ a surprise? tragic actors bellowing in their own melodramas should be worth hearing! comedians skipping in the fire will be worth praise! the famous charioteer will toast on his fiery wheel .these are things of greater delight, i believe, than a circus, both kinds of theater, and any stadium. see also purgatory; zoroastrianism for further reading: eliade,mircea, ed. encyclopedia of religion. new york:macmillan, 1987. turner, alice k. the history of hell. new york: harcourt brace& company, 1993. van der leeuw, g. religion in essence and manifestation. vol. 1. 1933. gloucester, ma: peter smith, 1967. lavey, anton szandor anton szandor lavey (1930 1997) was the founder of the church of satan, the

tulate a heaven and a hell as the final abode of the soul, serious thinkers have grappled with the fate of those who, while not ethical exemplars, have been more or less good, and not guilty of truly evil actions. this has led to the development of ideas of intermediate afterlife abodes in which souls were purified and made fit for paradise. the most famous of such intermediate realms is catholic purgatory. prior to the elaboration of the notion of purgatory, the early christian community had accepted a less developed idea of limbo. limbo provided a realm to which unbaptized babies could go without having to be condemned to hell. another question limbo answered for the early church concerned the fate of righteous people who had passed away in the eras before the good news of christianity

s of christianity. in other words, christians of the first few centuries of the common era imagined that only christian souls could go to heaven. but where does that leave such righteous and deserving individuals as the old testament patriarchs (e.g, abraham, moses, etc? placing them in a limbo realm, from which christ later rescued them and conducted them to heaven, solved this problem. see also purgatory for further reading: eliade,mircea, ed. encyclopedia of religion. new york:macmillan, 1987. eliade,mircea. shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy. princeton, nj: princeton university press, 1964. mcdannell, colleen, and bernhard lang. heaven: a history. 1988. new york: vintage, 1990. turner, alice k. the history of hell. new york: harcourt brace& co, 1993. lisa and the devil, a.k.a. th

ch have supplanted the angels as god s favorites in the 1995 film. the angry angels, led by gabriel, plot to destroy the loyal angels, and decide to enlist the soul of a recently deceased war veteran as their leader. the good angels, however, steal the soul and hide it in the body of a young girl, and the bad angels go looking for her. the war in heaven theme is carried over into the 1997 sequel. purgatory in the western religious tradition, purgatory originated as an afterlife limbo (borderland; from the latin limbus, border) where the spirits of the dead purgatory 219 awaited the final judgment and their subsequent assignment to a realm of damnation or beatitude. although the idea of a final judgment does not require that the dead be bodily resurrected for the last judgment to take place

s that postulate a heaven and a hell as the final abode of the soul, serious thinkers have grappled with the fate of those who, while not ethical exemplars, have been more or less good, and not guilty of truly evil actions. this led to the development of ideas of intermediate afterlife abodes in which mixed souls are purified and made fit for paradise. such an intermediate realm is referred to as purgatory, alluding to the purification( purgation) that souls in purgatory undergo. the basic idea seems to have first appeared in later zoroastrianism, which postulates that, after the final battle between good and evil, there will be a general judgment in which everyone will be put through an ordeal of fire a river of molten metal in which morally mixed individuals will have their dross burned

at souls in purgatory undergo. the basic idea seems to have first appeared in later zoroastrianism, which postulates that, after the final battle between good and evil, there will be a general judgment in which everyone will be put through an ordeal of fire a river of molten metal in which morally mixed individuals will have their dross burned away rather than be consumed in hell. the zoroastrian purgatory, which is more of an event than a realm, appears to have influenced the traditional catholic notion of purgatory (easily the best known of such mixed realms, especially in the particular of a purifying fire. officially, however, the catholic acceptance of purgatory did not begin until a papal letter of 1253, an idea that was not completely confirmed until the council of trent. the catech

atholic acceptance of purgatory did not begin until a papal letter of 1253, an idea that was not completely confirmed until the council of trent. the catechism of the council of trent states that, there is a purgatorial fire in which the souls of the pious are purified by a temporary punishment so that an entrance may be opened for them into the eternal country in which nothing stained can enter. purgatory, which in this view is a kind of limbo, provided explanations for such questions as the eternal fate of babies who died in infancy: unbaptized babies entered heaven after a brief sojourn in purgatory a far kinder fate than the one imagined by st. augustine, who asserted that if even infants died without the sacrament of baptism they would be eternally damned. it also helped to explain gh

urgatory a far kinder fate than the one imagined by st. augustine, who asserted that if even infants died without the sacrament of baptism they would be eternally damned. it also helped to explain ghosts, who were viewed as souls undergoing purgatorial cleansing. the church cautiously embraced the notion that the prayers and other actions of the living could shorten the time the deceased spent in purgatory. as a merciful intercessor, the virgin mary became queen of purgatory to whom prayers for the deceased were addressed. this role led more or less directly to the medieval cult of mary. as is well known to those familiar with the history, it was the doctrine of the role the living could play to rescue souls from purgatory that set the stage for the protestant reformation. islam embraced t

LIBER CCCXXXV ADONIS

the first faint rose of day flush it. awhile! awhile! there fs crimson bars enough to blot the noblest of the stars, and bow for adoration ere the rim start like god fs spear to ware the world of him! softly! esarhaddon. but kiss me! astarte. with an eyelash first! esarhaddon. treasure and torture! astarte. tantalising thirst makes the draught more delicions. heaven were worth little without the purgatory, earth! esarhaddon. you make earth heaven. astarte. and heaven hell. to choose thee is to interpret misery .to lose thee. esarhaddon. ay! death end all if it must end thy kiss! astarte. and death be all if it confirm life.s bliss! adonis 7 esarhaddon. and death come soon if death fill life.s endeavour! astarte. and if it spill life.s vintage, death come never! esarhaddon. the sun sets. b

LIBER LXVII THE SWORD OF SONG

n browning.s masterpiece as a judas without the decency to hang himself .so (i.e, by suddenness of fate) may the truth be flashed out by one blow, and guido see one instant and be saved. else i avert my face nor follow him into that sad obscure sequestered state where god unmakes but to remake the soul he else made first in vain: which must not be* probably a record for a bishop..a.c. this may be purgatory, but it sounds not unlike reincarnation. it is at least a denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment. as for myself, i took the first step years ago, quite in ignorance of what the last would lead to. god is indeed cut away. a cancer from the breast of truth. of those philosophers, who from unassailable premisses draw by righteous deduction a conclusion against god, and then for his sa

MANLY P HALL THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

could only conjecture. many suspect the rosicrucian rose to be a conventionalization of the egyptian and hindu lotus blossom, with the same symbolic meaning as this more ancient symbol. the divine comedy stamps dante alighieri as being familiar with the theory of rosicrucianism. concerning this point, albert pike in his morals and dogma makes this significant statement "his hell is but a negative purgatory. his heaven is composed of a series of kabalistic circles, divided by a cross, like the pantacle of ezekiel. in the center of this cross blooms a rose, and we see the symbol of the adepts of the rose-croix for the first time publicly expounded and almost categorically explained" doubt has always existed as to whether the name rosicrucian came from the symbol of the rose and cross, or whe

MORALS AND DOGMA

fascinations, and that the true life commences only when the soul is emancipated for its return. and in this sense, as presiding over life and death, dionusos is in the highest sense _the_ liberator: since, like osiris, he frees the soul, and guides it in its migrations beyond the grave, preserving it from the risk of again falling under the slavery of matter or of some inferior animal form, the purgatory of metempsychosis; and exalting and perfecting its nature through the purifying discipline of his mysteries "the great consummation of all philosophy" said socrates, professedly quoting from traditional and mystic sources "is _death: he who pursues philosophy aright _is studying how to die" all soul is part of the universal soul, whose totality is dionusos; and it is therefore he who, as

and feet, that is to say _by accepting the direct opposite of the catholic dogma_ and then he reascends to the light, by using the devil himself as a monstrous ladder. faust ascends to heaven, by stepping on the head of the vanquished mephistopheles. hell is impassable for those only who know not how to turn back from it. we free ourselves from its bondage by audacity. his hell is but a negative purgatory. his heaven is composed of a series of kabalistic circles, divided by a cross, like the pantacle of ezekiel. in the centre of this cross blooms a rose, and we see the symbol of the adepts of the rose-croix for the first time publicly expounded and almost categorically explained. for the first time, because guillaume de lorris, who died in 1260, five years before the birth of alighieri, h

RABBI MOSHE WISNEFSKY APPLES FROM THE ORCHARD THE ARIZAL ON THE PARASHAH

the seventh day, the sabbath. this is what is alluded to here [the zohar uses the expression] gwhen the sabbath enters c. h6 this [allegorically] refers to how the sabbath enters the act of coupling, like a bride enters the canopy. the arizal now returns to the discussion of the creation of the gman h of beriah and the gman h of asiyah. 5 genesis 1:31. 6 zohar chadash, midrash rut, 7 chambers of purgatory; midrash hane felam, bereishit, na faseh adam. the arizal on parashat bereishit (2) 24 the torah continues [after the account of the first sabbath] gthese are the generations of heaven and earth when they were created [on the day that g-d made earth and heaven. h7 it here informs us that when the gman h of beriah was created the gman h of asiyah was also made. this is because both verbs

th those of his forebears f. since terah was an idol-worshipper, what sort of reassurance was g-d offering abraham here? we must therefore conclude that g-d was telling abraham that terah would repent and that his soul would rest in paradise. the words gin the heat of the day h allude to the statement of our sages that on that day g-d removed the sun from its sheath,5 this being the equivalent of purgatory. abraham at all times sought guests to host. since this incident occurred shortly after his circumcision, g-d wished to let abraham rest, so he made it extra hot so that people would refrain from traveling and no one would be on the road for abraham to invite into his tent. the sun is envisioned as being encompassed by a sheath that protects the world from its rays. one aspect of the pur

all times sought guests to host. since this incident occurred shortly after his circumcision, g-d wished to let abraham rest, so he made it extra hot so that people would refrain from traveling and no one would be on the road for abraham to invite into his tent. the sun is envisioned as being encompassed by a sheath that protects the world from its rays. one aspect of the purification process of purgatory is unbearable heat. abraham gwas sitting at the opening of the tent, h referring to [our sages f statement] that he sits at the entrance of purgatory and keeps whoever is circumcised and sealed with the holy covenant and has not blemished it from entering.6 abraham was the first jew to be circumcised, and the covenant of circumcision is known to this day as gthe covenant of abraham. h th

not blemished it from entering.6 abraham was the first jew to be circumcised, and the covenant of circumcision is known to this day as gthe covenant of abraham. h thus, whoever fulfills the commandment of being circumcised and guards the purity of his sexuality merits abraham fs protection. allegorically, this simply means that guarding sexual purity is sufficient merit to be spared the ordeal of purgatory even if one has sinned in other ways that would have otherwise required that he undergo the purging process. 1 genesis 18:1. 2 zohar 2:33a, in the glosses of rabbi chaim vital #3. 3 genesis 15:15. 4 bereishit rabbah 30:4; rashi on genesis 15:15. 5 bava metzia 86b. 6 eiruvin 19a. the arizal on parashat lech lecha 80 now, this caused terah be reincarnated. when he returned, he descended as

s a necessary ingredient in creation, without which it cannot exist. 13 genesis 1:31. 14 rashi ad loc, etc. 15 shemot rabbah 15:26. 16 genesis 25:1-6. 17 rashi on genesis 28:15. 18 genesis 1:2. 19 bereishit rabbah 8:1. the arizal on parashat lech lecha 94 the name of the messiah is listed as one of the seven things that preceded the creation of the world.20 (the other six are the torah, teshuvah, purgatory [gehinom, the garden of eden [the abode of the soul in the afterlife, the throne of glory, and the temple. all these are related to the process of achieving the purpose of creation) it had been glost h in sodom, as it is written, gi have found david, my servant, h21 and our sages said that this means that g-d found [the seed of david fs soul] in sodom, in the person of lot, abraham fs ne

in order to harm it. this is because the evil inclination is also the accusing angel. after taking the soul [from to body, it pursues it in order to harm it and take vengeance on it. as the sages have said, the evil inclination (yetzer hara, the angel of death (malach hamavet, and the accusing angel (satan) are all one [14:9] he overtook them while they were camping by the sea c the sea refers to purgatory [gehinom, known as gthe river of fire. h when the soul leaves the body it must first be purged of the existential crust of materialism and negativity it acquired during its stay in the physical world. only then can it proceed to experience the pure spirituality of paradise [14:10] as pharaoh drew near .to give the soul over to the agents of damage and inflictors of pain to torture them

nd suffering these powers of evil are inflicting upon me, this battering in the grave [chibut ha-kever, was it not enough pain that i had to be buried and suffer inside the body and constrictions of the physical world, that i must now experience as well the pain of this grave h.this refers to how the soul is battered inside the grave. gand i have been taken to die [again] in the desert? h i.e, in purgatory, the desolate abode of the forces of evil. here is where vengeance is extracted from the soul. the soul refers to its birth into a physical body as being gburied h inside a ggrave. h death is not seen as a cessation of existence, but rather as a descent from one spiritual level to a lower one. it is enough, the soul complains, that i had to live a full life in this grave of the body; why

for death from this world in order to go on to live in the world of truth. as the sages say, gagainst your will you are born, and against your will you live. h [14:13] but moses said to the people, ghave no fear c h the good inclination tells the soul, have no fear of this punishment, for it is for your own good. through it, you will be rid of these inflictors of pain and be spared the ordeal of purgatory. all the powers of impurity will remain there in this sea, i.e, the river of fire. gstand firm and witness the deliverance that g-d will perform for you today c h by means of the purification process of purgatory you will be cleansed of your sins. g cfor the egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see again. h for they will remain in purgatory. the arizal on parashat beshalach

eans of the purification process of purgatory you will be cleansed of your sins. g cfor the egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see again. h for they will remain in purgatory. the arizal on parashat beshalach 3 [14:24] toward the end of the night g-d looked down upon the camp of the egyptians with the pillar of fire and cloud c this refers to the descent of the soul to be judged in purgatory. when this is over. che threw the camp of the egyptians into confusion. this refers to the powers of the evil inclination, who are cast into the gsea, h where they remain [14:29] but the children of israel had walked on dry land in the midst of the sea, while the water formed a wall for them, on their right and on their left. the word for gwall h is chomah, which is written the same as t

. this refers to the powers of the evil inclination, who are cast into the gsea, h where they remain [14:29] but the children of israel had walked on dry land in the midst of the sea, while the water formed a wall for them, on their right and on their left. the word for gwall h is chomah, which is written the same as the word for ganger h [cheimah. the powers of evil are angry as the soul departs purgatory purified of its material dross [15:22-23] moses then caused the children of israel to set out from the sea of reeds and they went out into the desert of shur. they walked for three days in the desert without finding any water. they came to marah, but they could not drink water at marah, for the water was bitter; that was why the place was named marah[ gbitter h. after the soul departs pu

o the desert of shur. they walked for three days in the desert without finding any water. they came to marah, but they could not drink water at marah, for the water was bitter; that was why the place was named marah[ gbitter h. after the soul departs purgatory, it starves for three days, since it spends three days without learning torah. torah is the nourishment of the soul, enabling it to endure purgatory before entering paradise [15:24] the people complained against moses, saying, gwhat shall we drink? h i.e, gsince we have not learned any torah. the torah is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it. h g-d showed [moses] a tree; he threw it into the water and the water became sweet. it was there that he gave [the people] a statute and a law, and there he tested them. i.e [the good inc

r g-d and do what is upright in his eyes, carefully listening to all his commandments and observing all his statutes, then none of the sicknesses that i brought on egypt will i bring upon you, for i am g-d who heals you. h the arizal on parashat beshalach 4 i.e, g-d promises the soul that since it observed the torah [during its life in the physical world] and underwent its purification process in purgatory, it will no longer experience any of the negativity and depression of evil, for it has been cured of all these. in other words, the future tense of the verse should be read as the past: gsince you diligently heeded the voice c h etc [15:27] then they came to elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they encamped by the water. there are twelve rivers of p

e past: gsince you diligently heeded the voice c h etc [15:27] then they came to elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they encamped by the water. there are twelve rivers of pure, spiritual water surrounding paradise, corresponding to the twelve tribes of israel. every [soul of each] tribe immerses in its respective river in order to be cooled from the fire of purgatory and healed of its wounds [16:1-2] they moved on from elim, and the entire community of israel came to the desert of sinn, which is between elim and sinai, on the fifteenth of the second month after they had left egypt. there, in the desert, the entire community of the children of israel complained against moses and aaron. i.e, after all this [there is one more stage before the soul enter

lained against moses and aaron. i.e, after all this [there is one more stage before the soul enters paradise. it immerses again to be judged in gthe flame of the revolving sword, h referred to here as the desert of sinn. when adam and eve were banished from paradise, g-d placed the flame of the revolving sword at the entrance to guard it. this purifying fire is a much more subtle one than that of purgatory, and is necessary in order to remove the subtle materialism that still remains after the preliminary purification accomplished there. this may be compared to the two stages of circumcision: after removing the thick foreskin, the thin mucous membrane must be peeled back as well. neglecting to do this invalidates the circumcision. similarly, in the gcircumcision of the heart h there are tw

oul goes on to the upper level of paradise, referred to as sinai, in order to receive [new levels of] the torah from the mouth of g-d. the letter yud is added to sinn to give sinai. they encamped at rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink c [17:8] amalek then came and fought against israel in rephidim. but before it ascends to the upper level of paradise, there is another type of purgatory, more subtle than the river of fire, that it must traverse, in order to burn away those gsins h of the righteous that are as tenuous as a thread of hair. the gross sins had already been rectified by the lower purgatory. the higher one ascends in spirituality, the more the previous levels he was on appear to be gross and crass. thus, at a higher level, a person may come to consider a way

c or gchildish. h in order to proceed to the higher perspective of reality, he must rid himself of the lower one, which he now finds embarrassing or even shameful. this is why g-d judges the righteous gto the breadth of a string of hair h: their higher standard of being makes attitudes or actions that would be normally considered innocuous or even meritorious look depraved in context. this higher purgatory is called rephidim, which alludes to the righteous who gwhose hand-grasp of the commandments was weak. h according to the talmud,1 the implication of the name rephidim is that there the jews gloosened their handgrip on the study of the torah, h for the word rephidim is derived from the root rafeh (reish-pei-hei, which means gloose h or gweak. h this means that [in rephidim] the jews did

is means that [in rephidim] the jews did not perform g-d fs commandments properly, but in laziness and unwillingly. similarly here, the soul has already gained entrance to the lower level of paradise, but in order to enter the upper paradise it must have performed mitzvot [in the physical world] in love, with great desire and will. it receives its punishment for not having done this in this upper purgatory, which is synonymous with amalek, the highest level of impurity, the subtle fire that is perennially at war with israel. thus, gamalek then came and fought against israel in rephidim h means gbecause of rephidim. h amalek is synonymous with uninspired, unenthusiastic performance of g-d fs commandments, as it is written, gamalek cwho cooled you off on your way [to receive the torah].2 .tr

in the mineral or vegetable kingdoms, and afterwards ascends into the animal kingdom, i.e, cattle. if it merits further, it ascends to the kingdom of man. transmigration is the means by which the soul atone for the sins it committed in its first, human lifetime. in the words of the arizal: there is almost no person on earth that is spared such transmigration. the wicked, after their death, enter purgatory [gehinom] and receive their punishment and atonement there. their judgement there lasts twelve months. although the arizal uses the term gpunishment, h it is important to remember that the suffering the soul endures in gehinom (and in being reincarnated) is meant to gscour h or purify it from the spiritual filth that it accrued during its lifetime by transgressing the commandments of the

his is why the custom is to say kaddish for only eleven months after the person fs death: saying kaddish the full twelve months would imply that the individual was a completely wicked and requires the full term of purification in gehinom. to certain wicked people, however, is applied the verse, ghe will fling away the lives of your enemies in the hollow of the sling. h2 they do not merit entering purgatory [immediately] after their death in order to be cleansed of their sin. rather, their soul descends from level to level through various incarnations, until 1 leviticus 26:3-4. 2 1 samuel 25:29. the arizal on parashat bechukotai 550 their sins have been scoured away sufficiently so that they may enter then purgatory for twelve months and attain full atonement. the punishment of gthe hollow

s experience is by, during his lifetime, spending as much of the day as possible in reciting passages from the mishneh, the tanya, and psalms by heart.3 there is no set time for these cases, for sometimes a soul can progress through its incarnations in twenty years, or a hundred, or a thousand.all depending upon the seriousness of the sins that it committed in this world. in contrast, the fire of purgatory does not singe the souls of the righteous and torah scholars c. therefore, they must be reincarnated into this world in order to scour them from whatever sins they may have done, for there is no one that has not committed some sin. thus, for the righteous, reincarnation is the lighter purification process, after which they enter paradise directly. for the wicked, however, reincarnation e

dergoing such-and-such a punishment for having committed such-and-such 3 hayom yom, 7 tevet the arizal on parashat bechukotai 551 a sin. we would inquire after this person, and always find it to be as my teacher said. we were witness to many amazing things like this. to return to our discussion: after an individual dies, he is repaid for his sins in various forms of reincarnation before he enters purgatory. that is, he can be reincarnated in an inanimate object, a plant, an animal, or in a person. almost no one can avoid being reincarnated, since a soul cannot experience the suffering [required to cleanse him of the effects of his sin] unless he has become rematerialized in a soul-body [combination. only then, having been reincarnated, can he suffer and feel the pain and thus achieve atone

ROBERT KIRK WALKER BETWEEN WORLDS

ghlanders make still a distinction between sluagh saoghalta and sluagh sith, averring that the souls [of mortals] go to the sith [sidh or fairy hills] when dislodged. many real treasures and murders are discovered by souls that pass from among ourselves or by the kindness of these our airy neighbours, none of which spirits can be altogether, inorganical [these are] no less than the conceits about purgatory or a state of rescue, the limbuss patrum et infantum [which] though misapplied, yet are not chimeras or altogether groundless. for, ab origine, it is [likely that these concepts are] nothing but some pale and faint discoveries of the secret republic of ours [as] here treated on, that are described with additional fictions of monks [who are] doting and crazyheads [for] our creed says that

RUBY TABLET OF SET

e can only guess at the reason. but let me mention one possibility. rough estimates place the number of human beings who have lived and died in the past at 75 billion. if we can correctly assume that they were all conscious beings, we may conclude that their conscious minds did not die (not being part of the natural order and therefore not subject to its laws. whether they went to heaven or hell, purgatory or podunk, is inconsequential. the fact is, they still exist. why then would set, in his wisdom, be interested in our conscious selves when he has all those other 75 billion minds in and around his place of existence? could it be we can do things they can't? if so, there is only one reason why: we have physical bodies, and neither they nor set do. after all, if he needed something done

SALMANRUSHDIE THESATANICVERSES

s as these might plausibly transpire? he was being forced towards the conclusion that he had indeed died in the exploding aeroplane and that everything that followed had been some sort of after-life. if that were the case, his long--standing rejection of the eternal was beginning to look pretty foolish- but where, in all this, was any sign of a supreme being, whether benevolent or malign? why did purgatory, or hell, or whatever this place might be, look so much like that sussex of rewards and fairies which every schoolboy knew- perhaps, it occurred to him, he had not actually perished in the _bostan_ disaster, but was lying gravely ill in some hospital ward, plagued by delirious dreams? this explanation appealed to him, not least because it unmade the meaning of a certain late-night teleph

SATANIC BIBLE

ros, which was the abode of fallen angels, the underworld (inside the earth, and gehenna, which was a valley near jerusalem where moloch reigned and garbage was dumped and burned. it is from this that the christian church has evolved the idea of "fire and brimstone" in hell. the protestant hell and the catholic hell are places of eternal punishment; however, the catholics also believe there is a "purgatory" where all souls go for a time, and a "limbo" where unbaptized souls go. the buddhist hell is divided into eight sections, the first seven of which can be expiated. the ecclesiastical description of hell is that of a horrible place of fire and torment; in dante's inferno, and in northern climes, it was thought to be an icy cold region, a giant refrigerator (even with all their threats of

SATANIC RITUALS

ill lessen or negate ultimate successmagical or otherwise. the difference between prayer and magic can be compared to the difference between applying for a loan and writing out a blank check for a desired amount. a man applying for a loan (prayer) may have nothing but a job as collateral and must keep working and pay interest, should the loan be granted. otherwise he will wind up with bad credit (purgatory. the man (magician) who writes the desired amount on the blank check, assumes there will be delivery of the merchandise, and he pays no interest he is indeed fortunate-but he had better have sufficient funds (magical qualities) to cover the amount written, or he may wind up in far worse straits, and have his creditors (demons) out looking for him. magic, like any other tool, requires a s

SCHLAGER NEIL WORLD RELIGIONS REFERENCE LIBRARY

d the anointing (touching with oil) of the sick. the priest or minister touches the dying person with holy oil and says, through this holy anointing may the lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the holy spirit. amen. may the lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up. amen. catholics also confess their sins to the priest so that they can go to heaven without waiting in purgatory. after death, all christian traditions follow a similar routine. there is a public announcement of the death, the body is prepared, there are funeral services at a church, a procession of cars to the cemetery, and then a burial, where the body is placed in a coffin into the ground, or a cremation, where the body is burned and the ashes placed in a container and later buried or scattered

cribe the way that life on earth has evolved. influence on the arts perhaps one of the most visible areas of christian influence has been in literature. the bible stands as one of the earliest and most popular texts in the world. writers such as italian poet dante alighieri (1265 1321) have found inspiration in christianity s doctrines. his divine comedy describes the poet s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. england s geoffrey chaucer (1340 1400) wrote his canterbury tales about a group of pilgrims traveling to a shrine, creating one of the classics of literature in any language. since the time of dante and chaucer authors of all nationalities have found further inspiration in christianity and the bible. modern examples of writers influenced by their christian beliefs include th

theology, when a person confesses a sin to a priest and receives absolution, or forgiveness, from god through the priest, the sin is removed. the person is then in a state of grace and is eventually eligible to enter heaven at death. the catholic church, however, teaches that the stain of the sin is not fully removed, even after confession. rather, after death, a person s soul must spend time in purgatory, a midway dwelling place between earth and heaven. in purgatory, people are denied the presence of god until they redeem themselves for past sins and become fit to enter heaven. indulgences, granted by the church, typically in the form of prayers, can shorten the time a person s soul must spend in purgatory. a plenary, or complete, indulgence takes away all of the time a person s soul wo

place between earth and heaven. in purgatory, people are denied the presence of god until they redeem themselves for past sins and become fit to enter heaven. indulgences, granted by the church, typically in the form of prayers, can shorten the time a person s soul must spend in purgatory. a plenary, or complete, indulgence takes away all of the time a person s soul would have otherwise spent in purgatory. in luther s era the practice of granting indulgences was much abused. the catholic church often simply sold them, granting letters of indulgence to those who contributed money. one of the worst offenders was a dominican friar named johann tetzel (c. 1465 1519, who traveled around selling indulgences to raise funds for the renovation of saint peter s basilica in rome, italy. tetzel was r

e catholic church often simply sold them, granting letters of indulgence to those who contributed money. one of the worst offenders was a dominican friar named johann tetzel (c. 1465 1519, who traveled around selling indulgences to raise funds for the renovation of saint peter s basilica in rome, italy. tetzel was reported to have often said, as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs. luther was deeply offended by this practice, as well as by other indications that the church had grown greedy, and preached sermons against it. he feared that catholics would feel they did not need to confess their sins and ask for god s forgiveness when they could simply buy their way into heaven. the ninety-five theses in 1517 luther wrote out a number of statements, called th

at it has been remitted by god and by assenting to god s remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. if his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven. 7. god remits guilt to no one whom he does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to his vicar, the priest. 16. hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ as do despair, almost-despair, and the assurance of safety. 21. therefore those preachers of indulgences are in error, who say that by the pope s indulgences a man is freed from every penalty, and saved; 22. whereas he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to the canons, they would have had to pay in this life. 31. rare as is the man that is

THE BOOK OF PLEASURE

lity. no man has seen self at any time. we are what we believe and what it implies by a process of time in the conception; creation is caused by this bondage to formula. actions are the expressions of ideas bound up in the belief; they being inherent are obscure, their operation indirect, easily they deceive introspection. fruits of action are two-fold, heaven or hell, their unity or nothingness (purgatory or indifference. in heaven there is desire for women. hell the desire intense. purgatory is expectation delayed. indifference but disappointment till recovery. then verily they are one and the same. the wise pleasure seeker, having realised they are "different degrees of desire" and never desirable, gives up both virtue and vice and becomes a kiaist. riding the shark of his desire he cro

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL 1

ther religious expression is yama at all comparable to satan, who in christian belief is both the creator of evil and the accuser of human weaknesses. in christianity, islam, and judaism, the soul s arrival at either heaven or hell is made somewhat confusing by the teachings of a great, final judgment day and the resurrection of the dead. and when roman catholic christianity added the doctrine of purgatory in the sixteenth century, the matter became all the more complex because now certain souls were given an opportunity to atone for their sins while residing in a kind of interim area between heaven and hell. while many christians, jews, and muslims believe that the dead lie sleeping in their graves until the last judgment, others in those same faiths maintain that judgment is pronounced i

the last judgment. it is generally pictured as a barren pit filled with flames, the images developed out of the hebrew sheol and the greek hades as the final resting places for the dead. roman catholic christianity continues to depict hell as a state of unending punishment for the unrepentant, but over five centuries ago, the councils of florence (1439) and trent (1545 63) defined the concept of purgatory, an intermediate state after death during which the souls have opportunities to expiate certain of their sins. devoted members of their families can offer prayers and oblations which can assist those souls in purgatory to atone for their earthly transgressions and achieve a restoration of their union with god. protestant christianity does not offer its followers the opportunities for aft

te after death during which the souls have opportunities to expiate certain of their sins. devoted members of their families can offer prayers and oblations which can assist those souls in purgatory to atone for their earthly transgressions and achieve a restoration of their union with god. protestant christianity does not offer its followers the opportunities for afterlife redemption afforded by purgatory or any other intermediate spiritual state, but it has removed much of the fear of hell and replaced it with an emphasis upon grace and faith. while fundamentalist protestants retain the traditional views of heaven and hell, there are many contemporary protestant clergy who have rejected the idea of a place of eternal torment for condemned souls as incompatible with the belief in a loving

death upset brian terribly, she said. her spirit lingered beside him, trying to establish communication with him, trying to let him know that he should not grieve for her. bridey told the astonished hypnotist and the witnesses that her spirit had waited around belfast until father john, a priest friend of her husband s, had passed away. she wanted to point out to him that he had been wrong about purgatory, she said, and added that he admitted it. the spirit world, bridey said, was one in which you couldn t talk to anybody very long they d go away. in the spirit realm, one did not sleep, never ate, and never became tired. bridey thought that her spirit had resided there for about 40 earth years before she was born as ruth simmons (ruth/virginia had been born in 1923, so bridey s spirit had

TWO ESSAYS ON THE WORSHIP OF PRIAPUS

s. l, ver. 152. 2 those who wish to see the difference between sensation and perception clearly and fully explained, may be satisfied by reading the essai analytique sur l ame, by mr. bonnet. 3 orph. hymn. 45. 4 mystica vannui iacchi. georg. i, ver. 166. 5 plot. ennead. vi, lib. iv, ch. 16. mosheim, not. y in cudw. syst. intell. ch. v. sect. 20. 100 on the worship the clergy afterwards introduced purgatory, instead of abstract meditation and study; which was the ancient mode of separation by fire, removed into an unknown country, where it was saleable to all such of the inhabitants of this world as had sufficient wealth and credulity. it was the celestial or therial principle of the human mind, which the ancient artists represented under the symbol of the butterfly, which may be considered

TYSON DONALD SOUL FLIGHT

n individuals have carried on entire conversations with astral projections, never realizing until being informed later that the other was not physically present. as a young girl, blessed columba of rieti (1467-1501) was in the habit of scourging herself three times every night: the first time for her own transgressions, the second for the conversion of sinners, and the third time to help souls in purgatory. when not whipping her own body, she passed the entire night in fervent prayer. not surprisingly, she was subject to astral visions. once, she traveled on the astral level through space and back in time to the scene of the chastisement of jesus by the roman soldiers. she was so overcome with anguish at the sight of his blood flowing from the strokes of the lash that she began to scourge

WICCA WITCHCRAFT TODAY

legends the lords of the underworld did prepare you for rebirth, and many living people are said to have entered their regions, formed alliances with them and returned safely, but it needed great courage; only a hero or a demigod dared to risk it. celtic mysteries assuredly contained rituals of death and resurrection, and possibly visits to the underworld with a safe return. i think st. patrick's purgatory in lough derg was a christianised version of this legend. primitive man dreaded the idea of being born in another tribe, among strangers, so he prayed and performed rites to ensure being born again at the same time and the same place as his beloved ones, who would know and love him again in the new life. the goddess of the witch cult is obviously the great mother, the giver of life, inca

se who came from curiosity, and i think mainly from those who fell in love with a member. membership of the cult meant torture and death if discovered, but it promised certain times of happiness, a partial release from the everyday round of toil and boredom, and rest and comradeship with rebirth for those who still loved this world- in fact a chance of good things in this world, and a saving from purgatory and hell in the next. they firmly believed in this and therefore risked initiating their children. if these betrayed you, it meant torture and death for you. if they kept faith, someone else might yet betray them, with like result. but some of them thought more of the future life and the promise 'if steadfast you go to the pyre, drugs will reach you, you will feel naught, you will but go

Return to Occult Library Index



Related Matches
abode abraham ancient angels ascends astarte catholic children christ christian christianity church commandments covenant creation cross dead death demons divine doctrine doctrines earth eternal evil existence fate fear fire five form forms genesis god gold grave heaven hell history human immortal israel jesus jews judgment living magic mary medieval mixed moses order paradise people physical powers priest punishment purgatory purification realm reincarnation religion religions resurrection righteous rose sages saint satan sea set sin soul souls spirit spirits spiritual state sun symbol three torah tradition truth underworld water world


http://www.hollywoodinsiders.net
MWLibCreator Ver.2 By:Michael Wynn