Some Thoughts about Hell
Steven Koke

Why would one want to choose hell if heaven is better? If we knew that heaven was better, more preferable, we would choose it. But in Swedenborg's concept, the idea that heaven is better is considered nonsense in hell. Your values in hell are not very intellectual, not very aware, just to start with. Intelligence is down in favor of the rise of the lower motivations which prevent much thought from a higher point of view than yourself.

You get there after death by going through the world of spirits where the goal is to get everyone to think as they feel and feel or love as they think. The individual must not be divided inside, or neither heaven nor hell will be available. That makes sense. Everyone is then likely to experience whatever they would most love to experience. Everyone is happy in either "place." No one is in pain except by contact with the opposite state of mind. There is, in a way, happiness everywhere in heaven and hell, except that some happiness is perverse, and other kinds are more elevated. Everyone becomes what he really, down deep, has wanted to be.


In hell, hellish things are what you would love the most or you wouldn't want to be there and therefore really couldn't be there. You couldn't even find a way to get there. A good person finds heaven attractive, and ways to heaven eventually open up in unexpected places in the world of spirits. An evil person really prefers hell, and only those who want to be there ever get in. Ways then open up. But some spirits from hell were allowed to satisfy their curiosity about heaven, looked around and saw heaven as repulsive. The great architecture of an angel's house was seen only as a pile of bricks and straw. There was nothing to envy. There is nothing objectively beautiful in heaven that could be envied by someone from hell. The visitors from hell felt choked by the energies of love in heaven, couldn't breathe, and finally threw themselves desperately back down into hell, head first. There they revived and felt comfortable. In hell, one looks around and sees his friends as regular fellows, good-looking. Only when some light from heaven penetrates does that disappear. But that is temporary, very unpleasant, and there is always the eventual turn back to normalcy.

The things that make heaven beautiful, and hell ugly, are not objective, observable by everybody, because they aren't material, like a beautiful diamond that everybody would see the same way. They are values made sensually beautiful only to those who have them inside, states of mind. An angel is beautiful because of his or her values, not beautiful to just anybody. Consequently, a person of a hellish state of mind would not be attracted to heaven.

Hell got a horrible reputation from orthodox teaching, which made it a place of torture, not a state of the heart. Anyone would want out of an oppressive place and would think in any private moment that there has to be something a lot better than this place, but God punishes, so we are left there forever against our will. I think a lot of that idea of an objective ugliness and unpleasantness inflicted on us while we are extremely unwilling to stay and can only think of better things while inside, still remains as a kind of background coloring to the idea of hell and will then raise questions about its validity. Nobody should enjoy hell, and we should all want out.

Swedenborg very early disposes of the idea that in talking about heaven and hell, we are talking about places. As states of the heart, they only look like places--something that the Pope caught up with recently (what a brilliant guy!). Hell's people do enjoy hell. They love it. They love to fight and make war on the other group or town, not too unlike people who are addicted to computer war games, or to assault weapons, and dream of some juicy military action, not to mention the real gangs and warlords on the planet who are in a position to do it for kicks. They are actually visiting hell already, trying to recreate it around them here. After death the competition for dominance in hell is fierce; rape, destruction, and the victories, are satisfying, and you can keep at it for a long, long time. There's nothing unpleasant or non-addictive about it.

Nobody dies there. There are no casualties. The "dead" lie stunned for awhile but then revive and gather themselves for the next stimulating episode. We'll get you the next time around. This is habit-forming. It's an endless round of violence and energy, though it does nothing for anyone but feed fantasies. Also, eternity is a state, not just endless time. It is the experience of timelessness. This is one of the harder to understand ideas. In the spiritual world, there is no time, only duration of state, and in complete enjoyment of one's life, time is meaningless, life seems timeless. But that's probably not right for this discussion. It's one of the more difficult things. Deep involvement would only let an eternity slip by unnoticed. Hence the eternity of the hells. It's not a sentence, it's a condition of the self.

So the big question is, How would anyone, once in hell and of such a character, ever want to leave? There is no alternative better place in view; hell really looks good. Now and then some (usually new, it seems) spirits from hell get to look at heaven, but that's a crock, and there's no inclination to go find one. There are no activities that don't have a fierce dedication to them, like a violent or seductive game that one constantly wants to replay. You are totally involved. You may be tortured by a rival in hell, but your response is just to get back at who did it--double. That's sweet.

Stephen Koke’s ties are to the San Francisco Swedenborgian Church. His thoughts on hell were the response to an on-line discussion, at SwedenborgNews, about the validity of the idea of hell.


 

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