1. Torments of Hell
World Scripture
Hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
Mark 9.47-48
As for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
Revelation 21.8
There is a stream of fire from which emerge poisonous flames. There is none else there except the self. The waves of the ocean of fire are aflame And the sinners are burning in them.
Adi Granth, Maru Solahe, M.1, p. 1026 (Sikhism)
Hell is before him, and he is made to drink festering water, which he sips but can hardly swallow. Death comes to him from every side, yet he cannot die—before him is a harsh doom.
Qur’an 14.16-17
Hell will lurk in ambush to receive home the arrogant, who will linger there for ages. They will taste nothing cool in it nor any drink except hot bathwater and slops, a fitting compensation since they have never expected any reckoning and have wittingly rejected Our signs. Everything We have calculated in writing. “So taste! Yet We shall only increase torment for you!”
Qur’an 78.21-30
Some of the sinful are cut with saws, like firewood, and others, thrown flat on the ground, are chopped into pieces with axes. Some, their bodies half buried in a pit, are pierced in the head with arrows. Others, fixed in the middle of a press, are squeezed like sugarcane. Some are surrounded close with blazing charcoal, enwrapped with torches, and smelted like a lump of ore. Some are plunged into heated butter, and others into heated oil, and like a cake thrown into the frying pan they are turned about. Some are thrown in the path of huge maddened elephants, and some with hands and feet bound are placed head downwards. Some are thrown into wells; some are hurled from heights; others, plunged into pits full of worms, are eaten away by them… Having experienced in due order the torments below, he comes here again, purified.21
Garuda Purana 3.49-71 (Hinduism)
Then the man of unwholesome deeds boils in water infested with worms. He cannot stay still—the boiling pots, round and smooth like bowls, have no surfaces which he can get hold of. Then he is in the jungle of sword blades, limbs mangled and hacked, the tongue hauled by hooks, the body beaten and slashed. Then he is in Vetarani, a watery state difficult to get through, with its two streams that cut like razors. The poor beings fall into it, living out their unwholesome deeds of the past. Gnawed by hungry jackals, ravens and black dogs, and speckled vultures and crows, the sufferers groan. Such a state is experienced by the man of unwholesome deeds. It is a state of absolute suffering. So a sensible person in this world is as energetic and mindful as he can be.
Sutta Nipata 672-76 (Buddhism)
There men were dismembering one another, cutting off each of their limbs, saying, “This to you, this to me!” When asked about it, they replied, “In this way they have treated us in the other world, and in the same way we now treat them in return.”
Satapatha Brahmana 11.6.3 (Hinduism)
There are divers regions in the hollows on the face of the globe everywhere, some of them deeper and also wider than that which we inhabit, others deeper and with a narrower opening than ours, and some are shallower and wider; all have numerous perforations, and passages broad and narrow in the interior of the earth, connecting them with one another; and there flows into and out of them, as into basins, a vast tide of water, and huge subterranean streams of perennial rivers, and springs hot and cold, and a great fire, and great rivers of fire, and streams of liquid mud, thin or thick… pour into a vast region of fire, and form a lake larger than the Mediterranean Sea, boiling with water and mud; and proceeding muddy and turbid, and… after making many coils about the earth plunge into Tartarus…
And when the dead arrive at the place to which the genius of each severally conveys them, first of all they have sentence passed upon them, as they have lived well and piously or not… Those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—they are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable—who in a moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth… and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and there they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for that is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges.
Plato, Phaedo (Hellenism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Hell is a place where everyone is totally self-centered, each insisting that he or she is the best and highest. With that attitude, they argue and fight continually.
(360:185, November 16, 2001)
Hell is the realm of Satan’s love. Satan adores only hatred, jealousy, division and destruction. That is why only these things fill Satan’s realm. These characteristics of Satan manifest as wars.
(214:282, February 3, 1991)
Hell is full of people who are proud of their power, their money and themselves. A person’s original mind desires to love and be loved, and to pursue goodness. The people living in hell do just the opposite, and face continual conflict. Yet being in hell does not remove the human desire to be loved. Actually, the yearning for love is felt even more strongly.
(102:160, December 17, 1978)
What, then, will you do in the afterlife? Will you eat? Yes, you will eat. But it should be centered on love. Those who do not have love cannot open their mouths, no matter how much they try. That is the law. If you love only yourself and not the whole, you may try to eat, but your mouth will not open. If you try to eat with chopsticks, the chopsticks will swerve sharply to the right or the left. It is a miserable existence. In the spirit world, anything is possible with love, but only with love. Otherwise, nothing is possible.
(207:94-95, November 1, 1990)
In the spirit world, most people dwell in various levels of hell. How did they end up living there? Some failed to practice filial piety as befits good sons and daughters. Some had the mission of patriots yet did not fulfill their mission and live for the sake of their country. Some were chosen to become saints and live for the sake of the world, but they did not attune themselves to that rhythm and hence failed to reach that level.
(147:183-84, September 21, 1986)
The accusations we could face in the spirit world are far more fearful than the severest persecution on earth. Because I know that earthly persecution, no matter how heavy, is easier to endure than the accusations in the spirit world, I am clear about the path I should go.
(189:247, April 9, 1989)
Heaven is a world of light, and hell is a world of darkness. You may have enjoyed your earthly life, but once you arrive in hell the darkness will quickly overcome you. It is like drinking: for awhile you are in high spirits, but later you feel regret as your conscience tells you it was the wrong thing to do. It will also ask, “Where are you going?” People who suffer continually from pangs of conscience belong to the world of darkness. If only their conscience were pleased with them; then they would display the original nature within themselves to relate to the world of light.
(400:104, December 28, 2002)
This world is in chaos. How about the spirit world? The same confused people live there; therefore, the spirit world must likewise be in chaos. It is logical. A thief with a criminal record cannot just drop his bad habits when he crosses over to the spirit world. There too he would be a thief, wanting to own things without making effort to earn them. People like him are unable to fit in with heaven, so they went off and formed the realms of hell.
God did not create hell. Human beings formed hell. Do people design their new house to be a garbage dump? No! They build a nice house, but after living in it for a while it becomes like a garbage dump. Hell is like that.
(148:28, October 4, 1986)
Many people on earth think that there are only two different places: heaven and hell. But in reality there are many different levels, from very evil places to very good places. Heaven is a place of comfort, but life in any of the levels below heaven is difficult and uncomfortable because the people fight each other continually, everyone insisting on their own opinion. Each region is filled with people who are of the same type, so after awhile living there becomes tedious.
For example, people who on earth were accustomed to stealing things dwell in a region of the spirit world where people are always suspicious, thinking that everyone around them is looking to steal from them. Their lives are forever filled with distrust and anxiety. Likewise, people who on earth were accustomed to fighting live in a region where fighting goes on continually…
If you descend further into the lower regions, you come to regions of hell that are suffocating, dark and scary. They smell horribly, worse than the smell of rotten meat or fish. Deformed figures appear in front of you, biting each other, yelling at each other with hate-filled voices. There is a region filled with burning holes, and in each one a wrathful person is held fast. The worst regions are reserved for those who were sexually corrupt or who committed suicide. They seem to be filled with snakes, but on close examination each snake is an ugly deformed human being slithering about. People living on the earth do not realize how frightening the regions of hell really are. They would not be able to stand it even for a minute…
From the Kingdom of Heaven to hell, the various regions of the spirit world have colors of differing hues. The Kingdom of Heaven is a bright realm, transparent and white. It is without any stain, clean like flawless white jade. But as we descend the colors become darker and darker and dirtier—first beige, then darker shades of purple. Descending to still lower regions the color becomes brown, then gray, dark gray, black, and pitch black. The more sins committed, the darker the color. Also, spirits who committed many sins with a certain part of their body show dirtier and darker colors on that part.
(Heung Jin Moon, Message from the Spirit World, January 1, 2002)
People who denied God on earth are more pitiful than people who starve to death. Those who died of hunger may, depending on their merit, be granted a certain standing in the other world. But atheists have no standing because they deny the spirit world exists. They become wandering spirits, wandering about the spirit world like clouds. Just as clouds gather and produce rain, they gather and create evil influence. They dwell in hell and inflict pains there.
(205:355, October 2, 1990)