Does Hell Exist? Does Satan Exist? (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

Does Hell Exist? Does Satan Exist?

[Michelle]

The concepts of heaven and hell caused me great pain and suffering while growing up in my Roman Catholic family. I had nightmares of the end of the world, being judged, and felt nothing but constant guilt and like a "bad girl". Freeing myself of these beliefs has been extremely difficult, yet worthwhile.

My question to this post would be: Why should a Hitler (or anyone else) suddenly be moved to make amends during a life review after passing on? What changes in a "person" between life and death that would cause such a desire or realization to occur? If there is no good or bad to the universe (only simple being), why would the universe judge any action, including the slaughter of millions of people, in need of amending?

Hugs

[Andrew Brunelle]

I believe that it is your own spirit that judges itself, not the universe in general. So, if your spirit feels that you committed some atrocious acts in your lifetime, it will make the necessary accomodations to rectify that behavior. Dying is a form of waking up, you finally realize your true nature and you can finally decide for yourself if you lived a good life.

[Erin Pavlina]

What Andrew said, yes. And I'll add that indeed we are our own judges. I also believe that when we do our life review we feel the pain and suffering (and joy also!) that we caused others in our lives, since ultimately we are all connected.

[Hari.c]

This clarified me most of my doubts. Thanks Erin.
I have one more doubt, some people born in rich families and some in poverty, some born with good physic some with disability. Is there any logic for this?

[Erin Pavlina]

Hari.c: People decide what family they will be born into before they incarnate. Why would someone choose a poor family over a rich one? Because our goals in the ether are not related to our comfort down here. We are here to learn and grow, not be on vacation. It's like if you were a 6th grader and you entered a 1st grade class because you knew it would be easy... no growth there.

People select the family they want to be born into for so many reasons. It's no wonder to me why some of the richest people in our world were born into total abject poverty. Sometimes a little physical suffering is necessary to push you to achieve.

[Neblasian]

We are paying for our sins and are rewarded for our deeds here in this lifetime. Hell is just the absence of Joy in your life

[Hari.c]

I have been searching from past 10 years to find the answer for this. I am happy with your answer. Thanks for the clarification Erin.

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by Neblasian

We are paying for our sins and are rewarded for our deeds here in this lifetime. Hell is just the absence of Joy in your life

I've always liked this idea.

Typical society thinks of Hell/Heaven in the materialist sense, but if you think of it as states of being then Heaven is just a metaphor for being joyous all the time and rejoicing at the every moment, whereas Hell is the state of being where you allow yourself to suffer.

In my mind the purpose of "negative" entities in the grand scheme of things is to notify us of our weaknesses. They have no inroad without us having some kind of weakness we need to fix, and we might not discover our weaknesses without the catalyst of negative entities pushing the buttons we've made available to them.

So in that sense "Hell" is the state of being where you have manifested lots of issues that "Satan" (the negative entities) can use as triggers to make you feel less than joyous and push you into lower states of awareness.

I think a lot of these old religious concepts that we generally consider antiquated can be useful if you change your perspective on the metaphor they are describing.

When it comes down to it, people like Jesus need some language to express highly abstract concepts that are hard to communicate, so they adopt this language, but then over 2000 years the interpretation of the metaphor is changed. I find a lot of utility in re-interpreting everything the Bible says in a more compassionate, less judgemental way.

[Dan.Linehan]

My Dad told me growing up, "If there's a God who would create an eternal Hell I wouldn't want to meet him."
He laughed off the whole idea.

Thank God for good parenting.

[Slade]

Amen, sister!

I absolutely do NOT believe in a spiritual / Christian Hell. I also don't like to even comment anymore on what This Religion or That Belief System or Some Sacred Text says...

Because I do NOT encounter evidence of evil that is not of human origin.

But you know what really blows my mind -- that SO many people write to me or seek advice about:

dark entities
psychic vampires
hexes
hauntings
curses

yet they are often the same people who doubt the existence of benevolent entities. Or worse - they engage in some psychic battle with demons and traffic in shadows - yet they feel that hearing voices is a sign of mental illness, or that if they do encounter some type of communication with a spirit entity they must fear it's something negative, nefarious, with malevolent intentions.

This is a FIRST response?!

Come on - pure logic would suggest that IF you are going to believe in dark entities, don't you just have to kind of believe in the GOOD ones?

At the very LEAST?!

[Michelle]

I just don't understand the point of this foggy incarnation if our spirits already know everything we are supposed to learn in this lifetime anyway.

[Erin Pavlina]

We don't know everything we are supposed to learn. That would be like a first grader saying that now that he's done with first grade what more is there to learn?

Our higher selves don't know everything, but they do know what they want to experience and learn. So let's say my higher self wants to learn more about compassion... maybe she/I selects a family of healers to incarnate into. Or maybe my higher self wants to learn more about perseverance, so she programs a life where I am born poor and maybe suffer a lot of tragedies and then grow from it and become a teacher for others who face adversity.

It's like, we have the course syllabus, but we haven't taken the course yet. We incarnate to take the course.

[Nneka]

Bible scholars have found that hell as we know it today was the city dump, so to speak. That should put things in perspective. When it's referred to in the Bible, it's a teaching to the people that if they do X, they will experience suffering like burning in the constant furnace of the dump.

Of course, the word started to become a literal place not on this earth. However, hell was meant to be considered a present tense suffering likened to the "city dump."

In Spirit,
Nneka

[Jason S]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Our higher selves don't know everything, but they do know what they want to experience and learn.

A friend of mine once put it to me this way: we're like angels on Outward Bound.

I've always liked this metaphor: it gets at the same concept of being here to learn, and it also suggests the randomness that is bound to occur when 6 billion souls all book the same trip together.

[backpocket]

Is it possible to be a first time incarnate, or just really really REALLY liked being in the ether? Just wondering, because I sometimes feel like I need to go "home", and I know it's not a place I can find on Googleearth.

[~C4Chaos]

I have also never met or heard of a human being who has died, gone to Hell, and come back to tell the tale.

some people who had near death experience claim that they experienced hell. some even wrote a book about it. like this one

technically, i'm still a Christian. but personally, i don't believe in the Christian concept of hell. at best, it's only a partial view. i think the Buddhist concept of heaven and hell is more sophisticated as far as metaphysics is concerned.

~C

[Erin Pavlina]

Interesting. I'll give it a look see.

[OlderWiser]

Originally Posted by ~C4Chaos

technically, i'm still a Christian. but personally, i don't believe in the Christian concept of hell. at best, it's only a partial view.

Ditto. I just cannot believe that God would torture people for being born in the wrong place or dying as unbaptised infants or eating meat on Friday or swearing or masturbating or any of the myriad things that various people say you'll go to hell for doing.

It's actually a heresy to not believe in hell, you know. You go to hell for it. (I also don't believe in heresy, which, I recently found out is heresy )

[Erin Pavlina]

hahahah, good one OlderWiser!

[Cantando]

I think hell is a state or condition, rather than a place, though it may appear to be a place when experienced. With regard to the existence of Satan - well, some time ago, while dreaming, or possibly on the astral plane, I suddenly became aware of a totally malevolent presence, which, as far as I was concerned, was real. It was a horrific experience, as the being just wanted to rip my soul apart and I felt utterly defenceless. I was too terrified to consciously think of a prayer or any means of escape. I could sense that the presence was totally evil and did not have the slightest amount of compassion or mercy in it. It just wanted to completely destroy me. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

[Erin Pavlina]

Yes, refer to my blog entries on astral projection. I have encountered many evil entities.

Erin Pavlina’s Blog » Astral Projection

[Bitsy]

Originally Posted by Cantando

I think hell is a state or condition, rather than a place, though it may appear to be a place when experienced. With regard to the existence of Satan - well, some time ago, while dreaming, or possibly on the astral plane, I suddenly became aware of a totally malevolent presence, which, as far as I was concerned, was real. It was a horrific experience, as the being just wanted to rip my soul apart and I felt utterly defenceless. I was too terrified to consciously think of a prayer or any means of escape. I could sense that the presence was totally evil and did not have the slightest amount of compassion or mercy in it. It just wanted to completely destroy me. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

I have had a dream like that too. It was a dream, but the evil entity in it was at least as real as anything in my waking life. It was a female and wanted to destroy me too. She was trying to pull me under the floor (I was in a house) and she was full of murderous bloodlust, evil power and blood-thirsty hatred for me and she was trying to suck me into her hell, like to consume me, and the efforts of this entity were too powerful, willfull and deliberate to not have an element of reality.

I found myself like 2-3 meters under the floor in a different world, like hell. And hell were the emotions and she was trying to suck me into them and I felt her pulling me deeper and deeper. In desperation I began saying out loud "God, God, God!" louder and louder, focusing my mind on God and I felt myself pulled up out of there and back onto the floor of the room where I had been. She tried again and I escaped again by shouting "God".

Anyway, it was one of my more horrifying and realistic dreams and when I woke up from it I prayed to be protected from such beings and also that I not dream about her again when I went back to sleep. When I woke, I still felt her presence very strongly and very real too. I'm happy to report, though, I did not dream of her again after falling back asleep - or any time after that either.

Words can't do the emotions justice, but there isn't anything else for description.