Wednesday 9 October 2024

Where The Hell?

As any Bible reader, numerologist or Iron Maiden fan knows, 666 is the Number of the Beast  and the Devil himself clearly belongs in hell. So… welcome to Norway and and yes, it does freeze over.
There’s another one on Grand Cayman Island (that one doesn’t) and a third one in Michigan but to even things out, there also is a Paradise in Michigan also and by some strange quirk, they are 333 miles from each other so a round trip there and back would equal...666 miles.
If Dante is to be believed,  the journey through hell is divided into nine levels from Hell’s antechamber where those who, when faced with the choice between good and evil, did nothing, so expect to see  Pontius Pilate hanging out there.
After crossing hell’s border river the Acheron on Charon’s ferry, we enter the First Circle which is home to virtuous pagans so these inhabitants have not actively sinned but did not have the opportunity to recognise Christ so as you pass give a wave to all those Greek Philosphers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Virgil.
The Second Circle is where the Lustful reside, led astray by their carnal desires such as Cleopatra and Mata Hari and in the Third Circle, the Gluttonous suffer for their overindulgence in food and drink so don't expect any handout from Ariel Sharon or Henry 8th.
In the Fourth, the greedy and wasteful live and the after crossing the River Styx you reach the Fifth Circle and the Wrathful where most of the Roman Emperors find themselves along with the Khan family, Genghis and Kubla.
Moving up to the higher circles and where the real bad people go, Heretics such as Joan of Arc populate the Sixth Circle along with Minotaurs, the Seventh Circle is divided in three rings, each containing a separate class of violent sinners: against their neighbours, against themselves (suicides) and against God (blasphemers, sodomites and money lenders.
To reach the last two circles, you cross over the Abyss to the Eighth Circle with it's fraudsters including Seducers, Flatterers, Soothsayers, Corrupt politicians, Hypocrites, Thieves, and Counterfeiters and Falsifiers.
Guarded by mythical Giants, the Ninth Circle holds the Traitors, deemed the worst kind of sinners and who are stuck in the frozen lake called Cocytus and overseen by the top banana, Satan himself.
It's obviously a bit of a slog and Dante places it somewhere in the North Sea which is exactly where we find Hell, Trondheim so maybe Dante knew exactly where it was after-all .

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