[carlo]

What you believe is highly relevant here. Do you believe in hell?



[ QUOTE ]
To the extent the soul world is the abode of man immediately after death, it is called the region of desires. The various religious systems that have embodied in their doctrines a knowledge of these conditions are acquainted with this region of desire under the name “purgatory,” “cleansing fire,” and the like.

The lowest region of the soul world is that of Burning Desire. Everything in the soul that has to do with the coarsest, lowest, most selfish desires of the physical life is purged from the soul after death by it, because through such desires it is exposed to the effects of the forces of this soul region. The unsatisfied desires that have remained over from physical life furnish the points of attack. The sympathy of such souls only extends to what can nourish their selfish natures. It is greatly exceeded by the antipathy that floods everything else. Now the desires aim at physical enjoyments that cannot be satisfied in the soul world. The craving is intensified to the highest degree by the impossibility of satisfaction. Owing to this impossibility, at the same time it is forced to die out gradually. The burning lusts gradually exhaust themselves and the soul learns by experience that the only means of preventing the suffering that must come from such longings lies in extirpating them. During physical life satisfaction is ever and again attained. By this means the pain of the burning lusts is covered over by a kind of illusion. After death in the “cleansing fire” the pain comes into evidence quite unveiled. The corresponding experiences of privation are passed through. It is a dark, gloomy state indeed in which the soul thus finds itself. Of course, only those persons whose desires are directed during physical life to the coarsest things can fall into this condition. Natures with few lusts go through it without noticing it because they have no affinity with it. It must be stated that souls are the longer influenced by burning desire the more closely they have become related to that fire through their physical life. On that account there is more need for them to be purified in it. Such purification should not be described as suffering in the sense of this expression as it is used in the sense world. The soul after death demands its purification since an existing imperfection can only thus be purged away.


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Above excerpt is from Steiner's "Theosophy".



In Hindu parlance this is known as Kamaloca. Read the "Tibetian Book of the Dead" and the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" and they offer hints as to the afterlife. The priest is speaking to the dead in order to help them in the way through the afterlife, prayer as speaking to the dead.The period in the "soul world" lasts about one third of a man's life on earth,i.e. Lives 72 years and travels through the "soul world" during a period of about 24 years. And yes there is more, much more, to the tune of about 900 years betweens incarnations. This of course is variable dependent upon the persons development.

This doesn't speak directly to "hell" but it can give some clarity to the present age's misrepresentation of the after life.

In consideration of "original sin" a perspective that it is our "heredity' which is this very first "original sin". All that passes from generation to generation via heredity is that very 'sin" in which man works in returning to the world from which he came which is the same world we return to in the after life. Only upon his "return" or "salvation" he is reborn anew into the spirit cleansed and purified and stands as a free spirit in that world. This is his work.

I will repeat the mantra that this can only be accomplished through reincarnation and karma.And yes, Christ is the Lord of Karma.