As we approach the millennium, how do we view Satan’s sanctuary?

Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | 9:30 a.m.

It's two hours in the dentist's chair ... A weekend with the in-laws ... Any department of motor vehicles in any city in the United States ... The latest CD from Yanni ... The movie "The English Patient" ... Sitting next to a wailing 2-year-old on a cross-country flight ... A medley of accordion and/or bagpipe tunes ... The Spaghetti Bowl, pre-expansion, at 5 p.m. on an August afternoon ...

Or a tortuous afterlife of fire, lava, brimstone and a landlord called "Satan."

It's hell. Pure hell. A hell of a time. Hell in a hand basket. Pick a term, any term. Hell is out there, or down there, or maybe it's merely a state of mind. Or, perhaps, it's nothing at all -- just a joke butt or compelling story line for a TV movie.

"Hell and how it's depicted really is a state of mind," Gard Jameson, a UNLV religion teacher, said. "Every tradition has a different spin. Eternal damnation, in the New Testament, is taken fairly seriously by most Christians and it does create a certain amount of anxiety during a Christian's current lifetime."

The concept of hell has sparked lively debate since, probably, the beginning of verbal communication.

"In Indian and Chinese philosophy there are notions of hell, but they are understood symbolically," Jameson said. "In my opinion, hell is a function of consciousness rather than a literal place. Western traditions polarize heaven and hell, to put it simply, and one is good and one is bad."

Southern Baptist minister Tommy Starkes said the interpretation of hell has experienced a pendulum swing over the past century.

"We're taking it far more lightly than we did 100 years ago," Starkes, of Tropicana Christian Fellowship in Las Vegas, said. "It hasn't been scaring the living daylights out of people. Twenty years ago, it was all demons, demons, demons. Beware of the demons. Now we've gone to the other extreme and it's become a part of the essence of American humor."

Jameson said he's accepted Western culture's often lax approach to resolving hell.

"Part of the problem with the notion of hell in Western tradition is that you have a God of goodness, of mercy, who has a place of eternal damnation," he said. "How do you resolve those two opposites? That gives rise to the giggle. We have a God of infinite compassion and goodness, yet there is a hell he created, so how do you resolve that other than through the expression of comedy?"

Starkes sees humor, or at least attempts thereof, even in religious circles.

"You hear all the jokes about hell, how Oral Roberts got it air-conditioned, how Billy Graham hooked up a cable system down there," Starkes said. "You even see signs at churches during the summer saying, 'If you think it's hot here ...' "

Mujahid Ramadan, president of the American Muslim Council, said that taking a relaxed view of hell is not necessarily healthy for the soul.

"When you start taking a casual look at hell, you reduce the veracity and meaning of the word, and then you become comfortable with that," Ramadan said. "That is negative, because hell, no matter what form you believe it takes, should be taken seriously."

But what, precisely, is hell? It depends on your religious convictions and religions provide a vast array of mental and physical depictions of hell. Miriam Van Scott's 1998 book, "The Encyclopedia of Hell," provides a description of the most widely accepted theory of hell:

Christian hell is the final resting place for souls who have offended God and not sought or earned forgiveness from God. The Bible describes hell as "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels" where the souls of the damned are doomed to suffer. Satan, a former angel who rebelled against God and started a war in heaven, is hell's supreme being.

No specific size or location is noted in the Bible for hell. Theologians and philosophers have, for ages, disagreed about the specifics of hell. Some feel it is a final destination of fear, torture and agony; others argue it is a state of mental anguish. One theory is that hell is a brief punishment toward eternal damnation.

Ancient Christian theology of hell has also, in some religious writings, been incompatible with instances of modern-day atrocities. Some theologians have argued it is difficult to imagine greater terrors than the Nazi concentration camps, nuclear devastation and wholesale slaughter of political dissidents around the globe.

Many denominations further claim that the existence of hell is evidence of God's emphasis on free will rather than a result of evil or hate. The theory being, no one is banished to hell unless he makes a conscious choice to choose evil over God.

Buddhists, like many practitioners of Eastern religions, believe that the soul is reincarnated into another life form and endures no eternal damnation. They do teach that there is a series of temporary hells where bad karma is rid from the soul, which then ascends to Nirvana. Judaism preaches that there is no literal hell in the afterlife and to cope with examples of hell during life on earth.

In any case, reportedly more than 60 percent of Americans believe in hell, and most of that majority is uncertain what form hell takes.

"There is confusion about what hell is," Starkes said. "I feel it's a literal place. But not everyone believes that, and that's why you have so many different depictions of hell."

Hell is everywhere. Or nowhere. A collection of hellish depictions (much of which are drawn from "The Encyclopedia of Hell") shows just how prevalent hell is in all facets of society:

Music hell

Hell's influence on rock 'n' roll dates back at least to to the '60s, most prevalently with the Rolling Stones hit, "Sympathy for the Devil," a song the band performed amid a riotous scene at the fatality-marred Altamont concert (which was policed by none other than the Hell's Angels).

By the late '60s and early '70s, bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were linked to Satanic worship -- Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page even bought famed Satanic worshiper Aleister Crowley's house, and Black Sabbath's name alone (as well as song titles such as "Children of the Grave") evoked demonic images.

Iron Maiden (which refers to fans as "Hell Rats") concocted a character called Eddie, a decomposing young man whose various decrepit stages are more grotesque with each album cover. The band reached something of a Satanic apex in 1982, with the album cover of "Number of the Beast," depicting thousands of suffering souls amid a backdrop of rising flames leading to the word "Lucifer." And at the very top sits a very decomposed Eddie.

Blue Oyster Cult hits "Don't Fear The Reaper," "Specters" and "Burnin' For You" were said to be Satanic anthems. Also, bands such as W.A.S.P. were known for graphic depictions of bloody bodies on album covers, demonic lyrics and a live stage show that included the simulated throat-slitting of a woman strapped into a medieval torture device.

No mixed message there, music fans.

Even non-heavy metal musical acts such as Queen and the Eagles have been accused of using demonic lyrics and album cover art. Probably the most famous album related to the hell controversy is the Eagles' "Hotel California." The title track is a tale of a spooky hotel where "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave" and oblique references to a demonic beast.

In 1977 Meat Loaf released "Bat Out of Hell," and in 1993 followed it up with "Back Into Hell." The former depicted a man on a motorcycle racing through a fiery graveyard and the latter shows the same cyclist being chased by ghouls through a deserted, charred city.

Many contemporary Goth-rock stars such as the androgynous Marilyn Manson and the German band Rammstein have been criticized for marketing imagery and music linked to Satanic activity, and each were cited as influences for the type of violent behavior that led to the recent school shootings in Colorado and Georgia.

Movie hell

In the animated film "All Dogs Go To Heaven," rambunctious mutt Charlie B. Barkin outwits the canine manning the Pearly Gates to return to Earth, then suffers from alarming visions of hell (replete with fire and rivers of molten lava) and an ominous, devilish character called "Evil Dog."

The seven "Amityville Horror" films and "Poltergeist" focused on seemingly ordinary suburban homes possessed by demonic forces. "Angel Heart," starring Mickey Rourke, includes a plot riddled with witchcraft, voodoo, and religion intertwined with violence. Robert De Niro plays a demonic character named "Lou Cypher," a play on the name Lucifer.

In 1997's "The Devil's Advocate," New York City was used as a metaphor for hell, and lawyers were metaphors for demons, with Al Pacino playing a powerful law firm partner who also happened to be Satan. (In an obvious joke, Pacino's character is named John Milton -- as in the author of "Paradise Lost.") And in last year's "What Dreams May Come," Robin Williams takes a side trip from heaven to hell to rescue his wife.

The early '70s classic "The Exorcist," is one of the more stark depictions and successful movies centered around hell and demonic possession.

"You very rarely see hell depicted in a literal sense, because whatever Hollywood can conjure up doesn't come close to what we imagine hell to be," Stephen Galloway, film editor of the Hollywood Reporter, said. "Anything you try to depict can be laughably naive compared with the reality of hell. 'The Exorcist' used hell as more of a subtext, with demonic possession, and the greatest moments in the film are where the audience uses its imagination.

"There is unbelievable, chilling fear in that movie until Linda Blair spins her head around and starts spewing green barf, which is ridiculous. The movie falls apart right there."

In comedy, "The Devil and Max Devlin" starred Bill Cosby as a humorous Satan to Elliot Gould's smarmy Devlin. However, the most unlikely entertainer to play Satan was George Burns in, "Oh God, You Devil," in which he played both God and the devil in the less-successful sequel to "Oh, God."

"Hell has been a good comedic tool throughout the history of film," Galloway said. "When you have the part of the devil casted properly, it can be funny. Even if the script is not good, like in 'Oh God, You Devil,' you still have to laugh at George Burns playing the devil."

Television hell

"The Simpsons," the long-running Fox animated series, has employed hell-related plot lines several times. In one episode Lisa and Bart attend Sunday school and the teacher jolts them with frightening accounts of hell -- that they will be "so scared they will die" and that the eternally damned have "maggots in their sheets."

A few recent series used hell in various forms as a common theme. Last season's "Brimstone" on Fox starred Peter Horton as a police officer sent to hell and John Glover as the devil who offers Horton a deal: freedom from eternal damnation in exchange for the capture of 113 souls who recently escaped from hell.

The WB hit "Charmed" stars Shannen Doherty, Alyssa Milano and Hollie Marie Combs as good witches protecting the world -- and each other -- from the forces of darkness.

The USA network just unveiled "GvsE" -- or good versus evil -- a fantasy-drama set in Los Angeles, which has been overtaken by agents for the devil who set about preying on vulnerable souls. They battle The Corp, waging war for God.

"Talking about hell on TV is sort of a redundancy," TV Guide critic Matt Roush said. "TV has a lot of fun with the topic. It's universal in the sense that everyone has an opinion about hell, whether you believe in it or not, and producers always to to find universal themes."

The devil has not always been portrayed in a ghoulish light.

"In dramatic presentations, there is usually an attraction to evil," Tom Feren, a television critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, said. "We have a lot of depictions of the devil like in C.H. Lewis's 'Screwtape Letters,' a sly and silver-tongued devil that makes himself attractive to other souls."

Dante's hell

The most acclaimed written material related to the afterlife remains Dante Alighieri's trilogy, "The Divine Comedy." The three books examine three possible destinations for the human soul: "The Paradiso," or heaven; "The Purgatorio," or purgatory, and "The Inferno," or hell.

Critics have long praised "The Inferno" for containing some of the most compelling narrative descriptions of hell ever written.

Crafted in the first person, Dante begins navigating through "The Inferno" with "Aenid" author Virgil, whose own afterlife epic was written centuries earlier.

Having established no allegiance to either good or evil, the pair enters what Dante describes as the nine circles of hell, where torturous punishment intensifies with every passage. Limbo represents the underworld's outer realm, a relatively serene place reserved for those who died unbaptized, and into what is described as "Hell Proper" -- the true beginning of the dark abyss.

Each realm is reserved for specific sins, increasing in severity from lustful to what in Dante's view is the most egregious sin, betrayal. Traitors spend eternity in the ninth circle, Cocytus, a pit of ice filled with giant demons and sinners submerged up to their necks. The eternally damned mock each other and gnaw on each others' skulls.

Hell of a career

British author Clive Barker has practically built a career representing hell, either through books, short stories, plays or on film. "The Book of Blood" a series of macabre short stories, includes "The Midnight Meat Train," in which the living dead cannibalize bodies brought to them via an underground subway from the depths of hell.

He also authored "The Inhuman Condition," a set of short stories that includes "Down Satan," a story of a man whose attempt to gain God's good will by imperiling his soul by hiring a madman to create a hell on earth. The central character's man-made version of hell -- pools of human excrement, huge crematoriums and contraptions used for torture -- fails to impress God, who instead seals the man's fate.

Barker has delved into hell literally with several novels, including "Rawhead Rex," the story of a flesh-eating demon living beneath a farmer's property. The farmer accidentally sets the demon free with his plow, and the demon sets forth to satisfy his unearthly appetite.

Barker also wrote and directed the horror cult favorites "Hellraiser," "The Hellbound Heart," "Hell on Earth," and "Bloodline."

Faust's hell

The legend of Faust and his deal with the devil is loosely based on the life of early 1500s philosophy scholar Johann Faust, who portrayed himself as a magician, psychic and fortune-teller who also performed witchcraft. He claimed to be demonically influenced as a way to pique interest in his act and, as myth has it, was strangled by the devil (but more likely an angry business partner).

The story of Faust was first written in 1587 by Johann Spiess and distributed throughout Europe. As the tale goes, a defiant Faust determines he does not need God to enhance his brilliance, that he can achieve genius on his own. By using ancient spells, Faust evokes the image of a demon, Mephistopholis (the black angel of the abyss), and agrees to surrender his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years of even more enhanced supernatural powers.

As the date of his demise nears, however, Faust fears he has made a mistake and asks Mephistopholis what awaits him in hell. The two tour a hell of fire, rancid-smelling sulphuric steam, and deformed figures being tortured by demons. Faust wants out of the deal, but it is too late, and Faust spends the rest of his days reveling in the full spectrum of sins to the day he's sucked into hell.

Lewis' hell

Recognized as one of the most revered Christian intellectuals of the 20th century, Lewis wrote "The Great Divorce" and "The Screwtape Letters," among other classics.

In "The Great Divorce," Lewis reasons that how and where a person spends eternity is entirely made by choice. The book is set on a bus ride that begins in a dingy, dreary town representing the dark afterlife.

The bus riders bicker and fight throughout the ride, even using knives and guns on each other, but no one is hurt. The bus, meanwhile, is ascending and moving high across the town, which is now expanding to a great metropolis inhabited by millions of similarly unhappy people.

The angry group arrives at a new town, lush and bright with color. The visitors suddenly become grayish and translucent, but are enamored with the new town and want to stay. The driver tells them they may stay as long as they like. The choice is their's.

A group of people in full color -- residents of heaven -- arrives to welcome the group and tour them through the city on a long journey to the mountains of paradise. It would be an arduous journey, but once the inhabitants of hell arrive they would become substantive and welcomed into paradise permanently.

But many visitors resist. They cite petty reasons. One doesn't want to inhabit hell with a former employee. Another says he's clinging to his "intellectual" convictions instead of embracing "superstition." A woman still grieving her young son's death flatly refuses to spend the rest of eternity with God.

But some agree to put aside whatever traits have kept them doomed to the dark underworld to step into paradise. Lewis' chief point is that surrender can lead to salvation.

"The Screwtape Letters" are shaped as an evolving correspondence between Screwtape, a devil and the "Undersecretary of the Department of Temptation," and his nephew Wormwood, a tempter in training.

Lewis describes hell as "a kingdom of noise" where wailing souls and tortured screams supplant music and laughter. Human spirits take the form of melas, upon which demons ravenously feast.

Screwtape explains that Satan captures humans by lulling them into placing their own earthly desires ahead of God's divine plan. This is the most effective and reliable way to lead souls into hell, Screwtape relates, because there are relatively few singular events -- such as murders or rapes -- sending people to eternal damnations.

At the conclusion, Screwtape offers a toast at the annual demon graduation dinner. The menu consists of the latest feast of human souls -- there's a "Casserole of Adulterers" and "Municipal Authority with Graft Sauce" served with "Pharisee" wine. The devil complains about the general quality of the meal -- there is nothing as delicious as Hitler, Henry VIII and Casanova on this night.

But the quantity, he is pleased to note, is at an all-time high.

Animated hell

Before spiking his "Far Side" comic strip, Gary Larson frequently used hellish themes. One strip shows a split screen, with a person entering heaven being told by an angel, "Welcome to heaven, here's your harp," and another person entering hell being told by a demon, "Welcome to hell, here's your accordion."

In Scott Adams' "Dilbert" strip, a running joke is that Dilbert's supervisor's hair is brushed in a gravity-defying style on the sides, making it appear as if he's wearing devil's horns. Also, a red-suited, horned, faint-hearted demon named Phil makes recurring appearances.

Phil trumpets himself as the "Ruler of Heck," "Prince of Insufficient Light," and "Punisher of Minor Offenses." Phil once offered Dilbert two punishments -- to receive eternal high pay, but have his good work destroyed at the end of every day; or to be eternally appreciated and productive but live in eternal poverty.

Dilbert informs the "Ruler of Heck" that either option was better than his current working conditions.

Hell epilogue

According to the Daily Net Buzz on the Internet, an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry midterm read: "Is hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with proof."

One student hypothesized at length about hell's variable temperature. He concluded with the following:

"If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. (name withheld) during my freshman year, that it will be 'a cold night in hell before I sleep with you' and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her ... then hell is exothermic."

The kid got an A.

archive