The Inferno of Dante

I don't know how many of you others out there have read this book repeatedly, as I have, but I've come across something fun to pass the time. Mods, I can understand if you wish to delete this, I just thought the members might enjoy it.

Dante's Inferno---If you died right now, what level of Hell would Minos send you to?

Greetings EdenKaia


The following online course describes the Nine Infernal Spheres of Master Dante in some detail, if you're interested(considering that you've studied this marvelous work of his):

Kabbalah 1: The World of Klipoth

Divine Comedy Ever since the Divine Comedy was written, some seven centuries ago, there have been piles of books written commenting upon the works of Dante, but especially the Divine Comedy. Dante Alaghieri was born in 1265 in Florence, Italy. What is known of his life is based on scraps of documentary evidence: a little note here, a reference there. Otherwise, all that is known is what scholars have assumed based on his works. While many scholars and readers have noticed that Dante seems particularly mystical, none identified him as an initiate of the mystery schools. For until very recently, only those who were initiated into such schools could recognize the works of another educated in those esoteric sciences. Dante was in fact writing a work that would have gotten him killed had he written it openly. Dante himself said that the “letter is fiction, and the truth is found in the allegory alone.” Thus for centuries scholars and philosophers have expounded theory upon theory attempting to understand this complex and deeply woven poem, and most, if not all, agree that they appreciate it’s beauty, but never managed to penetrate it’s inner meaning. None have captured the truth of his allegory. The Divine Comedy, as the greatest work produced by Dante, is then a great work of initiatic wisdom. In it we can find an outline of the complete path of the Bodhisattva, a path traveled by very few beings of this humanity. In this work he describes in depth the path that one must walk in order to redeem the soul and claim a place in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not a ‘comedy’ in the way we understand it: the term used to mean something that had a happy ending, and that was written in a humble and everyday style.

Summary of The Divine Comedy: “In exposition, says Dante, "always the literal must come first"; and he adds, describing his interpretation of his own canzoni, "I shall discourse first of the literal meaning, and after that shall treat of the allegorical, that is, the hidden truth." We may pursue the same course. Literally, then, the Divina Commedia is the narrative of a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. The poet, in the middle of his life, finds himself astray at night in a dark wood. He tries to save himself by climbing a mountain whose top is lit by the rays of the rising sun; but three beasts, besetting his path, are about to drive him back, when Virgil, summoned to Dante's help by Beatrice, at the bidding of Mary and St. Lucia, appears and offers to guide him. They can escape from the wood only by going through the earth from side to side. This path leads them through the whole of Hell, where Dante sees the punishment of every kind of sin and converses with the damned. Hell ends at the earth's center, and from that point the poets climb out by a dark, undescribed channel to the opposite hemisphere. They emerge in the middle of the ocean, on the shore of an island which consists mainly of a colossal mountain. Cato of Utica, the guardian of the place, meets and directs them. Up the steep mountain-side Dante drags himself, still accompanied by Virgil. On the ledges are repentant souls preparing themselves by discipline for the heavenly life. As Dante and Virgil are approaching the summit, they are joined by Statius, who has just completed his penance. The three mount together to the top, where they find the Garden of Eden, and in it a fair, happy, amorous young maiden, Matelda, who seems to embody the spirit of the place. Amid the trees and flowers they witness a pageant of the Church, or Triumph of Revelation, whose culmination is the appearance of Beatrice in a shower of lilies thrown by angels. Now Virgil vanishes, and presently Statius is mentioned for the last time. Beatrice it is who leads Dante up from earth through the revolving heavens into the real Paradise, which is the presence of the Almighty, and consigns him to St. Bernard, the great mystic. The poem ends with a vision of the Trinity.” The Divine Comedy reflects, according to Dante himself, a previous work of similar nature: the Aenied, written by the Roman poet Virgil, who in Dante’s time was universally regarded as the wisest man in history. And in the sixth book of the Aeneid, the hero must travel through the regions of the underworld.

The study of it may be a more accurate way of measuring our level of degeneration, than something that is only for passing the time...


Looks kinda fun though.


(This thread may fit better in a religious sub-forum by the way)








[edit on 27-7-2006 by Tamahu]

Even though the link you gave is not the most objective test, looks like I ended up in the Fifth Infernal Sphere.

I am aware of the forum I posted in, but was unsure of where else to go...I have posted quite a bit, but I rarel stray far from my general interests and I am relatively new to ATS. Anyway, to carry your point, I agree that there is a great symbology and mysticism to be found in the work of Dante. Not just the Inferno, my personal favorite, but the complete comedy. I have studied it in vast detail, and the conclusions that I have come to about my own moral character in lieu of those revelations has changed my perspective in a very profound way. To read these works, one cannot help but take a look inward. All of us are guilty of those sins for which so many suffer eternal torment. Not one many can ever truly say otherwise, lest he be Jesus himself. What man could walk through that place and not feel the guilt and burden of his own sins heavy upon his head? And to read the words, you are surely transported there, as I believe was the intention of Dante. With the turning of each new page upon my first time reading, I became so immersed that I could actually feel the pangs of the various tortures, ringing all the more true with each dictated sin that I, myself had been guilty of.
To finish this tirade, I would only add that the purpose of the post was not so much to detract in any way from the greatness of the Inferno, but rather an interesting game to pass the time and measure your soul, so to speak. Also am I aware that this test is hardly objective, but then, I would ask any one person to contrive a test such as this and do much better. It is highly slanted, granted, but interesting nonetheless. Personally, I ended up in Malebolge, the eighth circle. Alas, I am so far from the mountain, and yet so near to Judas and his twice company....




[edit on 27-7-2006 by EdenKaia]

Well I don't believe in eternal suffering(and Dante actually didn't either, esoterically) as this would blasphemously imply two Absolutes.

Though this doesn't mean that the Hell Realms aren't "millions of times more bitter than bile" to paraphrase Master Samael Aun Weor.

But if the test were more accurate, I would be shown to deserve the actual Ninth Infernal Sphere that 'my' Essence really belongs in(and am actually in as we speak).


But, we must not identify with the traitiors of Christ that we carry within our 'Three Brains'; and should live from moment-to-moment in submission to the Internal Christ.





[edit on 27-7-2006 by Tamahu]

hey lol if i beleived in an afterlife id be screwed because id be going to Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis but its all religious rubbish but its fun to take the quiz

The Second Level.

"You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate."

Well, at least I'll be in good company!

Just need to take a few more cold showers and I might get an upgrade to Limbo.

HEY EVERYBODY!!!

I'm goin' to PURGATORY!!!

Your fate has been decided....
You are one of the lucky ones! Because of your virtue and beliefs, you have escaped eternal punishment. You are sent to Purgatory!

LOL

By the way, any of you read the book "Inferno" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?
Link to book at Amazon

Dante vs. Niven and Pournelle

Review of Niven and Pournelle's Inferno

A science fiction take on Hell, written from the point of view of a sci-fi author that got drunk and accidentally fell out a window at a get-together after a sci-fi convention.

Actually, it's no Dante, but it's really quite good.

Harte

Harte,
I remember a friend discussing this book in some detail, and it sounded interesting. I looked for it at my local Borders today with no luck. Ah well, there is alwaya Amazon, right?

Oh man, I am a heretic and going straight to the sixth level ala City of Dis. Never would have guessed.

You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.

Sounds divine

ok took the test this is what i got

Seventh Level of Hell

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level.

im going to have nightmares now

Originally posted by DenyAllKnowledge
The Second Level.

"You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate."

Well, at least I'll be in good company!

Just need to take a few more cold showers and I might get an upgrade to Limbo.

How sweet you'll probably have me as comopny I'll take Helen if you dont mind

It's surprising that this is getting so much attention. Thank you mods for allowing it to stay open. Seems like everyone is enjoying it.

Second level of Hell for me!

Should I pack a handbasket?

Originally posted by Byrd
Second level of Hell for me!

Should I pack a handbasket?

Byrd,

You deserve no less, you evolution-pushin, creation bashin, dreambubble burstin offspring of an ape!

I'll be sittin in Purgatory laughin atcha, unless, that is, such behavior puts me into one of the seven levels!
In which case (Lord, forgive me for that one an' be with the starvin' pygmies down in New Guinea.)

Harte

[edit on 8/3/2006 by Harte]

I'm on my way to the second level, should of tried harder LMAO.

This quiz got me thinking about the Divine Comedy and I realized it had been some time since I had read the other two books following Inferno. Why is it, do you think, that the others have never seemed to attain the acclaim and notoriety of the first? Is it the subject matter, the unavoidable habit of throwing ourselves into Dante's posistion as he travels through the bowels of hell's various circles? Truly, I am curious. The other books are just as great, and in some ways I would say even more enlightening. Perhaps it is fed from a concept of evil; that darkness is always the more interesting topic of conversation. Irrefutably, the evening news is filled with the drearier face of society as opposed to that which is uplifting. Why is that, exactly? What is this pull of darkness that has so absorbed the human concious? Perhaps I am reading into this a bit too deeply.

Originally posted by Harte
I'm goin' to PURGATORY!!!

Lucky for some.

I got:
Level | Score
Purgatory | Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo | Very Low
Level 2 | Very High
Level 3 | High
Level 4 | High
Level 5 | Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis | Moderate
Level 7 | Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge | Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus | Very High

I'm shafted.