Place of punishment for the Pagan afterlife (the Summerlands, etc)

[GabrielWithoutWings]

This is for those of you who conceive of The Summerlands as the place where souls go for succor after life to enjoy some rest before going back into the flesh (or perhaps where they stay permanently later down the road).

Is The Summerlands always a place of rest and comfort to all souls or is there a place for those particularly bad ones to spend their after-life as well?

I believe I was reading A. J. Drew (before his conversion) and he conceptualized an alternate form of the Summerlands that he called the Winterlands where those souls with negative qualities end up to teach them a lesson before reincarnating.

I thought this was interesting as I'd never heard anyone else mention a neo-Pagan place of punishment before.

If you believe in the Summerlands, do you also believe in the Winterlands, too? Why or why not?

[habbalah]

Re: Place of punishment for the Pagan afterlife (the Summerlands, etc)

I believe in reincarnation, but I'm not sure what happens between this life and the next. Is there an equivalent of heaven or hell, or even just a divine waiting room where we hang around until the next go? I'd like to say that we're just put through the turnstyle right away, and that the point of reincarnation is to perfect our flaws and make repairs for our bad deeds, but I've not been told if I'm right or wrong about that.

[Ophidia]

Re: Place of punishment for the Pagan afterlife (the Summerlands, etc)

I'm a reincarnationist myself. Heaven, hell or any place of eternal reward or damnation doesn't even make any sense to me personally. For the majority, life itself is so unkind - why would any overseeing deity want to inflict eternal torture on someone for screwing the neighbor's wife or embezzlement or whatever? I can at least understand people in general wanting that to happen to people who victimize others, especially now when it seems like so many laws are put into place to protect criminals from their victims instead of the other way around.

All I know about any sort of Pagan 'Hell' is from mythology. According to Plato, Hades was set to oversee various 'punishments' ascribed to people - like Sisyphus, condemned to push a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down again, or the Danaides (sisters who murdered their husbands on their wedding nights) having to empty a pool by carrying water in a sieve. No one can say for certain if this was a commonly accepted idea, or if it was something Plato came up with (like Atlantis).

The most 'common' idea of the afterlife in Greece involved Tartarus (or the Plains of Asphodel), which was a place of shadows and dust - similar to the Jewish she'ol. If you were rich or renowned, you could spend the afterlife in the Elysian Fields, which was basically where the idea of the Summerlands came from, but for the Greeks it was still not quite as good as being alive.

I remember the Norse 'Hell' having a few levels, but I don't remember if any involved being punished - it seemed more like a caste system was in place. There are some Heathens around here that could probably explain it.

[Dez]

Re: Place of punishment for the Pagan afterlife (the Summerlands, etc)

I remember the Norse 'Hell' having a few levels, but I don't remember if any involved being punished - it seemed more like a caste system was in place. There are some Heathens around here that could probably explain it.

If I understand correctly, there is some debate on this, depending on how Christianity-influenced one believes particular sources to be.

Warriors who die in battle are divided by Freya and Odin, and get to feast in their respective halls. Freya gets first pick. These fighters are there in preparation for Ragnarock.

Everyone else goes to Helheim,which normally seems to be a fairly dreary place(the emphasis to me seems to be on living your life NOW, doing important things, etc). In the Gylfaggining, though, Snorri claims that Hel has her own hall, and builds a picture of a more quiet, peaceful place where those who die of things like disease or old age are welcomed. There are also a couple of references to Nifhel, a dark place where people like oath breakers and rapists end up.

Personally, I don't know, but lean toward this life being all we have. I don't like the idea of doing things with the sole purpose of trying to get a more cushy spot I the next life...what happens happens, and if the beings I respect are worth anything, then if there is an afterlife I will be taken care of somehow.

I think an ideal, if trite,situation would be if there were places in the afterlife that"click" for everyone, including the groups that would prefer to pretend they're the only ones there...

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Place of punishment for the Pagan afterlife (the Summerlands, etc)

I only believe in the Summerlands as a place where we go after death before reincarnating. I don't believe it is any kind of reward, just a station on the next leg of the journey. So by that line of thought the Winterlands would be a bit superfluous.

I suspect we are quite capable of creating our own heaven and hell each time around.