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You find me fully prepared to burn like a human candle for eternity in a pit of burning black tar with all the other damned.
— Cotton Mather about Hell

Hell, also known as the Underworld, is the kingdom of the damned that is hidden deep within the Earth and is ruled by the Devil.

Description

Most of those who have ever lived are now dead. All but very few must surely burn in Hell. We may someday over-people this vast, empty new land, but I fear that we have already over-peopled Hell. So that, as it is written in Isaiah, "Hell hath enlarged Herself."
— Cotton Mather about Hell

According to Cotton Mather, the belief that Hell is completely made of fire is a common misconception and is actually a world of black tar that burns hotter than earthly flames. It was created by the Abrahamic God to imprison the angels that rebelled against Him. The Reverend also stated that there are more souls in Hell than there are in Heaven. Cotton explained to John Alden that every man, woman, and child has committed sins, and for these sins, everyone will be judged and punished. Hell is a place of eternal damnation and suffering, made of black tar, flames and red-hot lava.

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Witches dancing in a pool of Hell-blood and fire during a Sabbath

While the basis of Hell generally remains a mystery, contrary to Abrahamic belief, witches believe that not all souls suffer in the Underworld. For many souls, especially those of witches, life in the Underworld is considerably pleasant. According to Increase Mather, after he touched Hell-blood, the boiling black tar scorched his flesh to the point that years later they still stung. However, during the Witches' Sabbath to commence the Grand Rite, Isaac Walton and John Alden witnessed numerous witches dancing, playing, and swimming in tar without fear or pain. This implies that while Hell is painful towards those who oppose the Devil, Hell is pleasurable towards those who support him.

According to Mary Sibley, Hell is not a world of pain and suffering, but an end to it. Mary explains that the Hell that is taught in biblical scripture is a barbaric lie created by the Christian rulers as a means to use fear and manipulation to turn the nations away from the Old Ways and submit to their biblical God. Mary further explains that the miserable and painful "Hell" that is taught in Christianity is not the true Hell that follows death, but the strict and tyrant world being created by the Puritan. It is because of this joyless world being created by the Puritan that for the last five hundred years, witches have attempted to complete the Grand Rite as a means to eradicate the Puritan and create a world free of their violent hypocrisy and oppression.

Since no Dark Lord's supporter has ever been shown into Hell, there is no way to refute or support Mary Sibley's assertion with absolute certainty. However, it is possible that her beliefs about a pleasant Afterlife are misunderstandings about Heaven, since heathens and Native Americans were seen to walk to the divine light after death.

Personal Hell

Those who have been to hell and back agree on the existence of personal hells, in which each soul experiences suffering tailored to their behavior in life, their fears or guilt.

Cotton Mather's Hell

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Cotton's crucified behind the Hell Gate

Cotton Mather peered through the lock of the Hell Gate inside Sibley's house, where he saw himself crucified upside down and horned with thorns in a burning church. The vision threw Cotton into despair, leading him to believe this would be his fate after his death. After Cotton sacrificed himself to prevent the slaughter of other people to fuel the Dark Lord's request, Cotton found himself leaning against a stone parapet from which he could watch demons torture souls in a wasteland made of fire and brimstone. His punishment was to witness such atrocities but unable to do anything.

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Demons torturing souls in Hell as witnessed by Cotton

Fallen Angels' Hell

According to the statements of the Sentinel, the angels who rebelled against God were thrown into the depths of the Infernal Pit, condemned to suffer atrocious suffering for aeons. At the time of his temporary freedom, the Sentinel stated that his brothers were still prisoners, crying out to be liberated from their infernal home. This seems to be in line with the common belief about Hell as a fiery prison of eternal damnation.

Increase Mather's Hell

When Mary Sibley summoned the spirit of Increase Mather from the shadows of the afterlife, he revealed that he was trapped in a Hell where hundreds of demons with his appearance tortured him uninterruptedly. This was due to the man's behaviour in his life, forced to suffer the same punishments he had inflicted on others.

Mary Sibley's Hell

After offering her life to save John Alden's, Mary Sibley found herself isolated in eternal darkness. She recounted this after being resurrected by Tituba and the surviving Essex hive. After Mary Sibley was deprived of her powers during "The Reckoning", she suffered terrible, realistic hallucinations that put her in front of her sins. Delirious, Mary suffered the tribulations of the innocent victims she had sent to death in her scheme to procure victims for the Grand Rite. Despite the hallucinations do not exactly represent her real personal Hell, these visions laid bare the guilt that burdened her soul.

Tituba's Hell

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A mouthless Tituba in a cage

When Anne Hale claimed the title of "Queen of the Night," she made sure to clear her way from all the witches that mined her authority. When she visited Tituba in her cabin, Anne put her hands on Tituba's eyes, and immediately Tituba was confined to a cage in a slave ship, with a mouthless face. However, it is unclear whether Anne killed Tituba and that was Tituba's personal Hell, or whether it was only a vision that would discourage Tituba from opposing Anne Hale's authority in Salem, or meddling with the Grand Rite again.

Hell Gates

Main article: Hell Gate
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The Hell Gate.

Hell Gates are thresholds to Hell, mystical places marking the border between the horror of the world of the living and the unspeakable atrocities hidden in the deepest gorges of Hell. A rare and brief Hell Gate is opened with the sacrifice of many victims, whose carcasses are turned into Hell-blood during the last stage of the Grand Rite, to allow the rise of Satan on Earth.

The most important Hell Gate, however, is the one created by the Devil himself, meant to be open on the verge of the Black Sunday, to complete the Great Terror. It is a door that leads directly to Hell through a stone spiral staircase leading to the center of the earth. These Hell Gates can be crossed by living people, as proven by both Dr. Samuel Wainwright and Cotton Mather, respectively through the Hell-blood pool, and the doorway.

Memorable Quotes

Mary Sibley: "Oh, I've already offered up my soul to Hell. You, on the other hand, must have been terribly surprised to find yourself consigned there."
Increase Mather: "Nothing could have surprised me less. No, I've always gone where all the others, my idiot son included, are too weak to go. I take the battle to the very heart of darkness. I would do it again."
The Beckoning Fair One
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Mary Sibley: "Each man's Hell is as unique as his crimes. What was yours?"
Increase Mather: "Mine it is me strapped into my own torture chair, beset by a legion of devils, each wearing my own face, mortifying my flesh with implements far more fiendish than any I could ever have contrived, gripped in hands as scarred as my own. No one can imagine or bear the torments of one's own worst acts."
The Beckoning Fair One
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Mary Sibley: "They say that those of us who find our Hell on Earth will find our Heaven in Hell. "
The Beckoning Fair One
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Sebastian Von Marburg (to Dr Wainwright): "To your exploration, sir. You shall be the first man since Dante to enter Hell alive."
Wages of Sin
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The Dark Lord: (to The Sentinel): "Can you not hear their cries echoing from hell? Rest assured. Our brothers will be freed and our tyrant Father will weep."
The Reckoning
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The Sentinel: "All power corrupts. And God's divine power is no exception. Our rebellion against Him was entirely just."
Cotton Mather: "Just or unjust, your rebellion failed."
The Sentinel: "Yes, we failed. And we fell to a place so far from the light that we forgot what light, and life, even was."
Cotton Mather: "We call it Hell."
The Sentinel: "We called it Home."
The Commonwealth of Hell
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Cotton Mather: "My father told me that there was no time in Hell no past, no future, only all of time in an eternal present. And that I was already there burning beside him. I have tormented myself ever since, wondering what crime I could possibly commit that would so consign myself to Hell. I am relieved. It was no crime, but a choice. I will choose to be in Hell, so that others may not."
Black Sunday
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Trivia

  • According to Mary Sibley, "those who find their hell on earth, will find their heaven in hell." This implies that not all souls suffer in hell. While some souls, such as Increase Mather, hate it there and think of Hell as a prison of misery and torment, other souls love it there and think of hell as a paradise of happiness and pleasure.
  • Co-creator Brannon Braga said that Hell it’s an actual place and that their vision of Hell was based on the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. [1]
  • In the first two seasons, the existence of a single Hell was denied. However, the third season semi retconned such statements. There is a possibility that the place seen is actually Cotton's personal Hell.
  • According to Baron Sebastian Von Marburg, Dr. Samuel Wainwright is the first man after Dante Alighieri to enter Hell alive. In the third season, Cotton Mather does the same.
    • Co-creator Adam Simon confirmed that Dr. Wainwright was still alive in Hell and that the experience led him to madness. That storyline was supposed to be explored in the third season, but was eventually written off. [2]

References

See Also

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