Hell from the visions of Anna Katharina Emmerick

When I was gripped by many pains and ailments I became truly pusillanimous and sighed. God perhaps could have given me only one quiet day. I live as in hell. I then had a severe reprimand from my guide, who said to me: "In order not to compare your condition like this anymore I really want to show you hell". So it led me to the far north, on the side where the earth becomes steeper, then more distant from the earth. I got the impression that I had come to a terrible place. Descended through the paths of an ice desert, in a region above the Earth's hemisphere, from the northernmost part of the same. The road was deserted and as I walked it I noticed that it was getting darker and icier. Just remembering what I saw I feel my whole body tremble. It was a land of infinite suffering, sprinkled with black spots, here and there coal and thick smoke rose from the ground; everything was wrapped in a deep darkness, like an eternal night ”. The pious nun was later shown, in a fairly clear vision, how Jesus, immediately after his separation from the body, descended into Limbo: Finally I saw him (the Lord), proceed with great gravity towards the center of the abyss and approach the 'hell. It had the shape of a gigantic rock, illuminated by a terrible and black metallic light. A huge dark door served as an entrance. It was truly frightening, closed with bolts and incandescent bolts that stimulated a feeling of horror. Suddenly I heard a roar, a hideous scream, the gates were opened and a terrible and sinister world appeared. This world corresponded precisely to the exact opposite of that of heavenly Jerusalem and the countless conditions of beatitudes, the city with the most diverse gardens, full of wonderful fruit and flowers, and the houses of the Saints. All that appeared to me was the opposite of bliss. Everything bore the mark of curse, of pain and suffering. In heavenly Jerusalem everything appeared modeled by the permanence of the Blessed and organized according to the reasons and relationships of the infinite peace of eternal harmony; here instead everything appears in discrepancy, in disharmony, immersed in anger and despair. In heaven you can contemplate the indescribable beautiful and clear buildings of joy and adoration, here instead the exact opposite: innumerable and sinister prisons, caves of suffering, curse, despair; there in paradise, there are the most wonderful gardens full of fruit for a divine meal, here hateful deserts and swamps full of sufferings and pains and all the most horrible imaginable. In love, contemplation, joy and bliss, temples, altars, castles, streams, rivers, lakes, wonderful fields, and the blessed and harmonious community of Saints, is replaced in hell opposite mirror of the peaceful Kingdom of God, the tearing, eternal disagreement of the damned. All human errors and lies were concentrated in this same place and appeared in countless representations of suffering and pain. Nothing was right, there was no reassuring thought, like that of divine justice. I saw columns of a dark and horrible temple. Then suddenly something changed, the gates were opened by the Angels, there was a contrast, escapes, offenses, screams and complaints. Single angels defeated entire hosts of bad spirits. Everyone had to recognize Jesus and worship him. This was the torment of the damned. A great deal of them were chained in a circle around the others. At the center of the temple there was an abyss shrouded in darkness, Lucifer was chained and thrown inside while a black vapor rose. These events occurred following certain divine laws. If I'm not mistaken, I felt that Lucifer will be freed and his chains will be removed, fifty or sixty years before the 2000s after Christ, for a time. I felt that other events would happen at specific times, but that I have forgotten. Some damned souls had to be freed to continue to suffer the punishment of being induced into temptation and exterminate the worldly.