Need help with a fear of hell

[mesmerist]

Hello all,

I hope it does not seem like I'm seeking attention or that I'm bothering anyone or breaking the rules of the board. I just feel I need spiritual help and felt that this was the best place to turn to.

You see, I was raised Catholic, and throughout my childhood, a fear of death as well as clinical depression led me to adhere to those beliefs. As I got to college, this fear and depression led me to instead start to follow the teachings of this end-times fundamentalist Christian pastor. However, in doing this, the fear and depression never really went away, and furthermore, I felt guilty thinking about the destruction and/or torture of most of the world's population - many of which are my friends. As such, I broke away from Christianity entirely about 3 years ago.

To this day, however, the fears of the devil and hell and depression have never really gone away. It doesn't make sense to me that a loving God would permit either to exist, but I still sometimes find myself feeling guilty for feeling that. I'm afraid that no matter what I do, God will hate me, and I often have to fight the urge to return to that end-times group, which scares me.

I feel like I need help on top of the meds and therapy I'm taking. I've tried guided meditation for anxiety and depression or to receive divine love, but there's always this lingering paranoia within me that this, too, is the work of the devil, or that I should feel guilty for searching for another way. I'm just looking for answers or some way that can help me ease the indecision and anxiety I seem to constantly have. I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.

Thank you,

Chris/Mesmerist

[knightofalbion]

When I was at school we were told that if we didn't say our prayers before we went to bed, the devil would come in the night and drag us off to Hell!
We were 5 years old ...

There are lower reams in the spirit world for everything must find its mark, but this notion of 'eternal damnation' is just ridiculous! It was an invention of the Church to terrify the superstitious, uneducated masses into submission.

The self-appointed priesthood self-appointing themselves the power to determine people's destiny ... Any educated, free-thinking person can readily see the nonsense of that.

Plus, the notion of eternal hell meeting with the concept of a loving God .... There again, it's an insult to people's intelligence.

What we have is the immortality of the soul, the continuity of life, a loving God and a self-regulating universal law of cause and effect.
Then, it all makes sense.

My advice is twofold:
1) Stop thinking about it. You're just polluting your mind.
2) Read up on NDE accounts. They will both anchor you and direct you.

[alcyone]

Fear is designed to keep you thinking about these things. Trapped. Youre making this hell for yourself by believing what the fear is telling you and what the world/whoever is teaching you is *real* and that you should fear this. Try reaching out to your Higher Self. Try reaching out to your Guides. Try meditating and releasing this fear and realizig it is only a fear. Fear is irrational, at least this kind. Because no one truly can know if hell is real or not, i dont believe in hell. I believe in hell in the sense it is a place you can put yourself in or just be in, here and now, but there are always way out.

I wish you the best with this. :) remember no one really knows.

[Internal Queries]

mesmerist, the catholics begin the conditioning very early. weeks after birth an infant's 3rd eye is overlaid with the sign of the cross and all through childhood gory trauma images and contrasting images of heaven are impressed upon the child. morality tales are told as offers of heavenly glory and dire threats of eternal torments are made. the conditioning is deep, harsh and well designed, engraved on the psyche before the individual is even aware of personhood.

what you're experiencing is like PTSD and patience w/ your self is essential as you work your way through the tricky psychological maze that is the catholic conditioning. you know you're in the maze and that's half way through it. good job! now recognize what's been done to you so you can identify the self you are under the conditioning. carry on. you'll be fine.

PS. just to illustrate how deep conditioning goes ... i was in a tourist shop and someone in another aisle rang a little souvenir bell 3 times. i almost genuflected. i hadn't considered my self to be catholic for more than a decade but i still reacted on reflex to the conditioning like Pavlov's drooling dog. perhaps you can imagine how furious i was in that moment. lol

[H:O:R:A:C:E]

you've had a lot of "conditioning" and programming... you don't need those.

hell is the separation from all that is good -- separation from God.
there can be no separation from God; God is life itself, and to be separate
would mean to be dead (nonexistent).

Identity is a feature of uniqueness. there is only one unique identity -- God.
All are an expression of God; there are no exceptions.
the ego may insist that a person is distinct from Source, but it is incorrect.

there can be no fear from being separate from self... that is logical absurdity.

be well, H:O:R:A:C:E

[secretscribe]

Personally there were years in my life when I was trying to escape Christianity's influence and during that time some of the unpleasant effects of dualism and conflict mentality in my father's thought were still with me, even though I did not consider myself Christian. Personally I have decided to forgive my father and the church, and I no longer avoid things that remind me of Christianity. Not that it's all about me, but I've become an Episcopalian, something that works for me. There are Episcopalian ministers who criticize what's called Christianity even more than I would, actually.

Again this is just my advice, but you sound similar to me. You have rejected the teaching of your earlier years, but the influence, in this case it sounds like the guilt, of it remains.... So my advice is not to deny that the wound is there. Richard Rohr talks about the "father wound". I don't know how your dad himself fits in with your story, but some of these ministers could be like father figures for you, and Christianity itself could be like an estranged parent.... Somebody on this forum first mentioned Richard Rohr to me, and again I'd like to pass that name along. He talks a lot about how the church can wound us, and how people like Jesus and St. Francis can heal us, and IMHO if you were kinda reconciled in some way to your earlier years I think it might heal the wound instead of just compartmentalizing or denying it.

Also Wayne Dyer talks a lot about, how everything is as God intends it to be. So if we have a bad experience we might say how could God have allowed it, like why did I ever meet the Hell-raising preacher guy, how could I have ever attracted that into my life, or if we're afraid of Hell we might have this conception of a situation that's Not Okay, and feeling like we're going to fall into that-- but if we just allow the world to be as it is, instead of how we think it should be, I think that might help over time to alleviate the fear that somehow things aren't okay in God's world.

I think our lives sound similar more than I'm prepared to describe to you, so I hope that some of my ramblings might be of some use to you.

[mesmerist]

Thank you everyone for your words of encouragement! I hope that I can keep fighting this fear and update you all. First, I need a good night's sleep. :)

[Dan_SF]

The Fear of Death is, in Reality, its attraction.
This you have to recognize and to accept. If you are fearfull of death, then please take time to think about the reasons why or what you are fearing (considering the attraction of it).


God is, indeed Loving,Peacefull and what he makes is Eternaly good. Whatever causes you guilt or fear you can safely aknowledge that it was there and thank it good bye. Because whatever is making you troubles, is not made from God, and it does not exists.

hell is the separation from all that is good -- separation from God.
there can be no separation from God; God is life itself, and to be separate
would mean to be dead (nonexistent).

Please allow me to add following to this sentence:

If you could separate your "self" from the God, you would indeed stop existing. But this is impossibile.God is life, and he can only will what is like himself. Death is not of God, and so it does not exists for him.

So what is making hell, is a hidden belief that you can be separated from God. This hidden belief is only a Thought, which were thinked and then it was forgotten.

[sea-dove]

I got brought up in a christian household (I have actual priests/ministers my family and made to go to Sunday school till I was 12), so I understand the fear of breaking away from what you have been told. I feared I would go to hell..this fear made it hard to step into what I felt was right, what was true for my heart. (It took me maybe as long as 10-15 years to get past that fear).

its all conditioning you have gone through. Ive since been shown things to know that Im not going to go to the hell I was taught about :) . I had nothing at all to fear. (Ive actually been allowed to astrally experienced someone passing over and it was beautiful).

I suggest you meditate on what GOD is to you, what you innerly feel GOD is. Feel and keep asking for guidance. The fear should slowly go away and one day you should know. If your GOD is something all loving and knowing, just keep meditating on this...

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Internal Queries

mesmerist, the catholics begin the conditioning very early.
lol

Yes, they do! lololololol ...

Horace's post was so great.
"there can be no fear from being separate from self... that is logical absurdity."
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