About The Afterlife: The Four Domains Of The Afterlife
The Afterlife is divided into four domains:
- Elysian Fields (Elysium) – A paradise reserved for heroes, virtuous souls, and those favored by the Gods. The most spiritual individuals can go there.
- Hades (Underworld Proper) – The general domain of the dead, ruled by Hades, where most spirits reside. The moderately spiritual, or those with some inborn faculties (the majority of humanity), go there.
- Asphodel Meadows – The realm of ordinary souls, where spirits exist in a ghostly, neutral state. Those who are completely spiritually ignorant can go there.
- Tartarus – The deepest abyss, where the wicked and enemies of the Gods suffer eternal punishment. Fewer than 0.01% of humanity—the worst of the worst offenders—can find themselves there.
Elysian Fields (Elysium)
Elysium, often referred to as the Elysian Fields, was the final resting place of the most virtuous and heroic souls. Unlike the bleakness of the rest of the underworld, Elysium was depicted as a beautiful, sunlit paradise filled with lush meadows, golden fields, and gentle breezes. Souls in Elysium enjoy eternal bliss, music, feasting, and companionship with other noble spirits.
All of the above language is symbolic, as the Ancients used simple terms to illustrate that high-quality souls would eventually attract and receive favorable conditions in their afterlife.
In Homer’s Odyssey, Elysium is described as a place where the favored of Zeus were sent, free from hardship, where the earth bore abundant harvests without toil (Odyssey 4.563–569).
The elect—spiritually advanced and heroic individuals—can eventually enter the highest realms, collectively described as the Elysian Fields. Initiates who have fulfilled their spiritual obligations, as well as their duties to the Gods and mankind, along with great personalities who have contributed to the cosmic order, enjoy the highest level of afterlife, rich in learning, advancement, and spirituality, even after their mortal “death.” Eventually, as it is the plan of the Gods to deify these souls, they reincarnate them so they can continue their journey and embark once more on their divine path.
Hades
Souls who are somewhat aware but still lack sufficient spiritual awareness enter the domain known as Hades. In this realm, they are instructed, guided, and await their reincarnation. Hades is the most populated domain, as humanity, in general, does not exist at a very high spiritual level; most souls are weak and lacking in light. As a result, they can only exist in lower astral realms, where they are shielded from the overwhelming intensity of enlightenment that radiates from the higher realms.
The term Hades can refer to both the God of the dead and the general realm of the underworld where most souls reside. While Elysium is a paradise for the righteous and Tartarus a place of torment, Hades itself is simply the realm of the dead—an expansive and shadowy world where the majority of deceased souls go after death.
Most souls experience the afterlife in this way because their spiritual faculties are still functional, as most people are not in a completely blinded state spiritually.
Hades is ruled by King Hades, who, along with his Queen Persephone, governs the fate of souls and maintains the balance between the living and the dead. In mythology, the underworld is separated from the land of the living by the rivers:
- Styx – the river of oaths,
- Acheron – the river of woe,
- Lethe – the river of forgetfulness,
- Phlegethon – the river of fire, and
- Cocytus – the river of lamentation.
Souls had to cross these rivers with the help of Charon, the ferryman, who required payment—often in the form of a coin placed in the mouth of the deceased at burial.
The symbolic nature of these elements represents the emotional and experiential baggage that souls carry with them into Hades. Unresolved pains, suffering, and lingering emotional struggles accompany the soul after departing the mortal world. Thus, souls may remain in Hades to process these experiences or move on to their next incarnation to resolve them further. Since Hades is not a domain for the spiritually purified, it functions as a “school” where souls receive guidance from higher entities, allowing them to continue their journey until they are eventually prepared to enter Elysium.
Asphodel Meadows
The Asphodel Meadows are a vast, grey, and eerie expanse where ordinary souls reside. This realm is neither a place of reward nor punishment, making it the neutral middle ground of the afterlife. Souls in the Asphodel Meadows exist in a ghostly, almost dreamlike state, wandering aimlessly without memory or strong emotion.
In this state, human souls who are not spiritually proficient or learned arrive here by default after death. They wait peacefully until reincarnation, but because they have not developed spiritual powers, they cannot exist in any domain other than this one. Their state remains very stable, and they are reincarnated by the Gods with the aim of developing spiritually and ascending higher on the ladder of enlightenment.
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus encounters the shade of Achilles, who expresses his discontent with the afterlife, stating that he would rather be a living servant than a ruler among the dead (Odyssey 11.488–491). This implies that the Asphodel Meadows is a monotonous, forgetful existence, where the dead merely linger rather than thrive. Unlike Elysium, there is no joy, no suffering—only the existence of shadows and whispers.
The Asphodel Meadows are named after the asphodel flower, which is often planted near graves and associated with the dead. In later interpretations, the realm has been seen as a place where souls await judgment or reincarnation, reinforcing the idea that it is a transitional, liminal space between different states of being.
