We’ve all heard the stories about people having near-death experiences and claiming to see a light and heaven and all that jazz, but what about the flipside? Indeed, for all the mundane visions of heaven we hear about there are a handful of accounts of people who claim that they have been to Hell. Sure, some would say that anyone who’s been to Ohio could make those same claims, but these seven people all say that they’ve been to somewhere even worse than Cleveland and its burning Cuyahoga River. They’ve been to a place where everything is on fire. They’ve been to Hell. Here are their stories.
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7 Evelyn Hazell
An art-historian from London, Evelyn Hazell came down with meningitis and quickly found herself fighting for her life. Then things got strange. She claims that she could feel something pulling her down, trying to drag her into a deep pit, and when she looked she saw a three-legged dude clawing at her. Basically, it sounds a lot like Pamela Anderson’s account of her marriage to Tommy Lee. Eventually, Evelyn fought off her apparently generously bedonged assailant and climbed back into the world of the living, but to this day I’m guessing she can’t listen to Motley Crue without having terrible flashbacks. Which makes her just like everyone else I suppose.
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6 St. Teresa of Avila
The nun St. Teresa, famous for her piety, claimed that God decided to show her what life would have been like if she wouldn’t have accepted his marriage proposal. According to her account, she found herself being pulled down a hall filled with rats and assorted scary shit, sort of like going through the haunted house at the carnival. Eventually, she said she was stuffed in a tiny cupboard by the devil and tormented because I guess real estate is expensive in Hell, not unlike New York. After her vision ended, she said that God told her that this is what was in store for her if she didn’t devote herself entirely to him, which honestly makes God sound more like an abusive husband than anything else but hey, at least she didn’t end up having to live in a cupboard, surrounded by rats and a landlord who probably wouldn’t even fix that dripping faucet. Now that’s eternal torment.
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5 Matthew Botsford
Matthew Botsford was just chilling outside an Atlanta restaurant when some dude with an Uzi showed up and started laying down fire, which I guess is just a normal day in the ATL. Botsford was hit in the head and he says that he immediately found himself trapped in a terrifying Hell, imprisoned in a freezing cold cell, which sounds more like something that would happen to the bad guy in a Superman story, but then again I guess God is sort of like Superman, only he probably doesn’t wear a cape and spandex. Eventually, Botsford says that Super-God showed up and hollered “It’s not your time!” and personally lifted Botsford out of Hell. Botsford remains partially paralyzed, a bullet permanently stuck in his brain and God is currently wanted by the authorities for his role in his sensational prison-break.
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4 Howard Storm
While on vacation in Paris, Howard Storm suffered a perforated ulcer and was told he needed surgery. But because the French hospital was understaffed Storm was forced to wait, lying in a hospital bed in terrible agony. He claims that he gave up the will to live and prepared to die (over an ulcer? ) and that’s when things got out of hand. He claims that he woke up outside of his own body, and was then led out into the hall by some humanoids with gentle voices, which sounds more like an alien abduction story, but let’s just go with it. After getting him out in the hall, they got really pushy, demanding that he come with them. He soon realized they were demons and when he tried to resist, they beat his ass, which he likened to a gang initiation. He begged Jesus for help, Jesus showed up like Keanu in The Matrix and kung-fued the demons. After being saved, ol’ Howard says he was given a “life-review” by Jesus and some of Jesus’ boys, realized he needed to get his shit together and became a pastor. I probably just would have stopped eating spicy foods, but hey, whatever works.
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3 Tamara Laroux
When Tamara Laroux was 15, her parents got a divorce and so naturally, she decided to shoot herself in the chest while she was taking a shower. Wait… what? She then temporarily died and found herself in a terrifying pit surrounded by throngs of souls in terrible agony and a devil-like dude with multiple dragon heads before Super-God showed up just like he did for Matthew Botsford and busted her out of Hell. Unlike Botsford, though, Laroux says that God took her to heaven for a while where I guess they just chilled before doctors brought her dumb ass back to life. I guess the moral here is that if you’re going to kill yourself, do it in the shower because… it cleanses your soul and God will forgive you and show you his bachelor pad in the sky or something? I don’t even know.
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2 George Ritchie
In 1943, George Ritchie died of pneumonia for nine minutes. While he was out, he claimed Jesus showed up for his dreaded “life-review” like the world’s most terrifying HR person and then took him on a tour of Hell, just because I guess. While in Hell, Ritchie says that everyone was all sort of crammed together, and everyone complained and bitched at each other and felt each other up. It sounds more like Jesus took Ritchie to the subway during rush hour. Eventually, the tour ended and Jesus apparently decided George could keep his job of living, telling him, “You have 45 years,” before he suddenly woke up, alive again. Naturally, he lived for another 64 years but come on, Jesus was a theology major, not a math whiz. Let’s cut him some slack.
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1 Bill Wiese
Bill Wiese was lying in bed one night when suddenly he found himself plunged into Hell. Why? Who knows, but for the next 23 minutes Wiese claims he was stuck in a dark cell, where he was immediately confronted by two giant demon cellmates, each 10-13 feet tall, named “Evil” and “Terror,” which sounds sort of like the beginning of some really messed up prison-themed gay porno. Eventually, Evil and Terror were joined by two more giant demons, and the four of them proceeded to whip up on poor Bill, who eventually managed to escape his cell, only to be met by the anguished screams of millions of lost souls. Eventually, God released him – apparently, the whole thing was God just dickin’ around with ol’ Bill in order to show him what Hell was like or some such nonsense – and Bill awoke in his living room. He later went on to write a best-selling book about his ordeal and is regularly seen making the rounds on the various televangelist shows. Evil and Terror, meanwhile, went on to win AVN awards for Best Newcomers in a Gay Video so I guess everyone got a happy ending, just like God intended.
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