Observations placeholder
Homer - The Odyssey - The Elysian fields
Identifier
013382
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, were a sort of resting place for souls that had been purged of their impurities after death. They stayed here until they were ready to be reincarnated.
This was not the place of the heroic, but the place of the virtuous. The virtuous may, in fact, avoid the purging cleansing aspects of the Asphodel fields and go straight to these pleasant meadow lands.
It is where we have derived our concept of ‘Paradise’.
A description of the experience
Homer – The Odyssey
"'The third man,' he answered, 'is Ulysses who dwells in Ithaca. I can see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Calypso, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for he has no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea.
As for your own end, Menelaus, you shall not die in Argos, but the gods will take you to the Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world.
There fair-haired Rhadamanthus reigns, and men lead an easier life than any where else in the world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail, nor snow, but Oceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly from the sea, and gives fresh life to all men. This will happen to you because you have married Helen, and are Jove's son-in-law.'