Dear Folks:

The experience of Bill Weise was real to him. As such we need to respect it and not make fun of it. We need to remember that the experience of hell will be different for each of those who go there.

The perceptions of hell that we have now will most likely determine much of our experience in hell itself. Bill's perspective of hell is completely engulfed in a very literalistic interpretation of the Bible and thus his "vision" was in concert with his perception that he learned from that literal interpretation.

We know that in Godly apparitions of saints or angels that those saints and angels can appear to us in the ways that we expect them to look like. For example, Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared like a Mexican woman. The Blessed mother was not Mexican in her life on earth, but to appear as a Mexican was important for who she appeared to.

If we think the devil is red with horns and a forked tail, then we are likely to perceive him that way if we have a vision of him, or meet him in hell.

Our late Holy Father, John Paul II, of happy memory, stated:

 1. God is the infinitely good and merciful Father. But man, called to respond to him freely, can unfortunately choose to reject his love and forgiveness once and for all, thus separating himself for ever from joyful communion with him. It is precisely this tragic situation that Christian doctrine explains when it speaks of eternal damnation or hell. It is not a punishment imposed externally by God but a development of premises already set by people in this life. The very dimension of unhappiness which this obscure condition brings can in a certain way be sensed in the light of some of the terrible experiences we have suffered which, as is commonly said, make life "hell".

In a theological sense however, hell is something else: it is the ultimate consequence of sin itself, which turns against the person who committed it. It is the state of those who definitively reject the Father's mercy, even at the last moment of their life.

Hell is a state of eternal damnation...

The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. More than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell'" (n. 1033).

Bill is indoctrinated in the idea that hell is a place, and moreso, that hell is literally in the center of the earth (he says 4000 miles into the earth). This is theologically in error not only because hell is "more than a place" as our Holy Father stated, but because the earth itself will not last forever (at the very least the earth will be destroyed when our sun supernova's in approximately 5 billion years), and hell lasts forever.

As for all the body imagery the Bill relates, while those who go to hell now do so in spirit and soul, at the final resurrection, our bodies will be re-united with our spirits and will then enter heaven or hell body and soul. Thus, the body will be in hell, too.

What I noticed is that Bill is one of those people who exercises and keeps fit. For him, I imagine the body torture would be very acute and that may be the reason for all the body imagery he related. Since he is focused on the body here on earth, it stands to reason that his torture in hell will be focused on the body as well.

Most of the theological errors expressed by Bill, such as the lack of God's presence, hell in the center of the earth, perceiving distance, time, and space in an earthy manner are all a direct result of the tradition of literalism of interpretation of the Bible that ignores literary types and forms and analogies.

Jonah in hell is another misinterpretation. Jonah is an archetype the foresees Christ who went to hell, that is hades, to the side of hades called Abraham's Bosom to bring the Old Testament saints out of that limbo and into heaven. Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days and was then "resurrected" (spewed out of the fish). This is a pre-figuring of Jesus' decent into hades during the three days between his death and Resurrection.

That can be excused if only Bill would relate this experience as "HIS" experience, rather than to dogmatize it as if his experience is the definitive description of hell.

The most serious and potentially damaging theological error, however, is the notion that he was made to forget he was Christian during his stay in hell. When he was brought out of hell, he remembered he was Christian. This notion is based on a once-saved-always-saved theology which is unBiblical and potentially dangerous.

The fact is that many CHRISTIANS will likely go to hell. The greater torture in hell will be for us to be there with the mark of Christian baptism on our soul. Worse yet, to have the mark of holy orders on the souls of priests and deacons.

The idea of God not being present is a careless, and common, mistake. I am sure that he believes God is omnipresent and doesn't think about how saying God not being present in hell contradicts this. The truth is God is everywhere. Those in hell will not perceive Him because they have been blinded by their own choices, but that does not mean God is not there.

As my father always said when there was something right in front of our eyes yet we didn't see it, "If it was a snake it would have bit you."

Interestingly, Bill misses a major point of his own story. He describes that demons hate the body and thus torture it, but he never says why. The why would be that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The body is a tabernacle. Even those who never had the Holy Spirit within them because they rejected God all their lives still have a body that has been blessed by God because that body contained the rational soul specially created by God and imbued in that body. Animals do not have that. Demons hate that we mere creatures were given that privilege.

There are other errors such as demons having no I.Q. Demons are brilliantly intelligent creatures. While it is true that hatred and pride can blind them, this does not remove the fact that they, as angels, have an inherent intelligence that far exceeds man.

The narrative that "sounds" like Bill is saying the God is responsible for the problems here on earth it not that. I listened to it twice since it sounds to me like he was saying that, but he isn't. He says the "god of this world" causes all these problems. The "god of this world" is one of the titles in the Bible for Satan.

Bill interprets his experience in a very bodily way because he is a very bodily person and because that image of hell is what he has been taught. To some degree you get what you expect.

I have no reason to believe that his experience was false. I do believe him when he said he was taken into hell. I would only say that his experience was "his hell" based upon his pre-conceptions of what hell is like and based upon his earthly focus of bodily health and exercise as something critically important to him.

The theological errors come from his flawed theology that pre-existed his experience and thus tainted his perceptions during the experience, tainted his interpretation of his experience after that fact.

The first twenty minutes of the video is all that is really interesting; most of the rest of the video is mere preaching.

God bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary