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The spirits in hell may be defined as those whose intellects have not discerned those good things which can truly nourish and fulfill them. That does not necessarily mean that they have lost the intellect itself: on the contrary, hell is full of very intelligent spirits. Often they are learned too, in philosophy and religion, things which should have availed to guide them. But knowledge may lie unused in the backof the mind, and the intellect, nimble though it may be, may be pushed off the track by forces both inside and outside the psyche; and then it gyrates futilely in the void. (Fergusson 1966, pp. 103-104)
As individuals age and develop the various ailments that are concomitant to that state, their minds begin to turn toward death and the possibility of a second life after death. Some deal with this by manic denial, carrying on their lives as if they were adolescents, while others turn to fundamentalist religion and spend many hours in prayer and religious rituals. Since I do not believe in any of that sort of thing I found myself taking a somewhat different path, being instead drawn once more to a study of Dante's Divine Comedy. This masterpiece cannot really be appreciated without a background in the works of Aristotle and Plato, Ptolemaic astronomy, medieval Catholic theology, medieval philosophy, and a considerable historical background into the minutiae of warring factions and papal squabbles and evils, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I am lucky on that score because I have taught ancient Greek philosophy, have a background in the work of Thomas Aquinas— on which Dante's theological expositions are based—and have repeatedly turned to Dante over the past 55 years. I am not lucky in that my