Netherworld

We tend to think of ancient stories of visits to the Underworld - by, for example, Odysseus, Orpheus and Aeneas - as being poetic fictions, but in fact in the ancient world the Underworld was believed to be real place that actually existed. It was maintained by a college of priests who would prepare whoever wished to meet the shades of the dead over several days of fasting, prayer, animal sacrifice, ritual bathing and solitude. The candidate would then be lead down through the entrance to the Underworld, a dark, terrifying place, far underground, where they would be rowed across river Styx, menaced by Cerebrus, the Hound of Hell, propelled into a pit of snakes and after a series of apparitions of animal headed gods and goddesses, they would finally meet the ghosts of the dead, whom they might consult. All these features recur in the ancient stories. Unfortunately, this entrance to the Underworld was lost in the Dark Ages, and hasn't been rediscovered since - or at least until the 1960s. Recently Robert Temple heard a rumour that an archaeological expedition in 1962 HAD actually rediscovered the entrance near Baiia in Italy, but that the Italian authorities had forbidden exploration - on the grounds that it was full of poisonous gas -and that the entrance was now blocked with rubble.While lobbying to be allowed to excavate, he researched all the classical sources relating to the Underworld and began to piece together what actually happened on these visits to the underworld - how waters in the ritual bathing that preceded entry would be full of hallucinogenic drugs, how a system of trap doors would be used to fake supernatural happenings and how the priests would quiz you as to what you'd experienced when you re-emerged - and if you didn't believe in it, they'd kill you!