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Could someone who glimpsed Purgatory think they had seen Hell?

Common teaching Private revelation

What the Church holds

Common teaching The Church's only word on this is that Purgatory is "entirely different from the punishment of the damned" (CCC 1031, in the Directory, §251). It is different in kind: in hope, love and the certainty of salvation. None of those can be seen from outside.

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation Yes, and the saints nearly did.

  • St Faustina, watching a worldly man die, said its torments were "in no way different from the torments of hell" except "that they will someday come to an end" (Diary §426; FAU-06).
  • Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich "thought myself in Hell" until her guide told her, "Hell cannot be where I am" (Life I, p. 395).
  • Maria Simma was "almost convinced" she was in Hell in Holy Week 1954 (SIM-38).
  • The lowest level, the witnesses say, has fire, demons nearby, and the very souls an onlooker would call lost, saved at the last moment (CGE-R3, UMP-R2, VIS-04, FAU-05).
  • A near-death subject without a third category would almost certainly call it Hell. But Simma warns that such people "have not died" (SIM-04, SIM-R10).

For more, see VIII-A, The Witnesses’ Map of Purgatory, "Why the lowest level looks like Hell".

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Witnesses’ Map of PurgatoryRead: Levels and DegreesTheme B: Levels and degreesTheme J: Discernment — soul, demon, or imagination9 accounts on this question

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