The World Above / The World Below

According to Socrates, there are two realms to which the soul can travel after death, both dependent upon the life lived by the physical body during the soul's time in the physical realm. The first might be described as a heaven, the spiritual world of purity and absolutes to which souls (especially those of the philosophers) who have rejected the physical in favor of the spiritual travel. The second might correspondingly be described as a hell, a place where souls who have succumbed to the desires and lusts (for money, power, sex, food, etc.) of the physical body/world travel in order to be purified (so they can eventually travel to the first realm). In some cases, Socrates claims, souls have become so corrupted by the deeds and needs of the body that they can't be purified, and are sent to the depths of "hell" where they remain for all eternity.