The structure of the worlds

This section holds the accounts traditions give of how the cosmos is built: the otherworlds, heavens and underworlds of the various mythologies, and the four worlds of Kabbalah through which emanation is held to descend. It gathers the realms themselves, the Norse nine worlds, the Hindu and Buddhist lokas, the Greek Hades, and many more.

Cosmologies disagree sharply, and productively, about how many realms there are, how they are stacked or arranged, who inhabits them, and how the living pass between them. The entries report each tradition's own map rather than reconciling them into one.