Middle Earth

The Middle Plane or Midgård. According to sages three planes exist: 1) The upper plane, the spirit plane and home of the gods. 2) The lower plane, the elemental plane where matter and the elements belong. 3) Middle earth, where body, spirit and soul join to create humans. In this view death is simply the dissolution of man, so that the body returns to the lower plane, and the spirit returns to the upper plane. The homeless soul dissipates, unless the gods (see Nergal) considers it worthy to accompany to spirit to the upper plane. In this connection worthy simply means strong, and the soul may go to Heaven, but it may just as well go to Hell. The sages continue to state that all we can see, even the farthest of stars, are within the middle plane. So when some philosopher talk about life on other worlds elsewhere in space, these worlds also exist in the middle plane. Unless by magic, a man cannot leave the middle plane before he dies. Less scientifically, the term Middle Earth is commonly used to denote Bandagora or sometimes Eustasia.