Is the concept of "planes of existence" taken from physics? Religion? Elsewhere?

[MerakSpielman]

All the real-world influence on the D&D planes of existence is why I made a new system specifically for the campaign world I'm using - one that fits the history and gods better than the "D&D Default." You can read about it here.

 

[Wombat]

As a couple of folks have already pointed out, the origin-point for The Planes in D&D is Moorcock, plain and simple.

Of course there is a fair bit of difference between Moorcock and the Great Wheel...

 

[wingsandsword]

A few years back I took a 500 level course in Medieval Cosmology and Philosophy as part of my History degree at the University of Kentucky, I remember very distinctly that the concept of Elemental planes of existence was very prominent in the class (I especially remember since they were similar but distinctly different from the normal D&D interpretations of the planes and I used my class notes outright for the planes in a quasi-historical D&D game set during the 3rd Crusade I was running at the time). It was fun to send a bunch of experienced Planescape gamers (what the group normally was) into a completely new interpretation of the planes, especially since the players knew that this was how people thought the planes worked centuries ago.

From what I recall, there was a concept of an elemental world somehow apart and beyond our world. I don't recall it's place in relation to heaven and hell. The planes existed being stacked or nested in each other concentrically. At the very core was the plane of Earth, the densest and heaviest of elements and also serving as a parallell of the idea of the Earth as the center of the universe. Directly "above" the plane of Earth radiating out was the plane of Water, as a lighter element than Earth and serving as a paralell to the oceans that cover the world. Above and beyond the plane of Water was the plane of Air, yet lighter than water and above the oceans, and atop it all was the plane of Fire as the only element so light it falls up and to parallell the stars in the sky.

Regrettably, I don't have my notes from that semester anymore (lost them in a move), but a scholar of medieval history or philosophy could probably provide something definitive about this.

 

[s/LaSH]

I know that The Land of Mist by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of his sequels to The Lost World, is all about theosophy and the Spiritualist movement (it's quite a classic example of Clubbing The Reader Over The Head With A Real-World Point Of View, but still quite worth reading), and simply by reading that story I got the definite idea of multiple planes of existance, although in a 'moral sequence'.

Here's a couple of quotes from one paragraph, spoken by a spirit; Doyle died in 1930, but my copy of the story doesn't mention a precise publication date.

"Children are not born here. That is only on the earth plane. [Later in the passage] ... when two high-souled lovers meet upon your plane. ..."

And other references to 'lower spheres' and so forth. So the concept of 'plane' was certainly about at that time, and the Spiritualist movement Doyle was covering was perhaps a half-century old at the time (1920s, I'd say; the story mentions soldiers, who seemed to have died in the Great War).

However, this planar structure was clearly Christian and sequential in nature. People were born on Earth, lived, and died; wherupon their mind lived on, and once it figured out what was going on and become purer, it progressed to a higher plane, of which there were seven or so known to the spirits talking through mediums (and they implied more beyond that, but they didn't know about them, implying that they're even more rarified and such than the planes after death). There were also spirits who didn't progress or were too corrupt to progress without people helping them self-improve; it's unclear whether they were on lower planes or still on this one, immaterial (or not so immaterial, in one case). A ladder, if you will, rather than the wheel or web more beloved of slightly more modern conceptualists (Moorcock was writing 30-40 years after this, an equal amount of time in our past).

So: 'plane' has been around a while, according to my meagre, fiction-filtered knowledge.

 

[fusangite]

In one of the ask Gary Gygax threads I asked a question related to this. He replied that a lot of the setup for the planes, etc. was taken from 19th century Theosophy. His reply should still be in the archives I think; you'll just have to do some digging.

 

[Nisarg]

The concept of "planes of existence" are very old in religious thought.
There was, in most forms of primitive shamanism, the concept of an underworld and an overworld.

The norse had their nine worlds on Yggdrasil, the tree of life.

Probably the oldest identifiable concept of planes would be the the various worlds of the Hindu pantheon.

There's also the six realms of the Buddhist pantheon, but those are more to represent states of being than actual places (though some buddhist schools are literalist).

Finally, there were the Christian gnostics, who believed one could achieve gnosis by making one's way up a series of Aeons, or dimensions, that acted as a barrier between the true god and our world. The precise number and types of aeons varied from school to school.

Nisarg

 

[Gez]

I suspect the Moorcock references is where DIRECT lineage would be ascribed to, but as to where Moorcock got his ideas, your guess is as good as mine...

Better, actually. Straight from the horse's mouth!

"Except that the world of Faery is very similar as described in The Broken Sword, Three Hearts and Three Lions, which I gather was written in the same year as The Broken Sword (though I think I read it later) isn't a sequel. It is, however, just as good -- if not better. Again, you might find some influences there which led to my Eternal Champion stories. You'll find dedications to Anderson for those two books in some of my earlier books. I hope you enjoy it. All very best, M"

Maybe I should change my user title to "Official Three Hearts & Three Lions Pimp", I feel like I'm starting to be the Nightfall of that book.

Seriously, read it, you'll find there the origin of the D&D versions of the paladin, nixie, troll, gnome, swanmay, disguise self spell, Law and Chaos alignments (those are NOT from Moorcock, if they were, it would be Order and Chaos rather than Law and Chaos, but Moorcock himself was inspired by Anderson), and it was also Moorcock's inspiration for the Eternal Champion and the fight across multiple planes between Law/Order and Chaos.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

I think that D&D takes the names for the various "Outer Planes" from a myriad of religious, philosophical, and mythological sources. I know that Bahamut (the god of all Good Dragons) is ancient Babylonyan, as is Tiamat. Hades is the name of the "nether regions of hell" that is mentioned in the Torah (the Jewish holy scriptures). Heaven is clearly a Christian doctrine (as well as other religions). The concept of the Nine Planes of Hell is clearly from Dante's "Inferno", although he may not have been the original source. Heck, even some of the names that Dante uses became names for some of the other lower planes (I think that Archeron and Abyss are mentioned in that poem).

The concepts of the "planes of existence" are buried deep within many religious and mythological sources that span centuries and cultures.

One neat thing that I found when I first started playing the game was how the original authors of the Monster Manual from first ed (which I can only assume were Gygax and Arneson) used the various names for Lucifer and created completely different demons and devils. Just from the top of my head, there is Baalzebub, Orcus, Baal, Mephistophales, and some others - which were just different names given to Satan by various writers and poets throughout the centuries. They essentially took the different names (which were clearly cultural in their generation) and applied different attributes and behaviors to what is clearly the same being in mythology (that of Lucifer). It was all rather fascinating to me. I think that the same approach applied to the names given for the various Planes of Existence (at least the Outer Ones).

Hades is actually the name of the Greek God of the Underworld. the multitude of demonic names are not just names for Satan...there are entire Christian belief systems regarding the many Devils and Archdevils as well as the Angels and Archangels. Gygax and co. got their backgrounds from these traditions...right up to how many legions each one commanded. That's one of the reasons early D&D was plagued by so much prejudice...so much knowledge about devils and demonsclearly smacked of

Many of these were originally taken from other, older cultures. Baal, for instance, is a Mesopotamian word meaning Lord. Thus Baalzebub literally does mean lord of the flies. Ancient pagan gods were very often treated as demons or devils by later peoples.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've not read it but I understand other planes of existence are a big deal in Jack Vance's The Dying Earth.

 

[Doug McCrae]

THERE has been an infinite confusion of names to express one and the same thing

...

That's from the astral light chapter of Isis Unveiled, Madame Blavatsky's first (?) work.

I'd say those are alternate names for the universal life force rather than planes of existence. The ULF transcends time and space and permeates everything so I guess it could be seen as a means to travel to other planes. In D&D the astral plane is definitely a place, rather than a force, that touches upon every other location throughout the multiverse.