According to Jean-Paul Sartre “Hell is other people” - history doesn’t relate what his particular heaven was. This week’s Inside Story charts theories of the afterlife that dominate the mythology of ancient civilisations and world religions. For Norsemen it was either a banquet in Valhalla or shivering for eternity in the frozen wastes of Helheim (hence the English word “hell”); but Dante’s inferno is the more prevalent idea of divine retribution (page 8). Another hot topic this week will have your students bending glass, a substance which lends itself to some exiting science experiments (page 14).