Last month, while on the circuit I brought along two classics for late night re-reading in my hotel room. En-route to Detroit, I reached into my carry-on and found the classic ‘Dante’s Inferno.’

Needless to say, there exists an eerie symmetry between so much we see today and Dante’s vivid descriptions written many centuries ago. His work provides an allegorical outline for some basic thoughts and observations of what, perhaps, has become the “American Inferno” we experience today.

Dante’s writings, indeed his perceptions, were certainly influenced by his Christian religious values versus what he saw as a secular society bereft of religion. Today, in modern America, secularists insist there be: No Ten Commandments — anywhere. No prayer in school. No praying before a sports event. Hmm.

And, again last month, the Vermont DMV refused to issue a license plate with ‘JN36TN’ noting in the state’s refusal letter “It has been deemed to be a combination that refers to deity and has been denied based on that reason.”

The famously liberal state of Vermont did not live up to its name in this case.

Let’s journey along briefly with Dante through some of his “Inferno.” Remember … Dante passes through the gates of hell, on which is inscribed the famous phrase “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Hmm, “Abandon all hope …” Might that relate to how the American Dream is at risk for our willing-to-work citizens? What comes to your mind?

Then, Dante sees opportunists, “souls of people who in life did nothing.” Might that relate to today’s “quick-buck artists” who feed off elderly Americans and less-informed citizens as well as “takers” who feed off the public and private trough.

Mixed with them are outcasts, “who took no side in the rebellion of angels.” Hmm, that’s a tough one. Could relate to those citizens who just will not stand up, and be counted? And, some politicians come to mind, too. Dante tells us “these souls reside on the shores of the Acheron … symbolizing the forever sting of their conscience and the repugnance of sin.” Might it be some of our modern politicians, among many others, will be future residents of Acheron?

Next, Dante describes hell as being nine concentric circles, “each new one representing further and further evil.” Each circle’s sin is punished in a fashion fitting the crime and sinners such as those found in hell “justify their sin and are unrepentant.”

I invite you to relate this to individuals in modern times that you believe it fits. Here’s a quick recap of Dante’s circles, with some selective modern comments:

Circle one is limbo, where the non-believers reside. Limbo includes those who lacked faith; and, perhaps lacked “the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive.”

Beyond circle one, reside “all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin.”

Each of the lower eight circles is “structured according to the classical conception of virtue and vice.” Two through four include: lust, the first circle truly in hell; gluttons; those concerned for material goods, including “the avaricious or miserly, who hoarded possessions and the prodigal, who squandered them.

I picture the ‘materialists’ at the least, to the purveyors of the money bags, the payoffs, the bribes and those of the ‘asks’; as well as the media-darling Hollywood starlets, and so on. What do you see?

Circle Five. The sullen, the slothful and the wrathful. The slothful who live off the fruit of other’s labor because they choose to and they can, in a society that continues the unwarranted handout that undermines the charity that should fill genuine, but not rationalized, human needs.

The next, still lower parts of hell are for those punished for active (rather than passive) sins, including: heretics; the violent, which is divided into three rings: the outer ring houses the violent against people and property. I see the 9/11 hijackers, the bomb-makers in the Middle East, USA, et al; as well as those officials and bureaucrats who abuse eminent domain, etc. What comes to your mind?

The middle ring includes the suicides; and the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is, sustained (i.e. money and property). We see here both those devoid of hope and those without financial self-control. Do you?

The inner ring for the violent against God, the violent against nature and the violent against art. Respecting God, and other people’s belief in God; respecting nature; and, respecting art, is part of respecting one’s self. I’ll cite one example here. Putting a small religious statue in a bottle of urine is not art. What do you think?

Hell’s last two circles house those involved with “conscious fraud or treachery,” which Dante states can be “reached only by descending a vast cliff … on the back of a winged monster” he describes as “having the face of an honest man and a body that ends in a scorpion-like stinger.”

Circle eight has 10 ditches that include: panderers and seducers; flatterers; Simonists, sorcerers and false prophets; corrupt politicians; hypocrites; thieves; fraudulent advisors; sowers of discord; the falsifiers – including counterfeiters, perjurers and impersonators.” Reread Dante’s list of ‘occupant types’ in the last sentence and consider the individuals you deem candidates for each of the 10 ditches.

The last circle – nine – is for traitors — as distinguished from the ‘merely’ fraudulent — in that their acts involve betraying their kindred, country, God and benefactors.

If we choose to take “Dante’s Inferno” in willingly as ‘nourishment’ for our own individual thoughts, words and actions, then America can avoid the cruel joke too many people mistakenly infer from its alternate title: the “Divine Comedy.”

Richard Olivastro is president of People Dynamics, an executive leadership development company, is a professional member of the National Speakers Association and founder of Citizens For Change. He can be reached at Rich@Olivastro.net, or by telephone at 877.RICHSPEAKS.