Heaven and Hell (Ager) n. 313

313. Very many of the learned from the Christian world are astonished when they find themselves after death in a body, in garments, and in houses, as in the world. And when they recall what they had thought about the life after death, the soul, spirits, and heaven and hell, they are ashamed and confess that they thought foolishly, and that the simple in faith thought much more wisely than they. When the minds of learned men who had confirmed themselves in such ideas and had ascribed all things to nature were examined, it was found that their interiors were wholly closed up and their exteriors were opened, that they looked towards the world and thus towards hell and not towards heaven. For to the extent that man's interiors are opened he looks towards heaven, but to the extent that his interiors are closed and his exteriors opened he looks towards hell, because the interiors of man are formed for the reception of all things of heaven, but the exteriors for the reception of all things of the world; and those who receive the world, and not heaven also, receive hell.# # In man the spiritual world and the natural world are conjoined (n. 6057). The internal of man is formed after the image of heaven, but the external after the image of the world (n. 3628, 4523, 4524, 6013, 6057, 9706, 10156, 10472).


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