248 HEAVEN and HELL §428
All the hells are closed on the side that faces that world, accessible
only through holes and crevices like those in rocks and through broad
gaps that are guarded to prevent anyone from coming out without per-
mission, which happens in cases of real need, as will be discussed later.
Heaven too is bounded on all sides, and the only access to any heavenly
community is by a narrow way whose entry is also guarded. These exits
and entrances are what are called the doors and gates of hell and heaven
in the Word.429 The world of spirits looks like a valley surrounded by mountains and
cliffs, with glens and rising ground here and there. The doors and gates
to heavenly communities are visible only to people who are being readied
for heaven. No one else fi nds them. There is one entrance to each com-
munity from the world of spirits with a single path beyond it; but as the
path climbs, it divides into several.
The doors and gates to the hells are visible only to the people who
are going to enter them. The gates open for them, and then they can see
dark, sooty-looking caves slanting downward into the depths, where there
are still more gates. Rank, foul stenches breathe out from them, stenches
that good spirits fl ee because they are repelled by them, while evil spirits
are drawn toward them because they fi nd them delightful. In fact, just as
we fi nd delight in our own evil in this world we fi nd delight after death in
the stench that corresponds to our evil. We might compare this with the
delight of carrion birds and beasts like crows and wolves and pigs that fl y
or run toward rotting corpses as soon as they get wind of them. I heard
one man who screamed aloud in utter torment at a breath of air from
heaven, but was calm and happy when a breath from hell reached him.
430 There are two doors in each of us as well, one facing hell and open
to evil and false things from hell, the other facing heaven and open to
good and true things from heaven. The door of hell is opened for people
who are involved in what is evil and its consequent falsity, though just a
little light from heaven fl ows in through the cracks, which enables us to
think, reason, and talk. On the other hand, the door of heaven is opened
for people who are focused on what is good and therefore on what is
true. There are actually two paths that lead to our rational mind, one
from above or within, through which the good and the true enter from
the Lord, and one from below or outside through which the evil and the
false infi ltrate from hell. The rational mind itself is at the intersection of
these two paths, so to the extent that light from heaven is let in, we are
rational; but to the extent that it is not let in, we are not rational even
though we seem so to ourselves.