328 HEAVEN and HELL §538
538 I have sometimes been allowed to sense the aura of malevolent falsity
flowing out of hell. It was like a constant effort to destroy everything
good and true, united to an anger, a kind of rage at not being able to do
so. Especially, it was an effort to destroy the divine nature of the Lord
because this is the source of everything good and true.
I have sensed an aura of benevolent truth from heaven, though, that
served to restrain the rage of the effort rising up from hell, which yielded
an equilibrium. I perceived that the sole source of this aura was the Lord,
even though it seemed to be coming from angels in heaven. The reason
it comes solely from the Lord and not from angels is that every angel in
heaven admits that nothing of what is good and true comes from herself
or himself, but that it all comes from the Lord.539 All the power in the spiritual world belongs to benevolent truth and
none whatsoever to malevolent falsity.
The reason all power belongs to what is good and true is that the
essential divine nature in heaven is divine good and divine truth, and all
power belongs to the Divine. Malevolent falsity has no power because
all power belongs to benevolent truth, and there is no benevolent truth
in malevolent falsity. This is why all the power is in heaven, and none
in hell. Everyone in heaven is focused on what is true for the sake of the
good, and everyone in hell is focused on what is false for the sake of what
is evil. This is because no one is let into heaven until she or he is focused
on what is true for the sake of good, and no one is cast into hell until she
or he is focused on what is false for the sake of what is evil. In support of
this, see the chapters where I dealt with our fi rst, second, and third states
after death (§§ 491 – 520 ); and on benevolent truth possessing power, see
the chapter on the power of heaven’s angels (§§ 228 – 233 ).540 This, then, is the balance between heaven and hell. People in the
world of spirits are in this balance, since the world of spirits is halfway
between heaven and hell. So too we in the world are kept in the same
kind of balance, since the Lord governs us in the world by means of spir-
its in the world of spirits, a subject I shall deal with below in a separate
chapter.
This kind of balance would not be possible unless the Lord ruled
both heaven and hell and regulated both. Otherwise, malicious falsity
would cross the boundaries and affect the simple, good people who are
in the outmost parts of heaven, people who are more easily misled than
actual angels. This would destroy the balance, and with the balance
would go our freedom.