356 HEAVEN and HELL §584
584 There are hells everywhere. They are under the mountains and hills
and cliffs and under the plains and valleys. The openings or gates to the
hells that are under the mountains and hills and cliffs look at first sight like
crevices or fissures in the rocks. Some of them are quite broad and open,
some narrow and confined, full of rough places. All of them seem dim
and gloomy when you look in, although the hellish spirits who live there
have the kind of illumination you get from glowing coals. Their eyes are
adjusted to the reception of this kind of light. This is because when they
were living in the world they were in darkness about divine truths owing
to their denial of them. They were in a kind of light as to their false con-
victions because they affirmed them, which gave their eyesight the form it
has. This is also why heaven’s light is darkness to them, so when they come
out of their caves, they cannot see anything. This makes it abundantly
clear that we come into heaven’s light to the extent that we have acknowl-
edged the Divine and affirmed within ourselves the values of heaven and
the church. We come into the darkness of hell to the extent that we have
denied the Divine and affirmed within ourselves values contrary to those
of heaven and the church.
585 The entrances or gates to the hells that are under the plains and
valleys have different forms. Some of them are like the ones under the
mountains, hills, and cliffs; some of them are like caves and caverns; some
are like large chasms and quagmires, some like swamps; and some like
stagnant ponds. All of them are covered over and are visible only when
evil spirits are being cast in there from the world of spirits. When they
are opened, something breathes out like the smoky fi re we see in the air
from confl agrations, or like fl ame without smoke, or like the kind of
soot that comes from a hot chimney, or like a dark storm cloud. I have
heard that evil spirits neither see nor feel this because when they are in it,
they are in their element and therefore in the delight of their life. This is
because these appearances correspond to the evils and distortions they are
absorbed in, the fi re corresponding to their hatred and vengefulness and
the smoke and soot to their consequent distortions, the fl ame to the evils
of their self-love, and the dark storm cloud to the distortions that follow
from it.586 I have been allowed to look into the hells and see what they were like
inside, for when it pleases the Lord, a spirit or angel who is overhead can
probe visually into the depths and examine their nature with no cover-
ings in the way. I have also been allowed to explore them in this fashion.
Some of the hells looked to me like caves and caverns leading into cliffs
and then slanting downward or off at an angle.