§587 appearance & location 357
Some of these hells looked like the lairs or dens of wild animals in the
woods, some like the vaulted chambers and crypts found in mines, with
caverns leading downward. Many of the hells are threefold. The higher
ones look gloomy inside because the people there are fond of malicious
distortions. The lower ones look fi ery, though, because their inhabitants
are devoted to malice itself. Darkness in fact corresponds to malicious
distortions, and fi re to the actual malice. That is, the people in the deeper
hells are the ones who acted from evil on a deeper level, while the people
in the hells that are not so deep acted from evils on a more superfi cial
level—that is, on the basis of their malicious distortions.
In some hells you can see what look like the ruins of houses and cities
after a fi re, where hellish spirits live and hide out.
In the milder hells you can see crude huts, sometimes grouped in
something like a city, with alleyways and streets. There are hellish spirits
in these homes, with constant quarrels, hostility, beating, and violence.
The streets and alleys are full of thieves and robbers.
In some hells there are nothing but brothels, foul to look at and full
of all kinds of fi lth and excrement.
There are also dark forests where hellish spirits roam like wild beasts;
and there are underground caves there where they fl ee when they are
being threatened by others. Then there are desert areas where everything
is barren and sandy, with rugged cliffs here and there with caves in them,
and huts scattered around as well. People are exiled from the hells into
these desert places if they have suffered to the limit, especially people who
in the world were craftier than others in the skills of deliberate manipula-
tion and deceit. This kind of life is their fi nal lot.
As to the location of specifi c hells, no one can know this, not even 587
an angel in heaven—only the Lord. Roughly, though, their location is
recognized by the quarter where they are found. Like the heavens, the
hells are differentiated into regions; and in the spiritual world, regions
are marked off according to loves because all regions in heaven start from
the Lord as the sun, who is the east. So since the hells are the opposite of
the heavens, their regions start from the opposite direction, the west. On
this subject, see the chapter on the four quarters in heaven (§§ 141 – 153 ).
[ 2 ] This is why the hells in the western quarter are the worst and most fear-
ful of all, worse and more fearful incrementally the farther they are from
the east. The people in these hells are people who were absorbed in
self-love in the world and therefore in contempt for others, hostility
toward people who did not support them, and hatred and vengeful-
ness against people who did not admire and revere them. In the farthest