364 HEAVEN and HELL §596
hells are differentiated into two kingdoms, one opposite to the heavenly
kingdom and one opposite the spiritual kingdom. The one opposite to
the heavenly kingdom is in the western quarter, and the people who live
there are called demons; while the one that is opposite to the spiritual
kingdom is in the northern and southern quarter, and the people who
live there are called spirits.
All the people in the heavenly kingdom are involved in a love for
the Lord, and all the people in the hells opposite to that kingdom are
involved in love for themselves. All the people who are in the spiritual
kingdom are involved in love for their neighbor, and all the people who
are in the hells opposite to that kingdom are involved in love of the
world. This has enabled me to see that love for the Lord and love for
oneself are opposites, as are love for our neighbor and love of the world.
The Lord is constantly taking care that nothing should fl ow out from
the hells opposite to the Lord’s heavenly kingdom toward the people
who are in the spiritual kingdom. If this were to happen, the spiritual
kingdom would be destroyed, for the reasons given in §§ 578 – 579 above.
These are the two general balances that the Lord is constantly keep-
ing intact.Our Freedom Depends on the Balance
between Heaven and Hell
597
I
have just described the balance between heaven and hell and have
shown that the balance is between what is good from heaven and
what is evil from hell, which means that it is a spiritual balance that in
essence is a freedom.
The reason this spiritual balance is essentially a freedom is that it
exists between what is good and what is evil and between what is true
and what is false, and these are spiritual realities. So the ability to intend
either good or evil and to think either truth or falsity, the ability to
choose one instead of the other, is the freedom I am dealing with here.