There are three heavens and innumerable societies in each, arranged according to the varieties of love and intelligence with the angels. So also with the hells which are the inversion of the heavens. The angels are happy because they are in a state of order, their interiors and exteriors being in correspondence, in conjunction with the Lord, in harmony with each other, and surrounded by corresponding forms of order and beauty. But the wicked spirits are unhappy in hell, because they are in a state of disorder, at enmity against the Lord, in conflict with each other, and surrounded by the forms of their internal barrenness of life and desolation of delight.[1]
The life of the Lord through heaven, flows into the good in the world of spirits; and thus by them is adapted to man. The life of the Lord perverted into the opposite in the hells, flows into the interiorly evil in the world of spirits; and thus, by them is applied to the evils and falsities in man, exciting, confirming and augmenting them.
Thus all men are subject to influx in "three great directions, namely: laterally, vertically and abyssally. The vertical influx is from
- ↑ Manual of Doctrine, pp. 57-58.
