Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 116
149. In like order the angels in each society in heaven dwell
in relation to one another—toward the east there those who are
in greater degree of love and charity, toward the west those
who are in less degree; toward the south those who are in
greater light of wisdom and intelligence, and toward the north
those who are in less. This arrangement prevails because each
society represents heaven, and is a heaven in a smaller form (see
above, n. 51–58). The same arrangement prevails in their
assemblies. They are brought into this order by virtue of the
form of heaven, from which everyone knows his own place.
The Lord also provides that there be in each society those of
every kind, for the reason that in form heaven is everywhere
like itself; and yet the arrangement of the whole heaven differs
from the arrangement of a society as what is general from its
parts, since the societies toward the east surpass those toward
the west, and those toward the south surpass those toward the
north.
150. Because of this the quarters in the heavens signify such
things as pertain to those that dwell in them—the east
signifying love and its good clearly perceived, the west the same
obscurely perceived, the south wisdom and intelligence in clear
light, and the north the same in obscure light. And because of
this signification of the quarters in heaven they have a like
signification in the internal or spiritual sense of the Word, 117
since the internal or spiritual sense of the Word is in entire
accord with what is in heaven.
151. The reverse is true of those in the hells. Those who are
there do not look to the Lord as a sun nor as a moon; but they
look backward away from the Lord to that dense darkness that
is in the place of the sun of the world, and to the darkness that
117. In the Word the “east” signifies love clearly perceived (n. 1250,
3708); the “west” love obscurely perceived (n. 3708, 9653); the “south” a
state of light, that is, of wisdom and intelligence (n. 1458, 3708, 5672); and
the “north” that state in obscurity (n. 3708).