Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 390
[5] Another proof that a spirit is his ruling love is that every
spirit seizes and appropriates all things that are in harmony
with his love, and rejects and repudiates all that are not.
Everyone’s love is like a spongy or porous wood, which
imbibes such fluids as promote its growth, and repels others. It
is also like animals of every kind, which know their proper
food and seek the things that agree with their nature, and avoid
what disagrees; for every love wishes to be nourished on what
belongs to it, evil love by falsities and good love by truths. I
have sometimes been permitted to see certain simple good
spirits desiring to instruct the evil in truths and goods; but
when the instruction was offered them they fled far away, and
when they came to their own they seized with great pleasure
upon the falsities that were in agreement with their love. I have
also seen good spirits talking together about truths, and the
good who were present listened eagerly to the conversation, but
the evil who were present paid no attention to it, as if they did
not hear it. In the world of spirits ways are seen, some leading
to heaven, some to hell, and each to some particular society.
Good spirits go only in the ways that lead to heaven, and to the
society there that is in the good of their love; and do not see
the ways that lead elsewhere; while evil spirits go only in the
ways that lead to hell, and to the society there that is in the evil
of their love; and do not see the ways that lead elsewhere; or if
they see them have no wish to enter them. In the spiritual
world these ways are real appearances, which correspond to
truths or falsities; and this is why ways have this signification in
the Word. 270
By this evidence from experience what has
previously been affirmed on the ground of reason is made more
certain, namely, that every man after death is his own love and
his own will. It is said one’s own will because everyone’s will is
his love.
270. A “way,” a “path,” a “road,” a “street,” and a “broad street,” signify
truths leading to good, or falsities leading to evil (n. 627, 2333, 10422). “To
sweep [or prepare] a way” means to prepare for the reception of truths (n.
3142). “To make known the way” means, in respect to the Lord, to instruct
in truths that lead to good (n. 10565).