Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its Wonders - Swedenborg ...

AFTERLIFE
crevices or fissures in the rocks. Some of them are quite
broad and open, some narrow and confined, full of rough
places. All of them seem dim and gloomy when you look
in, although the hellish spirits who live there have the
kind of illumination you get from glowing coals. Their
eyes are adjusted to the reception of this kind of light. This
is because when they were living in the world they were in
darkness about divine truths owing to their denial of
them. They were in a kind of light as to their false convic -
tions because they affirmed them, which gave their eye -
sight the form it has. This is also why heaven’s light is
dark ness to them, so when they come out of their caves,
they can not see anything. This makes it abundantly clear
that we come into heaven’s light to the extent that we
have acknowledged the Divine and affirmed within
ourselves the values of heaven and the church. We come
into the darkness of hell to the extent that we have denied
the Divine and affirmed within ourselves values contrary
to those of heaven and the church.
I have been allowed to look into the hells and see what
they were like inside, for when it pleases the Lord, a spirit
or angel who is overhead can probe visually into the
depths and examine their nature with no coverings in the
way. I have also been allowed to explore them in this
fashion. Some of the hells looked to me like caves and
caverns leading into cliffs and then slanting downward or
off at an angle.
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