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

AFTERLIFE
and sandy, with rugged cliffs here and there with caves in
them, and huts scattered around as well. People are exiled
from the hells into these desert places if they have suffered
to the limit, especially people who in the world were
craftier than others in the skills of deliberate manip -
ulation and deceit. This kind of life is their final lot.
There is an infinite variety to everything evil just as
there is to everything good. People do not grasp this if they
have only simplistic concepts of particular evils like
contempt, hostility, hatred, vengefulness, deceit, and the
like; but they should realize that each of these contains so
many distinctive forms, each of which also contains dis -
tinctive or particular forms, that a whole volume would
not be adequate to list them. The hells are so clearly
arranged according to the distinctive features of every -
one’s evil that nothing could be more definitely and
clearly arranged. We can gather from this that they are
beyond counting, some near each other and some far
removed according to the general, specific, and particular
differences of their evils.
The Equilibrium between Heaven and Hell
There is a constant balance between heaven and hell. An
effort to do evil is constantly emanating upward from hell,
and an effort to do good is constantly emanating down
from heaven. The world of spirits is in this equilibrium.
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