Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 5394

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5394. They who have been cruel and adulterers, in the other life love nothing so well as filth and excrements, the stenches from such things being most sweet and delightful to them, and being preferred by them to all other delights. The reason is that these things correspond. These hells are partly under the buttocks, partly under the right foot, and partly deep down in front. These are the hells into which the way by the rectum intestine leads. A certain spirit being conveyed thither, and speaking with me therefrom, said that nothing but privies were to be seen there. They who were in the place spoke to him, and led him to various privies, which were very numerous there. He was afterward led to another place a little to the left; and when he was there, he said that a most dreadful stench exhaled from the caverns there, and that he could not stir a step without almost falling into some cavern. A cadaverous stench also was exhaled from the caverns, and the reason was that they who were there were cruel and deceitful, to whom a cadaverous stench is most delightful. But these will be described in the following pages, when I come to speak of the hells, and specifically of the excremental and cadaverous hells.


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