Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 6495

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6495. From all that has been adduced it may be seen that the influx from the Lord is immediate, and also mediate through heaven; but the influx which is from the Lord is the good of heavenly love, thus of love toward the neighbor. In this love the Lord is present, for He loves the universal human race, and desires to eternally save every member of it; and as the good of this love is from Himself, He Himself is in it; thus He is present with the man who is in the good of this love. But when a man suffers himself to come into such a state as to receive influx from hell, he then feels the life of the love of self and of the world to be delightful, and the life of the love of the neighbor (unless it is in favor of himself) to be undelightful. And because a man who is in this state desires nothing but evils, and thinks nothing but falsities about the spiritual life, therefore to prevent his acting as he desires, and speaking as he thinks, he is kept in bonds by his loves themselves, whose loss he fears, thus by the fear of the loss of honor, gain, reputation, and life. Into these bonds which constitute the lowest plane, the Lord then flows, and through them rules the man; and hence he appears moral and civil in act, sometimes like an angel, and does no harm to society and his neighbor; and if he does harm, there are civil laws to punish him. But in the other life this plane is nonexistent; there man is in the spiritual world, consequently in the sphere of his interiors; thus such as he had been inwardly, such he is there, and not such as he had appeared in externals; for externals are taken away from him, and when these are taken away, his quality in the world, whether that of a devil or that of an angel, is manifest.


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