November 5, 2017

Two Opposing Spheres

Selection from Heaven and Hell ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
• Evil continually breathes forth and ascends out of hell, and good continually breathes forth and descends out of heaven, because everyone is encompassed by a spiritual sphere; and that sphere flows forth and pours out from the life of the affections and the thoughts therefrom. And as such a sphere flows forth from every individual, it flows forth also from every heavenly society and from every infernal society, consequently from all together, that is, from the entire heaven and from the entire hell.
Good flows forth from heaven because all there are in good; and evil flows forth from hell because all there are in evil.
• The good that is from heaven is all from the Lord; for the angels in the heavens are all withheld from their [own] proprium, and are kept in the Lord's [own] proprium, which is Good Itself. But the spirits in the hells are all in their proprium, and everyone's proprium is nothing but evil; and because it is nothing but evil it is hell.

• From these things it can be confirmed that the equilibrium in which angels in the heavens and spirits in the hells are kept is not like the equilibrium in the world of spirits.

• The equilibrium of angels in the heavens exists in the degree in which they have wished to be in good, or in the degree in which they have lived in good in the world, and thus also in the degree in which they have held evil in aversion.

• But the equilibrium of spirits in hell exists in the degree in which they have wished to be in evil, or have lived in evil in the world, and thus in heart and spirit have been opposed to good.
(Heaven and Hell 591)