And when they recall what they had thought
about the life after death, the soul, spirits, and heaven and hell,
they are ashamed and confess that they thought foolishly, and that
the simple in faith thought much more wisely than they. When the
minds of learned men who had confirmed themselves in such ideas and
had ascribed all things to nature were examined, it was found that
their interiors were wholly closed up and their exteriors were
opened, that they looked towards the world and thus towards hell and
not towards heaven. For to the extent that man's interiors are opened
he looks towards heaven, but to the extent that his interiors are
closed and his exteriors opened he looks towards hell, because the
interiors of man are formed for the reception of all things of
heaven, but the exteriors for the reception of all things of the
world; and those who receive the world, and not heaven also, receive
hell.{1}
{Footnote 1} In man the spiritual world and the natural world
are conjoined (n. 6057). The internal of man is formed after
the image of heaven, but the external after the image of the
world (n. 3628, 4523, 4524, 6013, 6057, 9706, 10156, 10472).
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