But good spirits, although they had done evils in the
world, are never punished, because their evils do not return.
Moreover, I have learned that the evils they did were of a different
kind or nature, not being done purposely in opposition to the truth,
or from any other badness of heart than that which they received by
inheritance from their parents, and that they were borne into this by
a blind delight when they were in externals separate from internals.
510. Everyone goes to his own society in which his spirit had been in
the world; for every man, as regards his spirit, is conjoined to some
society, either infernal or heavenly, the evil man to an infernal
society and the good man to a heavenly society, and to that society
he is brought after death (see n. 438). The spirit is led to his
society gradually, and at length enters it. When an evil spirit is in
the state of his interiors he is turned by degrees toward his own
society, and at length, before that state is ended, directly to it;
and when that state is ended he himself casts himself into the hell
where those are who are like himself. This act of casting down
appears to the sight like one falling headlong with the head
downwards and the feet upwards.
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