are raised to heaven.”  At this the novitiate laughed, saying, “What are heaven and hell?  Is it not heaven where any one is free; and is not he free who is allowed to love as many as he pleases? and is not it hell where any one is a servant:  and is not he a servant who is obliged to keep to one?” But a certain angel, looking down from heaven, heard what he said, and broke off the conversation, lest it should proceed further and profane marriages; and he said to him, “Come up here, and I will clearly shew you what heaven and hell are, and what the quality of the latter is to continued adulterers.”  He then shewed him the way, and he ascended:  after he was admitted he was led first into the paradisiacal garden, where were fruit-trees and flowers, which from their beauty, pleasantness and fragrance, tilled the mind with the delights of life.  When he saw these things, he admired them exceedingly; but he was then in external vision, such as he had enjoyed in the world when he saw similar objects, and in this vision he was rational; but in the internal vision, in which adultery was the principal agent, and occupied every point of thought, he was not rational; wherefore the external vision was closed, and the internal opened; and when the latter was opened, he said, “What do I see now? is it not straw and dry wood? and what do I smell now? is it not a stench?  What is become of those paradisiacal objects?” The angel said, “They are near at hand and are present; but they do not appear before your internal sight, which is adulterous, for it turns celestial things into infernal, and sees only opposites.  Every man has an internal and an external mind, thus an internal and an external sight:  with the wicked the internal mind is insane, and the external wise; but with the good the internal mind is wise, and from this also the external; and such as the mind is, so a man in the spiritual world sees objects.”  After this the angel, from the power which was given him, closed his internal sight, and opened the external, and led him away through gates towards the middle point of the habitations:  there he saw magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, and near them porticos, and round about pillars overlaid and encompassed with wonderful ornaments and decorations.  When he saw these things, he was amazed, and said, “What do I see?  I see magnificent objects in their own real magnificence, and architectonic objects in their own real art.”  At that instant the angel again closed his external sight, and opened the internal, which was evil because filthily adulterous:  hereupon he exclaimed, “What do I now see?  Where am I?  What is become of those palaces and magnificent objects?  I see only confused heaps, rubbish, and places full of caverns.”  But presently he was brought back again to his external sight, and introduced into one of the palaces; and he saw the decorations of the gates, the windows, the walls, and the ceilings, and especially of the utensils, over