It is by influence from hell that man does evil, and by influence from the Lord that he does good.  But as man believes that whatever he does, he does from himself, the consequence is that the evil which he does adheres to him as his own.  It hence follows that the cause of his own evil lies with man, and not at all with the Lord.  Evil as existing with man is hell, as existing with him:  for whether you say evil or hell, amounts to the same thing.  Now since the cause of his own evil lies with man himself, it follows that it is he who casts himself into hell, and not the Lord; and so far is the Lord from leading man into hell, that he delivers from hell, so far as the man does not will and loves to abide in his own evil.  But the whole of man’s will and love remains with him after death:  whoever wills and loves evil in the world, wills and loves the same evil in the other life; and he then no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it.  It hence results, that the man who is immersed in evil is connected by invisible bonds with hell:  he is also actually there as to his spirit; and, after death, he desires nothing more earnestly than to be where his evil is.

From an inspection of the monstrous forms belonging to the spirits in the hells, it was made evident to me that they all, in general, are forms of self-love and the love of the world, and that the evils, of which in particular they are the forms, derive their origin from those two loves.  It has also been told me from heaven, and proved to me by much experimental evidence, that those two loves—­self-love and the love of the world—­reign in the hells and also constitute them; whereas love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour reign in the heavens and also constitute them:  and that the two former loves, which are the loves of hell, and the two latter, which are the loves of heaven, are diametrically opposite to each other.

As by the fire of hell is to be understood all the lust of doing evil flowing from self-love, by the same is also meant torment, such as exists in the hells.  For the lust flowing from that love is, in those who are inflamed by it, the lust of doing injury to all who do not honour, respect, and pay court to them; and in proportion to the anger which they thence conceive against such individuals, and to the hatred and revenge inspired by such anger, is their lust of committing outrages against them.  Now when such a lust rages in everyone in a society, and they have no external bond to keep them under restraint, such as the fear of the law, and of the loss of character, of honour, of gain, and of the like, everyone under the influence of his own evil attracts another and, so far as he is strong enough, subjugates him, subjects the rest to his own authority, and exercises ferocious outrages with delight upon all who do not submit to him.  All the hells are societies of this description:  on which account, every spirit, and every society, cherishes hatred in his heart against every other, and, under the influence of such hatred, breaks out into savage outrages against him, as far as he is able to inflict them.  These outrages, and the torments so occasioned, are also meant by hell fire; for they are the effects of the lusts which there prevail.