the hells, love of self and love of the world constitute the inmost degree.  In the heavens, wisdom and intelligence, springing from their loves, constitute the middle degree; in the hells folly and insanity, springing from their loves and appearing like wisdom and intelligence, constitute the middle degree.  In the heavens, the results from the two other degrees, either laid up in the memory as knowledges, or determined into actions in the body, constitute the lowest degree; in the hells, the results from the two other degrees, which have become either knowledges or acts, constitute the outermost degree.  How the goods and truths of heaven are turned, in the hells, into evils and falsities, thus into what is opposite, may be seen from this experience:  I heard that a certain Divine truth flowed down out of heaven into hell, and that in its descent by degrees it was converted on the way into what is false, until at the lowest hell, it became the exact opposite of that truth; from which it was manifest that the hells according to degrees are in opposition to the heavens in regard to all goods and truths, these becoming evils and falsities by influx into forms turned the reverse way; for all inflowing, it is well known, is perceived and felt according to recipient forms and their states.  This conversion into the opposite was made further evident to me from this experience:  it was granted me to see the hells as they are placed relatively to the heavens; and those who were there appeared inverted, the head downward and the feet upward; but it was said that they nevertheless appear to themselves to be upright on their feet; comparatively like the antipodes.  By these evidences from experience, it can be seen that the three degrees of the natural mind, which is a hell in form and image, are opposite to the three degrees of the spiritual mind which is a heaven in form and image.

276. (4) The natural mind that is a hell is in complete opposition to the spiritual mind which is a heaven.  When the loves are opposite all things of perception become opposites; for out of love, which makes the very life of man, everything else flows like streams from their source; the things not from that source separating in the natural mind from those which are.  Whatever springs from man’s reigning love is in the middle, and other things are at the sides.  If these latter are truths of the church from the Word, they are transferred from the middle further away to the sides, and are finally exterminated; and then the man, that is, the natural mind, perceives evil as good, and sees falsity as truth; and conversely.  This is why he believes perfidy to be wisdom, insanity to be intelligence, cunning to be prudence, and evil devices to be ingenuity; moreover, he makes nothing of Divine and heavenly things pertaining to the church and worship, while he regards bodily and worldly things as of the greatest worth.  He thus inverts the state of his life, making what is of the head to be of the sole of the foot, and trampling upon it; and making what is of the sole of the foot to be of the head.  Thus from being alive he becomes dead.  One is said to be alive whose mind is a heaven, and one is said to be dead whose mind is a hell.