261.  From this it is obvious that when the spiritual mind is closed the natural mind continually acts against the things of the spiritual mind, fearing lest anything should flow in therefrom to disturb its own states.  Everything that flows in through the spiritual mind is from heaven, for the spiritual mind in its form is a heaven; while everything that flows into the natural mind is from the world, for the natural mind in its form is a world.  From which it follows that when the spiritual mind is closed, the natural mind reacts against all things of heaven, giving them no admission except so far as they are serviceable to it as means for acquiring and possessing the things of the world.  And when the things of heaven are made to serve the natural mind as means to its own ends, then those means, though they seem to be heavenly, are made natural; for the end qualifies them, and they become like the knowledges of the natural man, in which interiorly there is nothing of life.  But as things heavenly cannot be so joined to things natural that the two act as one, they separate, and, with men merely natural, things heavenly arrange themselves from without, in a circuit about the natural things which are within.  From this it is that a merely natural man can speak and preach about heavenly things, and even simulate them in his actions, though inwardly he thinks against them; the latter he does when alone, the former when in company.  But of these things more in what follows.

262.  By virtue of the reaction which is in him from birth the natural mind, or man, when he loves himself and the world above all things, acts against the things that are of the spiritual mind or man.  Then also he has a sense of enjoyment in evils of every kind, as adultery, fraud, revenge, blasphemy, and other like things; he then also acknowledges nature as the creator of the universe; and confirms all things by means of his rational faculty; and after confirmation he either perverts or suffocates or repels the goods and truths of heaven and the church, and at length either shuns them or turns his back upon them or hates them.  This he does in his spirit, and in the body just so far as he dares to speak with others from his spirit without fear of the loss of reputation as a means to honor and gain.  When man is such, he gradually shuts up the spiritual mind closer and closer.  Confirmations of evil by means of falsities especially close it up; therefore evil and falsity when confirmed cannot be uprooted after death; they are only uprooted by means of repentance in the world.

263.  But when the spiritual mind is open the state of the natural mind is wholly different.  Then the natural mind is arranged in compliance with the spiritual mind, and is subordinated to it.  For the spiritual mind acts upon the natural mind from above or within, and removes the things therein that react, and adapts to itself those that act in harmony with itself, whereby the excessive reaction