which tend to hell are shut, and when it descends, the higher degrees which tend to heaven are shut; for the reason that they are in reaction.  These three degrees, higher and lower, are neither open nor shut in man in earliest infancy, for he is then ignorant both of good and truth and of evil and falsity; but as he lets himself into one or the other, the degrees are opened and shut on the one side or the other.  When they are opened towards hell, the reigning love, which is of the will, obtains the highest or inmost place; the thought of the false, which is of the understanding from that love, obtains the second or middle place; and the result of the love through the thought, or of the will through the understanding, obtains the lowest place.  The same is true here as of degrees of height treated of above; they stand in order as end, cause, and effect, or as first end, middle end, and last end.  The descent of these degrees is towards the body, consequently in the descent they wax grosser, and become material and corporeal.  If truths from the Word are received in the second degree to form it, these truths are falsified by the first degree, which is the love of evil, and become servants and slaves.  From this it can be seen what the truths of the church from the Word become with those who are in the love of evil, or whose natural mind is in form a hell, namely, that they are profaned because they serve the devil as means; for the love of evil reigning in the natural mind that is a hell, is the devil, as was said above.

275. (3) The three degrees of the natural mind that is a form and image of hell, are opposite to the three degrees of the spiritual mind which is a form and image of heaven.  It has been shown above that there are three degrees of the mind, called natural, spiritual, and celestial, and that the human mind, made up of these degrees, looks towards heaven, and turns itself about in that direction.  From this it can be seen that the natural mind, looking downwards and turning itself about towards hell, is made up in like manner of three degrees, and that each degree of it is opposite to a degree of that mind which is a heaven.  That this is so has been made very clear to me by things seen in the spiritual world; namely, that there are three heavens, and these distinct according to three degrees of height; that there are three hells, and these also distinct according to three degrees of height or depth; that the hells are opposed to the heavens in each and every particular; also that the lowest hell is opposite to the highest heaven, and the middle hell to the middle heaven, and the uppermost hell to the lowest heaven.  It is the same with the natural mind that is in the form of hell; for spiritual forms are like themselves in things greatest and least.  The heavens and hells are thus opposite, because their loves are opposed.  In the heavens, love to the Lord, and consequent love to the neighbor, constitute the inmost degree; in