therefrom or to good and truth therefrom. [3] Therefore when he is in that equilibrium he is in freedom either to admit or accept evil and its falsity from hell or to admit or accept good and its truth from heaven.  Every man is held in this equilibrium by the Lord, because the Lord rules both heaven and hell.  But why man is held in this freedom by such an equilibrium, and why evil and falsity are not taken away from him and good and truth implanted in him by Divine power will be told hereafter in its own chapter.

538.  A perception of the sphere of falsity from evil that flows forth from hell has often been granted me.  It was like a perpetual effort to destroy all that is good and true, combined with anger and a kind of fury at not being able to do so, especially an effort to annihilate and destroy the Divine of the Lord, and this because all good and truth are from Him.  But out of heaven a sphere of truth from good was perceived, whereby the fury of the effort ascending from hell was restrained.  The result of this was an equilibrium.  This sphere from heaven was perceived to come from the Lord alone, although it appeared to come from the angels in heaven.  It is from the Lord alone, and not from the angels, because every angel in heaven acknowledges that nothing of good and of truth is from himself, but all is from the Lord.

539.  In the spiritual world truth from good is the source of all power, and falsity from evil has no power whatever.  This is because the Divine Itself in heaven is Divine good and Divine truth, and all power belongs to the Divine.  Falsity from evil is powerless because truth from good is the source of all power, and in falsity from evil there is nothing of truth from good.  Consequently in heaven there is all power, and none in hell; for everyone in heaven is in truths from good, and everyone in hell is in falsities from evil.  For no one is admitted into heaven until he is in truths from good, neither is any one cast down into hell until he is in falsities from evil, (That this is so can be seen in the chapters treating of the first, second, and third states of man after death, n. 491-520; and that all power belongs to truth from good can be seen in the chapter on the power of angels in heaven, n. 228-233.)

540.  Such, then, is the equilibrium between heaven and hell.  Those who are in the world of spirits are in that equilibrium, for the world of spirits is midway between heaven and hell.  From the same source all men in the world are kept in a like equilibrium, since men in the world are ruled by the Lord by means of spirits in the world of spirits, as will be shown hereafter in its own chapter.  No such equilibrium would be possible unless the Lord ruled both heaven and hell and regulated both sides.  Otherwise falsities from evil would preponderate, and would affect the simple good who are in the outmosts regions of heaven, and who can be more easily perverted than the angels themselves; and thereby equilibrium would perish, and with it freedom in men.