Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/171

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speech and gestures. And because he is now in himself, he cannot abide elsewhere than among those who are like him. For in the spiritual world there is a communication of the affections and consequent thoughts in an endless variety of ways.

Therefore a spirit is conveyed to his like, as it were of himself, because he is led to them by his own affection and its delight. Indeed he even turns himself in that direction, for thus he inhales his own life, or draws his breath freely; but not when he turns himself in another direction.

It is to be remembered that communication with others in the spiritual world takes place according to the turning of the face, and that every one has continually before him those who are in similar love with himself; and this, too, whichever way the body is turned. Hence it is that all infernal spirits turn themselves backward from the Lord to the thick darkness; but all the angels turn themselves to the Lord as the sun and moon of heaven.


PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THOSE IN HELL.

All the spirits in hell when inspected in any degree of heavenly light, appear in the form of their own evil; for every one there is the effigy of his own evil, because with every one the interiors and exteriors act in unity,—the interiors exhibiting themselves visibly in the exteriors, which are the face, the