em, and
they are brought into the evils of their life and the falsities of
their evil, and are thus prepared for hell. [7] For no one enters
hell until he is in his own evil and the falsities of evil, since no
one is permitted there to have a divided mind, that is, to think and
speak one thing and to will another. Every evil spirit there must
think what is false from evil, and speak from the falsity of evil, in
both respects from the will, thus from his own essential love and its
delight and pleasure, in the same way that he thought while in the
world when he was in his spirit, that is, in the same way as he
thought in himself when he thought from interior affection. The
reason is that the will is the man himself, and not the thought
except so far as it partakes of the will, the will being the very
nature itself or disposition of the man. Therefore man's being let
into his will is being let into his nature or disposition, and
likewise into his life; for by his life man puts on a nature; and
after death he continues to be such as the nature is that he has
acquired by his life in the world; and with the evil this nature can
no longer be amended and changed by means of the thought or by the
understanding of truth.

509. When evil spirits are in this second state, as they rush into
evils of every kind they are subjected to frequent and grievous
punishments. In the world of spirits there are many kinds of
punishment; and there is no regard for person, whether one had been
in the world a king or a servant. Every evil carries its punishment
with it, the two making one; therefore whoever is in evil is also in
the punishment of evil. And yet no one in the other world suffers
punishment on account of the evils that he had done in this world,
but only on account of the evils that he then does; although it
amounts to the same and is the same thing whether it be said that men
suffer punishment on account of their evils in the world or that they
suffer punishment on account of the evils they do in the other life,
since everyone after death returns into his own life and thus into
like evils; and the man continues the same as he had been in the life
of the body (n. 470-484). Men are punished for the reason that the
fear of punishment is the sole means of subduing evils in this state.
Exhortation is no longer of any avail, neither is instruction or fear
of the law and of the loss of reputation, since everyone then acts
from his natu