o man and
teach him and lead him until these evils have been removed? For they
obstruct, repel, pervert, and suffocate the truths and goods of heaven,
which present themselves from above, press down, and strive to flow in.
For evils are infernal and goods are heavenly, and everything infernal
burns with hatred against everything heavenly.

This makes clear that before the Lord can flow in with heaven out of
heaven and form man to the image of heaven, those evils that lie heaped
up in the natural mind must needs be removed. Moreover, as the removal
of evils must come first before man can be taught and led by the Lord,
the reason is evident why in eight commandments of the Decalogue the
evil works that must not be done are recounted, but not the good works
that must be done. Good does not exist together with evil, nor does it
exist until evils have been removed; for until then there is no way
possible from heaven into man. Man is like a dark sea, the waters of
which must be removed on either side before the Lord in a cloud and in
fire can give a passage to the sons of Israel. The "dark sea" signifies
hell, "Pharaoh with the Egyptians" the natural man, and "the sons of
Israel" the spiritual man. (A.E., n. 969.)

Communication with heaven is not possible until the evils and the
falsities therefrom with which the natural mind is stopped up have been
removed; for these are like black clouds between the sun and the eye, or
like a wall between the light of heaven and the lumen of a candle in a
chamber. For so long as a man is in the lumen of the natural man only he
is like one shut up in a chamber where he sees by a candle. But as soon
as the natural man has been purified from evils and falsities therefrom
he is as if he saw through windows in the wall the things of heaven from
the light of heaven. For as soon as evils have been removed, the higher
mind, which is called the spiritual mind, is opened, and this, viewed in
itself, is a type or image of heaven. Through this mind the Lord flows
in and enables man to see from the light of heaven, and through this He
also reforms and at length regenerates the natural man, and implants in
it truths in the place of falsities and goods in the place of evils.
This the Lord does through spiritual love, which is a love for truth and
good. Man is then placed in the midst between two loves, between the
love of evil and the love of good; and when the love of evil recedes the
love of g