them no
admission except so far as they are serviceable to it as means for
acquiring and possessing the things of the world. And when the things
of heaven are made to serve the natural mind as means to its own ends,
then those means, though they seem to be heavenly, are made natural; for
the end qualifies them, and they become like the knowledges of the
natural man, in which interiorly there is nothing of life. But as things
heavenly cannot be so joined to things natural that the two act as one,
they separate, and, with men merely natural, things heavenly arrange
themselves from without, in a circuit about the natural things which are
within. From this it is that a merely natural man can speak and preach
about heavenly things, and even simulate them in his actions, though
inwardly he thinks against them; the latter he does when alone, the
former when in company. But of these things more in what follows.

262. By virtue of the reaction which is in him from birth the natural
mind, or man, when he loves himself and the world above all things, acts
against the things that are of the spiritual mind or man. Then also he
has a sense of enjoyment in evils of every kind, as adultery, fraud,
revenge, blasphemy, and other like things; he then also acknowledges
nature as the creator of the universe; and confirms all things by means
of his rational faculty; and after confirmation he either perverts or
suffocates or repels the goods and truths of heaven and the church, and
at length either shuns them or turns his back upon them or hates them.
This he does in his spirit, and in the body just so far as he dares to
speak with others from his spirit without fear of the loss of reputation
as a means to honor and gain. When man is such, he gradually shuts up
the spiritual mind closer and closer. Confirmations of evil by means of
falsities especially close it up; therefore evil and falsity when
confirmed cannot be uprooted after death; they are only uprooted by means
of repentance in the world.

263. But when the spiritual mind is open the state of the natural mind
is wholly different. Then the natural mind is arranged in compliance
with the spiritual mind, and is subordinated to it. For the spiritual
mind acts upon the natural mind from above or within, and removes the
things therein that react, and adapts to itself those that act in harmony
with itself, whereby the excessive reaction is gradually taken away. It
is to be noted, that in t