see the hells as they
are placed relatively to the heavens; and those who were there appeared
inverted, the head downward and the feet upward; but it was said that
they nevertheless appear to themselves to be upright on their feet;
comparatively like the antipodes. By these evidences from experience,
it can be seen that the three degrees of the natural mind, which is a
hell in form and image, are opposite to the three degrees of the spiritual
mind which is a heaven in form and image.

276. (4) The natural mind that is a hell is in complete opposition to
the spiritual mind which is a heaven. When the loves are opposite all
things of perception become opposites; for out of love, which makes the
very life of man, everything else flows like streams from their source;
the things not from that source separating in the natural mind from those
which are. Whatever springs from man's reigning love is in the middle,
and other things are at the sides. If these latter are truths of the
church from the Word, they are transferred from the middle further away
to the sides, and are finally exterminated; and then the man, that is,
the natural mind, perceives evil as good, and sees falsity as truth; and
conversely. This is why he believes perfidy to be wisdom, insanity to be
intelligence, cunning to be prudence, and evil devices to be ingenuity;
moreover, he makes nothing of Divine and heavenly things pertaining to
the church and worship, while he regards bodily and worldly things as of
the greatest worth. He thus inverts the state of his life, making what
is of the head to be of the sole of the foot, and trampling upon it; and
making what is of the sole of the foot to be of the head. Thus from being
alive he becomes dead. One is said to be alive whose mind is a heaven,
and one is said to be dead whose mind is a hell.

277. ALL THINGS OF THE THREE DEGREES OF THE NATURAL MIND ARE INCLUDED
IN THE DEEDS THAT ARE DONE BY THE ACTS OF THE BODY.

By the knowledge of degrees, which is set forth in this Part, the
following arcanum is disclosed: all things of the mind, that is, of the
will and understanding of man, are in his acts or deeds, included
therein very much as things visible and invisible are in a seed or
fruit or egg. Acts or deeds by themselves appear outwardly as these do,
but in their internals there are things innumerable, such as the
concurring forces of the motor fibers of the whole body and all things
of the mind that excite and