results from the two other degrees, which have become either knowledges
or acts, constitute the outermost degree. How the goods and truths of
heaven are turned, in the hells, into evils and falsities, thus into what
is opposite, may be seen from this experience: I heard that a certain
Divine truth flowed down out of heaven into hell, and that in its descent
by degrees it was converted on the way into what is false, until at the
lowest hell, it became the exact opposite of that truth; from which it
was manifest that the hells according to degrees are in opposition to the
heavens in regard to all goods and truths, these becoming evils and
falsities by influx into forms turned the reverse way; for all inflowing,
it is well known, is perceived and felt according to recipient forms and
their states. This conversion into the opposite was made further evident
to me from this experience: it was granted me to 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,