598. The reason we cannot be reformed unless we have some freedom is that we are born into evils of all kinds, evils which need to be taken away if we are to be saved. They cannot be taken away unless we see them within ourselves, admit that they are there, then refuse them and ultimately turn away from them. Only then are they taken away. This cannot happen unless we are exposed to both good and evil, since it is from good that we can see evils, though we cannot see what is good from evil. We learn the good spiritual things we can think from infancy from the reading of the Word and from sermons. We learn the moral and civic values from our life in the world. This is the primary reason we need to be in freedom.

[2] The second reason is that nothing becomes part of us except as a result of some affection of love. True, other things can enter us, but no deeper than into our thought, not into our volition; and anything that does not enter our volition is not ours. This is because thinking is derived from our memory, while volition is derived from our life itself. Nothing is ever free unless it comes from our volition, or what amounts to the same thing, from a particular affection that stems from our love. Whatever we intend or love, we do freely. This is why our freedom and the affection of our love or intentions are one. So we also have freedom in order to be able to be moved by what is true and good, or to love them, so that they do become part of us.

[3] In a word, anything that does not enter us in freedom does not stay with us, because it does not belong to our love or intentions; and anything that does not belong to our love or intentions does not belong to our spirit. The actual reality of our spirit is love or volition - using the phrase "love or volition" because whatever we love, we intend. This is why we cannot be reformed except in a state of freedom.

But there is more on our freedom in the extracts from Secrets of Heaven below.

42. The case is the same with love and wisdom, the only difference being that the substances and forms which constitute love and wisdom are not visible to the eyes as the organs of the external senses are. But still, no one can deny that substances and forms constitute those elements of wisdom and love that are called thoughts, perceptions and affections, and that these are not aerial entities flying about or flowing out of nothing, or things abstracted from real and actual substance and form which are the subjects of which they are predicated. For the brain has in it countless substances and forms which are the seat of every interior sense connected with the intellect and will.

All affections, perceptions and thoughts in those substances and forms are not exhalations from them, but are actually and really subjects which emit nothing from them, but simply undergo changes of state in accordance with the incoming stimuli that affect them, as may be seen from the observations above regarding the outward senses. (Regarding the incoming stimuli that affect them, more will be said below.)