9606. Upon the edge of the one curtain at the extremity in the joining. That this signifies the conjunction of one sphere with the other, is evident from the signification of “the edge of a curtain at the extremity in the joining,” as being where one ceases and the other begins, and thus the common boundary where the two are joined together. That the sphere is what is signified is because in heaven spheres conjoin. For there are spheres which proceed from each angelic society in heaven, and from each angel in a society. These spheres, with everyone, exhale from the life of the affections of truth and of good, and are thence diffused to a distance. From this it is that the quality of spirits and of angels is known at a distance. Angels and angelic societies are conjoined, and are also disjoined, in accordance with these spheres; for similar spheres, that is, similar affections of truth and good, conjoin; and dissimilar spheres disjoin. (But see what has been already shown concerning these spheres in n. 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504-1520, 1695, 2401, 2489, 4464, 5179, 6206, 6598-6613, 7454, 8630, 8794, 8797, 9490-9492, 9498, 9534.) Whether you say angels and angelic societies, from which the spheres proceed, or truth and good, it is the same; for the spheres are from the affections of truth and good, by virtue of which angels are angels from the Lord. Be it known that insofar as these spheres derive anything from the Lord, so far they conjoin; but insofar as they derive it from the angel’s own, so far they disjoin. From this it is evident that the Lord alone conjoins.

6206. Be it further known that all evil flows in from hell, and all good through heaven from the Lord. But the reason why evil is appropriated to a man is that he believes and persuades himself that he thinks and does it from himself, and in this way makes it his own. If he believed as is really the case, then evil would not be appropriated to him, but good from the Lord would be appropriated to him; for the moment that evil flowed in, he would reflect that it was from the evil spirits with him, and as soon as he thought this, the angels would avert and reject it. For the influx of the angels is into what a man knows and believes, but not into what a man does not know and does not believe; for their influx is not fixed anywhere except where there is something appertaining to the man.

[2] When a man appropriates evil to himself in this way, he gets for himself a sphere of that evil, which sphere is that to which those spirits from hell adjoin themselves who are in the sphere of a like evil; for like is conjoined with like. The spiritual sphere with a man or a spirit is an exhalation flowing forth from the life of his loves, from which his quality is known at a distance. All in the other life are conjoined together in accordance with the spheres, and so also are the societies one with another; and according to their spheres they are also dissociated, for opposite spheres come into collision, and mutually repel each other. Therefore the spheres of the loves of evil are all in hell, and the spheres of the loves of good are all in heaven; that is, they who are in these spheres.