571. Because hellfire means the urge to do the evils prompted by love for oneself and the world, and because this kind of urge is characteristic of everyone in hell (see the preceding chapter), when the hells are opened one sees the kind of smoky fire you get in conflagrations. An intense fire rises from the hells where love for oneself rules, and a flickering one from the hells where love of the world rules.

When the hells are closed, though, this fire is not visible. Instead, there is something dark, as though made from thickened smoke. Still, that fire is raging inside, as you can tell from the radiating heat. It is like the heat of ruins after a conflagration, or in some instances like the heat of an active furnace, or in others like that of a hot bath. When this heat flows into us it rouses our cravings - hatred and vengefulness in evil people, and dementia in the ill.

This kind of fire or heat is characteristic of people who are engrossed in the aforementioned loves because in spirit they are in touch with these hells even while they are still living in their bodies.

It does need to be known, though, that the people in the hells are not actually in fire. The fire is an appearance. They do not actually feel any burning, only the kind of warmth they knew in the world. The reason there seems to be fire is correspondence, since love corresponds to fire, and everything we see in the spiritual world has its visible form from its correspondence.