96.(a) The reason we are condemned if we convince ourselves of the Word’s semblances of truth and thereby destroy the inner genuine truth is that everything in the Word’s literal meaning is in communication with heaven and opens it (see the material in §§62-69 above). This means that when we use that meaning to justify worldly loves that conflict with heavenly loves, the inner content of the Word becomes false. As a result, when an outer (that is, literal) meaning whose inner content is false is communicated to heaven, then heaven is closed because the angels, who treasure the inner content of the Word, reject it. We can see from this that a false inner reading, or distorted truth, deprives us of communication with heaven and closes it. This is why we are condemned if we convince ourselves of some heretical falsity.

96.(b) The Word is like a garden that we should refer to as a heavenly paradise in which there are all kinds of delicacies and delights - delicacies in the form of fruits and delights in the form of flowers - with trees of life in the middle next to springs of living water. Surrounding this garden, though, are the trees of a forest. When our religious perspective is based on divine truths we are in the middle, where the trees of life are, and we actively enjoy their delicacies and delights. When our religious perspective is based not on truths but only on the [Word’s] literal meaning, then we are on the circumference and all we see is forest. If we are devoted to the teachings of a false religion and convince ourselves that its teachings are true, we are not even in the forest; we are outside it, on sand flats where there is not even any grass.

At some other time I will show that people actually do experience conditions like this after death.

541. And the sun was darkened, and the air, by the smoke of the pit, signifies that the light of truth from the Lord was made thick darkness by infernal falsities. This is evident from the signification of "the sun and the air darkened," as being the light of truth from the Lord being made thick darkness (of which presently) and from the signification of "by the smoke of the pit," as being by dense falsities from hell, thus by infernal falsities. (That "smoke" signifies dense falsities, and "the pit of the abyss" the hells where and from which are falsities, see above, n. 536-539.) "The sun and the air darkened" signifies that the light of truth from the Lord was made thick darkness, for the Lord in the angelic heaven is a sun, and Divine truth proceeding from the Lord as a sun produces all the light there, and illuminates both the sight and the understanding of angels; when therefore that sun is darkened there, the light of truth, which is from the Lord, is made thick darkness; it is darkened by falsities from hell. All denial of the Divine and of Divine things by those who are merely natural comes from falsities of evil making the light of heaven thick darkness; for such look at Divine things in thick darkness, and therefore they see them as thick darkness, and in consequence deny them. Moreover, the light of heaven when it flows in with those who are in the falsities of evil actually becomes in the spiritual world thick darkness. From this it is that the evil not only do not see or understand spiritual things, that is, the things that belong to heaven and the church, but in heart they deny them. (That the Lord appears in the angelic heaven as a sun, and that Divine truth proceeding from the Lord as a sun produces all the light of heaven, thus all the intelligence and wisdom the angels have, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell 116-125, and 126-140.) It is said also that the "air" was darkened, meaning the light of truth, for the air gives light from the sun. "Skies" [aetheres] have a similar signification in David:

Thy mercy O Jehovah, is in the heavens; and Thy truth is even unto the skies (Psalms 36:5; 57:10; 108:4).

"Mercy" signifies the Divine good of Divine love, and "truth" Divine truth; and as Divine truth is the light of heaven, as has just been said, it is said, "Thy truth is even unto the skies;" thus "skies" in the plural signify Divine light even to the highest heaven, where it is in the highest degree. ("Skies" have a similar signification in Psalms 77:17; Psalms 78:23, 24.)