A "house" is essentially a container -- for a person, a family, several families or even a large group with shared interests (think of the term "houses of worship.") In the Bible, a "house" is also a container, but for spiritual things rather than natural things. In various uses a "house" can represent part of the mind, the whole mind, a whole person or even a church. The other nuance to the word "house" is that it is generally used in regards to our affections and desires rather than our thoughts and principles. This makes sense; we tend to engage our thoughts and rationality when we are out in the world doing our work, but when we are inside our houses we are driven most by love for our families and the desire to be good to those we love. So "house" tends to represent the things we want and care about -- which are ultimately the things that define us.

563. His name in the Hebrew Abaddon, and in the Greek he hath the name Apollyon, signifies the quality of that influx, that it is destructive of all truth and good. This is evident from the signification of "name" ¹ as meaning the quality of a state and of a thing (See above, n. 148); also from the meaning of Abaddon in the Hebrew, which is destruction; Apollyon has the like meaning in the Greek; consequently the destruction of truth and good is meant, because these are treated of. The sensual of man, which is the ultimate of his intellectual life, is destructive of all spiritual truth and good, which is the truth and good of the church, because that sensual stands nearest to the world and clings most closely to the body; and from both these it has affections and consequent thoughts, which viewed in themselves are diametrically contrary to spiritual affections and the consequent thoughts, which are from heaven. For man from that sensual loves himself and the world above all things, and so far as these loves are dominant, so far evils and falsities from them are dominant, for evils and falsities swarm forth and flow out from these loves as from their origins. In such loves are all who have become merely sensual through evils of life and falsities therefrom.

This anyone can see from the faculty to understand that everyone possesses; for if that which stands nearest to the world and clings most closely to the body is dominant it follows that the world itself and the body itself, with all their pleasures and lusts, which are called pleasures "of the eye and of the flesh," will be dominant, and that man in order that he may come into spiritual affections and thoughts therefrom must be entirely withdrawn and elevated from these sensual things. This withdrawing and elevation are effected by the Lord alone, so far as man suffers himself, of the Lord, to be led to the Lord, and thus to heaven, by the laws of order which are the truths and goods of the church. When this takes place, as often as man is in a spiritual state he withdraws from this ultimate sensual and is kept elevated above it; and this also for the reason that this sensual in men is altogether corrupted, for in it is what is one's own (proprium) into which everyone is born, which in itself is nothing but evil. From this it can be seen why this sensual is called destruction, that is, "Abaddon" and "Apollyon. "

[2] It is to be known, that there are three degrees of life with every man, an inmost, a middle, and an ultimate; and that man becomes more perfect, that is, wiser, as he becomes more interior, because he thus comes so much the more interiorly into the light of heaven; also that man becomes more imperfect, that is, less wise, as he becomes more exterior, because he thus draws so much nearer to the light of the world and so much farther away from the light of heaven. From this it can be seen what is the quality of the merely sensual man who sees nothing from the light of heaven but solely from the light of the world, namely, that all things belonging to the world are to him in light and splendor, and all things belonging to heaven are in darkness and thick darkness; and when these are in darkness and in thick darkness, and the former in light and splendor, it follows that the only fire of life or the only love that incites and leads is the love of self, and the consequent love of all evils, and that the only light of life that touches and instructs the sight of the thought is that which favors the evils that are loved, and such are the falsities of evil. From this it can be seen of what quality the merely sensual man is, which is treated of thus far in this chapter.

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