423. And the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. This symbolically means that therefore the light of truth became thick darkness.

The sun and the air here symbolize the light of truth, for the sun symbolizes love, and the light from it, Divine truth. Consequently, when we are told that the sun was darkened, and with it the air, it symbolically means that Divine truth became thick darkness. That this resulted from falsities accompanying lusts is symbolically meant by its being because of the smoke of the pit.

6311. As has been stated, it is by that inferior light that hell sees, and it is by that light too that some people who are not so wicked see, that is to say, people who have not been avaricious, adulterers, or mere pleasure-seekers, but who have come to see by that light because they have not cultivated the rational degree of their mind. I have been allowed to see those spirits living in a kind of twilight. I saw them in a market-place, crowds of them, where they were bringing sacks containing raw materials; they were weighing them and carrying them away. Some sirens were not far away at that time, and I heard them saying that they wanted to be there because they could see people with their own eyes. For since sirens more than any others have been given to adultery and have also been opposed to everything celestial or spiritual, they are unable to see any other spirits except those who see by the inferior light of the senses. For the sirens themselves see by that kind of light.