7408. 'And they gathered them into heaps [upon] heaps' means that those false reasonings were arranged into bundles in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'being gathered into heaps [upon] heaps' as being arranged into bundles. Those reasonings are 'gathered into heaps' because all the contents of a person's mind have been arranged into series, and into bundles so to speak, and then into series within series, or bundles within bundles, see 5339, 5530, 5881. The fact that they are arranged in this kind of way is evident from the way that all things are arranged within the body. There fibres can be seen arranged into bundles, and glands into clusters. This arrangement exists everywhere within the body, and in a much more perfect manner with the more refined substances that are not visible to the naked eye. That bundling allows itself to be seen especially in the brain, in the two substances there, one of which is called cortical, the other medullary; and it exists no less with those more refined substances, and lastly the most refined, where the forms that receive them are the actual forms receptive of life.

[2] The fact that forms or substances are receptive of life may be recognized from every detail to be observed in living things. It may also be recognized that recipient forms or substances are arranged or structured in the most appropriate way for the inflow of life. If life were not received by substances, that is, forms, there could be no living thing in the natural world, nor any in the spiritual world. Series of extremely fine threads, resembling bundles, are what constitute those forms. They likewise are receptive of life, and within those forms undergo perfect modification. For modifications depend on the forms, that is, substances, in which they occur and from which they arise; for the substances or forms determine what the modifications shall be. The reason why the learned have come to envisage the things that constitute a person's life - the contents of his thought and will, for example - as entities without recipient substances or forms is that they have come to believe that life or the soul is either something flame-like or something air-like, and so the kind of thing that will be dispersed after death. This accounts for the insane notion of a large number of them that there is no life after death. From all this one may see how to understand the explanation that the false reasonings were arranged into bundles in the natural.

5530. 'That behold, each man's bundle of silver' means truths in ordered groups freely given. This is clear from the meaning of 'bundle' as an ordered group, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2954 - 'each man's in his sack' meaning that the ordered groups were freely given. The reason why 'bundle' means an ordered group is that the truths present with a person are arranged and ordered into sequences. The truths most in harmony with his loves lie in the middle; ones less in harmony with his loves lie immediately around those in the middle, while truths that are not at all in harmony with his loves lie pushed back to the peripheries. And lying outside that whole sequence are those which are contrary to his loves. The truths in the middle are therefore called kindred ones since love is the creator of kinship; those that are more remote are called associated ones, extending to and ending with associates that are on the fringes. All the truths present with a person are arranged into sequences like this and are meant by 'bundles'.

[2] From this one may see quite clearly what the situation is with those governed by self-love and love of the world and what it is with those governed by love to God and towards their neighbour. With people governed by self-love and love of the world the kinds of truths that lend support to these loves are in the middle, while those giving them little support are on the peripheries, and those contrary to them, such as truths to do with loving God and loving their neighbour, are cast to the outside. Such is the state of those in hell. This also explains why sometimes a band of light is seen around them; but inside this band where they themselves are, there exists a dark, gruesome, and horrible centre. With angels however there is a radiance at the centre, fuelled by the good of celestial and spiritual love, with a band of light or shining whiteness clothing it round about. Those who appear like this are likenesses of the Lord, for when He Himself revealed His Divinity to Peter, James, and John, He shone with His face like the sun, and His garments became like the light, Matthew 17:2. The fact that angels, who are likenesses of Him, are seen in a radiance with a surrounding whiteness is evident from the angel who came down from heaven and rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb,

His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. Matthew 28:3.