[AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTORY NOTE]

The HEAVENLY ARCANA - the matters in Sacred Scripture or the Word of the Lord that have been disclosed - stand in explanatory sections entitled THE INTERNAL SENSE OF THE WORD. As for the nature of that sense, see what has been presented on the subject from experience in 1767-1777, 1869-1879, and in addition in the main body of the work, in 1-5, 64-66, 167, 605, 920, 937, 1143, 1224, 1404, 1405, 1408, 1409, 1502 end, 1540, 1659, 1756, 1783, 1807.

The MARVELS -- things seen in the world of spirits and in the angelic heaven - have been placed in sections before and after each chapter. In this first volume the sections are:

1. Man's awakening from the dead and his entry into eternal life, 168-181.

2. The entry into eternal life of one who has been so awakened, 182-189.

3. Man's entry into eternal life - continued, 314-319.

4. The nature of the life of a soul or spirit at that time, 320-327.

5. Some examples of what certain spirits had thought during their lifetime about the soul or spirit, 443-448.

6. Heaven and heavenly joy, 449-459.

7. Heaven and heavenly joy - continued, 537-546.

8. Heaven and heavenly joy - continued, 547-553.

9. The communities that constitute heaven, 684-691.

10. Hell, 692-700.

11. The hells of people who have gone through life hating, desiring revenge, and being cruel, 814-823.

12. The hells of people who have gone through life committing adultery and acts of unrestrained lust; also the hells of deceivers and witches, 824-871.

13. The hells of the avaricious; then the filthy Jerusalem and the robbers in the desert. Also the utterly foul hells of people who have lived wholly engrossed in the pursuit of pleasures, 938-946.

14. Other hells that are different from those mentioned already, 947-970.

15. Vastations, 1106-1113.

[NCBSP editor's note: The table of contents for Volume 2 of this translation may be found in section 1114.]

824. CHAPTER 8

THE HELLS - continued

Here, the hells of people who have gone through life committing adultery and acts of unrestrained lust; also the hells of deceivers and witches.

Beneath the heel of the right foot there is a hell where there are people who have taken delight in being cruel and at the same time in committing adultery. They have felt in such behaviour the chief joy in their lives. It is a surprising fact that people who have been cruel during their lifetime have also been the worst adulterers. Such is the nature of the people who inhabit that hell. There they carry out acts of cruelty by unmentionable methods. By means of their delusions they make vessels for themselves resembling those in which herbs are crushed to bits, and also crushing instruments, with which they crush and torment whomever they can. They also so to speak make broad axes for themselves, like those used by executioners, and drilling tools as well, which they use mercilessly on one another, in addition to other dreadful acts of cruelty. In that place are some of the Jews who in the past treated gentiles in this cruel fashion. And today this hell is growing, chiefly from persons who belong to the so-called Christian world and who have found all the joy of life in committing adultery, and who too are for the most part cruel people. Sometimes their joy is converted into the stench of human excrement which is given off voluminously when this hell is opened up. I have smelt it in the world of spirits and have collapsed practically unconscious as a result of it. That foul stink of excrement by turns invades hell and then leaves off. It is the joy they take in committing adultery which is converted into so foul a stink. In the process of time, having spent a definite period of time with such things, they are left all alone, living in torment and becoming like hideous skeletons, though they are still living.