698. In addition to the hells there are also vastations, about which much is stated in the Word. For a person brings with him into the next life, as the result of sins of his own doing, countless evils and falsities which he accumulates and couples to himself. Even people who have led upright lives do so. Before these can be raised up into heaven their evils and falsities must be dispersed, and this dispersing is called vastation. There are many kinds of vastation, and the time they last may be quite long or quite short. Some people are taken off to heaven within a fairly short period of time, some immediately after death.