6203. The influx of evil from hell arises in the following way: When a person plunges himself into some evil - first because he gives in to it, then because he deliberately intends it, and finally because he loves and delights in it - the hell where that kind of evil reigns is opened; for evils and all their variations give rise to each distinction that marks off one hell from all the others. After it has been opened an influx from that hell also takes place. ¹ If a person embarks on evil in that way it clings to him, for the hell whose sphere now surrounds him finds in him the same delight as is their own when immersed in their own kind of evil. This being so, that hell does not give up but stubbornly persists in causing the person to think about that evil - first of all now and again, then as often as anything related comes along, till at length it becomes what governs him all the time. When this happens he looks around for ideas such as will support the notion that the thing is not an evil, until he becomes thoroughly convinced it is not. At this point he strives so far as he can to get rid of external restraints and to make it allowable and smart, and at length even attractive and honourable, to engage in adulterous practices, theft involving trickery and deceit, various forms of arrogance and boasting, contempt for others, insults, persecution carried on under a cloak of righteousness, and other things like these. They are like blatant thefts which a person cannot refrain from committing once he has deliberately engaged in two or three; for they cling constantly to his thinking.

Footnotes: