96.(a) The reason we are condemned if we convince ourselves of the Word’s semblances of truth and thereby destroy the inner genuine truth is that everything in the Word’s literal meaning is in communication with heaven and opens it (see the material in §§62-69 above). This means that when we use that meaning to justify worldly loves that conflict with heavenly loves, the inner content of the Word becomes false. As a result, when an outer (that is, literal) meaning whose inner content is false is communicated to heaven, then heaven is closed because the angels, who treasure the inner content of the Word, reject it. We can see from this that a false inner reading, or distorted truth, deprives us of communication with heaven and closes it. This is why we are condemned if we convince ourselves of some heretical falsity.

96.(b) The Word is like a garden that we should refer to as a heavenly paradise in which there are all kinds of delicacies and delights - delicacies in the form of fruits and delights in the form of flowers - with trees of life in the middle next to springs of living water. Surrounding this garden, though, are the trees of a forest. When our religious perspective is based on divine truths we are in the middle, where the trees of life are, and we actively enjoy their delicacies and delights. When our religious perspective is based not on truths but only on the [Word’s] literal meaning, then we are on the circumference and all we see is forest. If we are devoted to the teachings of a false religion and convince ourselves that its teachings are true, we are not even in the forest; we are outside it, on sand flats where there is not even any grass.

At some other time I will show that people actually do experience conditions like this after death.