151. The opposite holds for the people who are in the hells. The people there do not focus on the Lord as the sun or the moon, but look away from the Lord toward that dark object that occupies the place of our world's sun and the gloomy object that occupies the place of earth's moon. The ones called demons look toward the dark object in our sun's place, and the ones called spirits toward the gloomy object in our moon's place. ¹ As explained in 122 above, the sun of our world and earth's moon are not visible in the spiritual world, but in place of our sun there is something dark opposite heaven's sun and something gloomy opposite heaven's moon. This means that hell's inhabitants have directions opposite to those of heaven. Their east is where they see that dark or gloomy object and their west is where heaven's sun is. Their south is to their right and their north to their left, no matter which way they turn their bodies. Nothing else is possible for them, because the whole tendency of their deeper natures, their whole orientation therefore, aims and strives in this direction. On the fact that love is what determines the tendency of our deeper natures and therefore the orientation of everyone's actions in the other life, see 143. The love of people in the hells is a love for oneself and for the world, these loves being what is meant by the sun of this world and earth's moon (see 122). Further, these loves are opposite to love for the Lord and love for one's neighbor. ² This is why they turn toward the darkness, away from the Lord.

The people who are in the hells also live arranged according to the cardinal directions. The ones who are obsessed with evils that arise from love for themselves are along the east-west axis, and the ones who are obsessed with falsifications for the sake of evil are along the south-north axis. There will be more about them later, though, where we discuss the hells.

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