205. The content of each single verse has to do with a particular state or else change of state within the Church. The initial verses describe how they still perceived that such a course of action was forbidden even though they had an inclination towards it. The two present verses describe how they began to doubt whether it was forbidden them, since they would in that way see whether the things they had heard from the people of earliest times were true, and in that way their eyes would be opened. These two verses finally describe how, since self-love began to reign with them, they were able to be their own guides and so be like the Lord. It is characteristic of self-love that people do not wish to be led from the Lord but from themselves. And when this is so people rely in matters of belief on sensory evidence and factual knowledge.

294. I also need to describe the nature of the communication of heaven with good spirits, the nature of the communication of hell with evil spirits, and the nature of the consequent union of heaven and hell with us. All the spirits who are in the world of spirits are in communication with heaven or with hell, the evil ones with hell and the good ones with heaven. Heaven is differentiated into communities, and so is hell. Every spirit is a member of some community, is sustained by an inflow from it, and therefore acts in harmony with it. This is why we are united with heaven or hell just as we are united with spirits. We are actually united to some community there, the community we belong to in respect to our affection or our love; for all heaven's communities are differentiated according to their affections for what is good and true and all hell's communities according to their affections for what is evil and false (on heaven's communities, see above, 41-45, 148-151).