4792. As food and nourishment correspond to spiritual food and nourishment, therefore taste corresponds to the perception and affection of this food. Spiritual food is knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, for from these, spirits and angels live and are nourished, and they desire and have appetite for them just as men who are hungry desire and have appetite for food. Hence appetite corresponds to this desire. And wonderful to say, from this food they grow to maturity; for little children who die appear in the other life no otherwise than as little children, and also are such as to understanding; but as they increase in intelligence and wisdom, they appear not as little children, but as advancing in age, and at last as adults. I have conversed with some who had died in infancy, and were seen by me as young men, because they were then intelligent. From this it is evident what spiritual food and nourishment are.

123. Since the Lord appears in heaven like a Sun by reason of the Divine love which is in Him and from Him, so all in the heavens turn constantly towards Him, those in the celestial kingdom to Him as a Sun, those in the spiritual kingdom to Him as a Moon. But those in hell turn towards the dense blackness and darkness which are in the opposite direction, that is, they turn backwards, away from the Lord, the reason being that all in the hells are in the love of self and of the world, thus opposed to the Lord. Those who turn to the dense darkness, that is, in the place where this world's sun is, are in the hells behind, and are called genii; while those who turn to the darkness, that is, in the place of the moon, are in hells in front and are called spirits. This is why those in the hells are said to be in darkness, and those in the heavens in light. "Darkness" signifies falsity from evil, and "light", truth from good. They turn in that way because all in the other life look towards the things that rule in their interiors, thus to their loves, and it is the interiors that make the face of an angel or spirit. In the spiritual world, also, there are no fixed quarters, as in the natural world, but it is the face that determines them. Man also, in respect of his spirit, turns in the same way as a spirit does, backwards from the Lord, if he is in the love of self and of the world, and towards the Lord if he is in love to Him and the neighbour. But man does not know this, because he is in the natural world where the quarters are fixed according to the rising and setting of the sun. But, as this cannot be easily comprehended by man, it will be elucidated in subsequent sections which will treat of Quarters, Space, and Time in Heaven.