This word comes from the Latin term 'vastatio' which means "laying waste", or "throwing away." It is sort of like weeding a garden or proofreading a manuscript. People who are generally good or heavenly usually have some bits of selfishness or evil clinging inside them. And after they have entered the spiritual world, but before they have been led to their heavenly home, the Lord leads them to discover these evil loves so that they can be removed off to the side and, so to speak, be walled in. Then that person (an angel now) can live on in heaven without ever being troubled with them again.
The same thing, but in reverse, can occur in someone who is mostly evil, but sometimes has dim memories of a bit of conscience, or fragments of a happy but now left behind love. These too can be sealed away, so that they won’t trouble that evil person in his/her home in hell.
In neither case is this a punishment, the removal is done only to make their chosen life more comfortable. Either the good and happy loves of heaven or the selfish and scary lusts of hell are then untroubled by what is opposite.
Another way that the term ‘vastation’ is used is when a church is dying. People are always looking for an easier way to do things, including getting to heaven. To do things that are good goes against some of our evil instincts. We would rather have a way that is more in line with our selfishness. So a few rote mutterings or simple actions once in a while that don’t interrupt our self-centered normal life are set up so we can ‘get to’ heaven’ without losing anything we really want. And when, according this program, people stop doing what is genuinely good, the Lord starts to remove those truths that formed the church but that are now out of style, so that they won't be profaned. They become worthless to the people of that church, and they are ‘laid waste’.
(Izinkomba: Arcana Coelestia 2959; Heaven and Hell 551-552)
