551. ALL WHO ARE IN THE HELLS ARE IN EVILS AND IN FALSITIES THEREFROM DERIVED FROM THE LOVES OF SELF AND OF THE WORLD.
All who are in the hells are in evils and in falsities therefrom, and no one there is in evils and at the same time in truths. In the world evil men for the most part have some knowledge of spiritual truths, which are the truths of the church, having been taught them from childhood and later by preaching and by reading the Word; and afterwards they have talked about them. Some have even led others to believe that they are Christians at heart because of their knowing how to talk with pretended affection in harmony with the truth, also how to act uprightly as if from spiritual faith. But those of this class whose interior thoughts have been hostile to these truths, and who have refrained from doing the evils that were in harmony with their thoughts only because of the civil laws, or with a view to reputation, honors, and gain, are all of them evil in heart, and are in truths and goods not in respect to their spirit but only in respect to their body; and consequently, when their externals are taken away from them in the other life, and their internals which pertain to their spirit are revealed, they are wholly in evils and falsities, and not at all in truths and goods; and it is thus made clear that truths and goods resided only in their memory merely as things known about, and that they brought them forth therefrom when talking, putting on a semblance of good seemingly from spiritual love and faith. When such are let into their internals and thus into their evils they are no longer able to speak what is true, but only what is false; since they speak from evils; for to speak what is true from evils is then impossible, since the spirit is nothing but his own evil, and from evil what is false goes forth. Every evil spirit is reduced to this state before he is cast into hell (see above, n. 499-512). This is called being vastated in respect to truths and goods.# Vastation is simply being let into one's internals, that is, into what is the spirit's own, or into the spirit itself (see above, n. 425).
# Before the evil are cast down into hell they are devastated of truths and goods, and when these have been taken away they are of themselves carried into hell (n. 6977, 7039, 7795, 8210, 8232, 9330).
The Lord does not devastate them, but they devastate themselves (n. 7643, 7926).
Every evil has in it what is false; therefore those who are in evil are also in falsity, although some do not know it (n. 7577, 8094).
Those who are in evil must needs think what is false when they think from themselves (n. 7437).
All who are in hell speak falsities from hell (n. 1695, 7351, 7352, 7357, 7392, 7689).
