54. It can in no case be said that heaven is outside anyone; it is within him. For it is in accordance with the heaven that is within him that every angel receives the heaven that is outside him. This makes clear how greatly deceived is he who believes that to come into heaven is simply to be taken up among angels, whatever he may be as to his interior life, thus that heaven is granted to each one by immediate (immediata) mercy, when in fact, unless heaven is within anyone, nothing of the heaven that is outside inflows and is received. There are many spirits who are of this opinion. Because of this belief they were taken up into heaven; but their interior life being contrary to the life in which angels are, they began to be blinded as to their intellectual faculties when they came there, until they became like fools, and they began to be tortured in their voluntary faculties until they behaved like madmen. In a word, those who live wickedly and come into heaven gasp for breath and writhe about just like fish out of water in the air, or like animals in the ether in an air-pump when the air has been exhausted. From this it can be confirmed that heaven is within and not outside anyone.# # Heaven is not granted from immediate mercy, but according to the life; and the all of that life, by which man is led of the Lord to heaven, is from mercy, and this is the meaning of mercy (n. 5057, 10659). If heaven were granted from immediate mercy, it would be granted to all (n. 2401). Concerning some evil spirits cast down from heaven, who believed that heaven was granted to anyone from immediate mercy (n. 4226). Heaven is in man (n. 3884).