6036. HELLS SEEN [BY ME]. Vice-President* Hjarne wished to see some one in hell; which also was permitted. He entered the first. In that one there was, as it were, a flaminess. Candles appeared to him; and this because those ones were in self-love. Thence he entered a second, where appeared those who are black there - a charred blackness. From thence he entered a third, and in that they seemed like persons buried in shrouds. They appeared pallid, like the dead. He asked them if they were dead. They said that to themselves they appear to be alive, but that they are such to the eyes of others. It was similar in the former hells: those there appear to one another like men, but in the light of heaven such as described. (4.) He afterwards went through a long void, and came to a cave, where they did not see any [spirits]. They were invisible like flying specters. They were those who were able to cast themselves out into other places by means of phantasies. When he came to the end of the cave, he looked back and saw them sitting. Some were old men with beards; some with a face nothing but beard; and others were deformed after other fashions. He spoke a few words with them. From this, 5thly, he proceeded into another hell, where appeared, as it were, a horrid fieriness, and those there, as it were on fire; and they were such as were, from simulated affection, able to put on various affections, and at the same time to represent various things by phantasies - as, for instance, useful and elegant articles; but, as they went to excess with the phantasy, they were affected with weariness at presenting these things any further. In this [hell] was Er[ic] Benzel[ius]. And after this he [i.e., Vice-President Hjarne] was gone, [and] came forth into daylight. * "Vice-President" of the College of Mines. Hjarne held this post at the time of Swedenborg's appointment as "Assessor," in 1716, and for some years afterwards. -TR.