AT THE END OF A CHURCH TOTAL DAMNATION IS THREATENING BOTH MANKIND ON EARTH AND THE ANGELS IN THE HEAVENS 1. Every man is in the equilibrium that is between heaven and hell, and on that account in freedom to look or to turn either towards heaven or towards hell. 2. Every man after death comes at first into this equilibrium, and so into a state of life similar to the one in which he was in the world. 3. Those who in the world had looked and turned towards heaven or towards hell look and turn in the same way after death. 4. At the end of a Church when the power of evil is prevailing over the power of good, this equilibrium is swollen and filled out by the wicked arriving like a flood from the world.* 5. The result is that the equilibrium is pushed up nearer and nearer to heaven and, according to its nearness to them, infests the angels there. 6. All who are within the raised equilibrium are interiorly infernal and exteriorly moral. 7. These, being of such a nature, are constantly endeavouring to destroy the heaven above them, doing so moreover by crafty methods derived from hell, with which in respect of their interiors, they make a one. 8. This is why at the end of a Church destruction and consequent damnation threaten angels in heaven also. 9. Unless a judgment is then effected, no man on earth could be saved nor could any angel in the heavens continue in his state of safety. * For a fuller description of this equilibrium between heaven and hell see Heaven and Hell, nos. 589-596. See also chapter ii above, no. 25.