12. Few people know what freedom is, and what is not freedom. Whatever is in agreement with anyone's love and the enjoyment of it seems to be freedom, and what opposes that love and the enjoyment of it does not seem free. What is in accord with the love of self and the love of the world, and with their lusts, appears to a man as freedom, but this is the freedom of hell. That which comes from love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, and so from the love of good and truth, is freedom indeed, and this is the freedom of heaven. Infernal spirits do not know of any liberty apart from the love of self and the world, for such liberty is their very life. If this is taken from them they are left with no more life than that of a new-born babe (see n. 7 above). Every such spirit is in that kind of freedom when as some miserable slave he is serving some devil or other, but, as soon as ever he ceases to serve, a lamentable state ensues; each tortures the other in turn in dreadful fashion. Such liberty awaits all those who recognize and desire no other kind of freedom than that which springs from selfish and worldly love; and it is a remarkable fact that they know nothing of heavenly freedom, and that if it is described to them in a thousand ways, and disclosed in the liveliest manner, they still do not believe it to be of any account. But heavenly freedom is that which is from the Lord. In this freedom are all the angels of heaven, and it comes, as has been stated, from love to the Lord and from mutual love; it is therefore an affection of good and truth. The nature of this freedom can be known from the fact that every one who enjoys it shares his blessing and his joy with others from the depth of his heart, and his beatitude and joy arise from his power thus to share them with others; each is thus as a centre of blessedness and joy for all if in heaven; and because each individual is of like nature there results a continuous circle, a never-ending participation, and this from the Lord alone. From this something can be understood of the quality of heavenly freedom. As the Lord, from Divine mercy, desires that all men should be endowed with this freedom, therefore the affection of good and truth is inseminated in such freedom.