respondences in the world around him; and wherever there are excrementitious, decaying and malarious atmospheres and matters, they flow in with nature and give rise to the destructive, noxious and poisonous animal, vegetable and mineral creations there. These things correspond in general to the hells, and specifically to those there according to their specific quality. They are permitted for the same reason that evils themselves are permitted; and this is for the sake of man that he may be in freedom; and being permitted and existing, they are over-ruled and ordered to be of use in controlling the evil.
Since all poisonous atmospheres and matters correspond to the hells there is an influx from evil spirits into them; and when they are introduced into the human body the corresponding spirits infest them, and operate through the mind in connection with the body to produce disorder and disease in the body.
It follows from all the facts which have been stated, which are all too meagre to give much idea of man's spiritual position and connections as Swedenborg saw it in the spiritual world, and in the opened Word, that correspondence and influx in every degree
