276. (4) The natural mind which is a hell stands in complete opposition to the spiritual mind, which is a heaven. When loves are opposed, then perception and everything connected with it becomes opposed. For from the love which forms a person's life flows all else, like streams from their wellspring. Matters which do not spring from that fountainhead stand apart in the natural mind from those which do. Those which spring from its dominant love are at the center and the rest off to the sides. If the latter are truths that the church has from the Word, they are banished still further from the center to the sides and are at last expelled, and the natural self or mind then perceives evil as good and good as evil and sees falsity as truth and truth as falsity. Consequently the person believes malice to be wisdom, irrationality to be intelligence, cunning to be prudence, and evil devices to be cleverness. And in that case, too, he deems Divine and heavenly matters which are connected with the church and worship to be worthless, and places the greatest value in carnal and worldly considerations. Thus he turns the state of his life upside down so as to assign to the sole of the foot what belongs to the head and to tread upon it, while assigning to the head what belongs to the sole of the foot. The person is consequently transformed from a living being into a dead one. One is said to be a living being whose mind is a heaven, while one is said to be dead whose mind is a hell.