23. (9) Just as "being on the earth," for the soul, is not to tread
on the ground, as does the body, but only to preside over the body
that treads on the ground; likewise, "to be in hell" for the soul,
is to preside over an image whose nature is to be in a place, and
to have an obscure hypostatic form of existence. That is why if the
subterranean hell be a dark place, the soul, without separating from
existence, descends into hell when she attaches herself to some
image. Indeed, when the soul abandons the solid body over which she
presided she remains united to the spirit which she has received from
the celestial spheres. Since, as a result of her affection for matter,
she has developed particular faculties by virtue of which she had a
sympathetic habit for some particular body during life, as a result
of this disposition, she impresses a form on the spirit by the power
of her imagination, and thus she acquires an image. The soul is said
to be in hell because the spirit that surrounds her also happens to
have a formless and obscure nature; and as the heavy and moistened
spirit descends down into subterranean localities, the soul is said
to descend underground. Not indeed that the very "being" of the soul
changes place, or is in a locality, but because she contracts the
habits of the bodies whose nature it is to change location, and to be
located somewhere. That is why the soul according to her disposition,
acquires some one body rather than some other; for the rank and the
special characteristics of the body into which she enters depend on her
disposition.
Therefore, when in a condition of superior purity, she unites with a
body that is close to immaterial nature, that is, an ethereal body.
When she descends from the development of reason to that of the
imagination, she receives a solar body. If she becomes effeminate, and
falls in love with forms, she puts on a lunar body. Finally, when she
falls into the terrestrial bodies, which, resembling her shapeless
character, are composed of moist vapors, there results for her a
complete ignorance of existence, a sort of eclipse, and a veritable
childhood. When the soul leaves an earthly body, having her spirit
still troubled by these moist vapors, she develops a shadow that
weights her down; for a spirit of this kind naturally tends to descend
into the depths of the earth, unless it be held up and raised by a
higher cause. Just as the soul is attached to the earth by her earthly
vesture, so the moist spirit(ual body) to which the soul is united
makes her drag after her an image which weights down the soul. The soul
surrounds herself with moist vapors when she mingles with a nature that
in its operations is moist or subterranean. But if the soul separate
from this nature, immediately around her shines a dry light, without
shade or shadow. In fact it is humidity which forms clouds in the air;
the dryness of the atmosphere produces a dry and serene clearness.