OF THE DESCENT OF THE SOUL INTO THE BODY, AND OF THE SPIRIT.
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.