171. And who have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak. That this signifies being ensnared by them is evident from the circumstance that the loves of self and of the world reign in the hells, and that those loves are altogether opposite to love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, which reign in heaven. Satan, by whom is meant hell (as may be seen above, n. 120), continually inspires the love of self and of the world, and a man also receives these loves with delight, because they are in him hereditarily, and consequently are his proprium; thus hell insinuates itself into man, and ensnares him. This is what is signified by the depths of Satan. There are also few who are acquainted with this fact, for those loves, being the hereditary proprium of man, draw his mind to themselves by allurements from delight, and thus draw him away from the delights of the loves of heaven, even until he does not know what heavenly delights are. The former delights, or those of the love of self and of the world, close the internal man, and open the external; and so far as the latter is opened, so far the former is closed, until at length a man is in total and thick darkness in regard to the things of heaven and the church, although he is in light (lumen) in regard to the things of self and of the world. (These things may be seen more fully described in the work, Heaven and Hell, in the article where it is shown that the Divine of the Lord in heaven is love to Him and charity towards the neighbour, n. 13-19; and in the article where it is shown, that all who are in the hells are in evils and thence in falsities from the loves of self and of the world, and that those loves are the infernal fire, n. 551-565 and n. 566-575; and also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, n. 65-83, where those two loves are treated of.)