498. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings, signifies reasonings from the disturbance of the affections and of the thoughts therefrom respecting good and evil and respecting truth and falsity. This is evident from the signification of "voices," as being reasonings (of which presently); also from the signification of "thunders and lightnings," as being conflicts and disturbances of the affections and the thoughts therefrom respecting good and evil and truth and falsity. The cause of such conflicts and disturbances is the closing of the externals with the evil by influx out of the heavens, and the opening of the internals, the externals being that which simulated goods and truths, while the internals thought evil and falsity; when therefore their externals were closed and their internals were opened, there arose a conflict and disturbance of the affections and thoughts respecting good and evil and truth and falsity, and consequent reasonings. Such things are heard in the spiritual world as the voices of a multitude, murmuring, grating, menacing, and combating; and at a distance, where the voices are not heard, they are heard and seen as thunders and lightnings; as thunders from the conflict of the affections, and as lightnings from the conflict of the thoughts therefrom. As these things arise from the flowing down of Divine good and truth out of the higher heavens into the lower parts, therefore the voices, thunders, and lightnings, when heard and seen by the good, signify Divine truth in respect to perception and illustration (on the signification of these, see n. 273, 353); but it is otherwise when these are heard and seen by the evil.