It is a well-settled view of Weigel's that Heaven and Hell are primarily in the soul of man. He says, in _Know Thyself_, that both the Trees of Paradise are in us; and in his _Ort der Welt_ he declares that "the Eternal Hell of the lost will be their own Hell."[28] And in his _Christliches { 148} Gespräch_ he insists that the holy Spirit, the present Christ, does not need to _come down_ from Heaven to meet with us, for when He is in our hearts there then is Heaven.[29] No person can ever be in Heaven until Heaven is in him.
In _Der güldene Griff_ and elsewhere Weigel works out a very interesting theory of knowledge, which fits well with the inwardness of his religious views. He holds that in sense perception the percipient brings forth his real _knowledge_ from within. The external "object," or the outward stimulus, is the soliciting occasion, or suggestion, or the sign for the experience, but what we see is determined from within rather than from without. All real knowledge is in the knower. Both external world and written scriptures are in themselves _shadows_ until the inward spirit interprets them, and through them comes to the Word of God which they suggest and symbolize.
Weigel plainly arrived at his ground ideas under the formative influence of Schwenckfeld and Franck, but he also reveals, especially in his conception of the deeper inner world and of the microcosmic character of man, the influence of Paracelsus and of the nature mystics of his time. He was himself, in turn, a most important influence in the development of the religious ideas of Jacob Boehme, and he is historically one of the most significant men of the entire spiritual group before the great Silesian mystic.[30]