THE WORLDS IN SPACE
By the Lord’s Divine mercy I have had my interior faculties, which belong to my spirit, opened, so that I have been enabled to talk with spirits and angels, not only those in the vicinity of our earth, but also with those near other worlds. Since therefore I was desirous of knowing whether there were other inhabited worlds, and what they and their inhabitants were like, I was allowed by the Lord to talk and mix with spirits and angels from other worlds. With some this lasted a day, with others a week, with yet others for months. I was informed by them about the worlds they came from and in the vicinity of which they were, about the life, behaviour and religious practices of their inhabitants, and other matters worth relating about them. Since I was allowed to gain my knowledge in this fashion, I can describe them from what I have heard and seen.
[2] It needs to be known that all spirits and angels are from the human race;# they are near their own world,## and know what happens there; and they can inform someone whose interior faculties are open sufficiently to be able to talk and mix with them. A human being is in essence a spirit,### and associates with spirits at the interior level.#### Consequently anyone whose interior faculties are opened by the Lord can talk with them, exactly as a man can with another man.##### I have been permitted to do this daily for the last twelve years.
# There are no spirits or angels who are not from the human race (AC 1880).
## The spirits of each world are in the vicinity of their world, because they come from its inhabitants and share their character. It is also so that they can be of service to them (AC 9968).
### The soul which lives on after death is a person’s spirit, which is his real personality; in the next life it appears in a completely human form (AC 322, 1880-1, 3633, 4622, 4735, 6054, 6605, 6626, 7021, 10594).
#### A person while still in the world is at the inner level, that is, as regards his spirit or soul, among spirits and angels of similar nature to himself (AC 2379 [2378 in original], 3645, 4067, 4073, 4077).
##### A person can talk with spirits and angels; in ancient times people in our world often did so (AC 67-9, 784, 1634, 1636, 7802). But nowadays it is dangerous for a person to talk with them, unless he has true faith and is guided by the Lord (AC 784, 9438, 10751).
[2] The planets visible to our eyes, because they lie within the bounds of the solar system, can be plainly known to be worlds, as being bodies made of earthly matter. This is plain because they reflect sunlight and when seen through telescopes do not show the redness of flame as stars do, but are mottled with dark patches like lands on earth. Another argument is that they revolve around the sun in the same way as the earth, advancing along the path of the zodiac, and so causing years and seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn and winter. They also rotate about their axes in the same way as the earth, thus causing days and the different periods of the day, morning, midday, evening and night. Moreover, some of them have moons, which are called satellites, travelling around their orbits with fixed periodicity, like the moon around the earth. The planet Saturn, being the furthest from the sun, has also a great shining ring which supplies that world with a great deal of light, even if it is reflected light. Can anyone knowing this and able to think rationally still claim that these are empty masses?
# Heaven has a correspondence to the Lord, and a human being has in every detail a correspondence to heaven, so that in the Lord’s eyes heaven is a man on the grand scale, and may be called the Grand Man (AC 2996, 2998, 3624-49 [original adds 3636-43], 3741-5, 4625). The whole subject of the correspondence of man and all his parts to the Grand Man who is heaven has been described from experience (AC 3021, 3624-49, 3741-50 [3741 in original], 3883-96, 4039-55 [4051 in original], 4218-28, 4318-31, 4403-21, 4523 [4527 in original]-33, 4622-33, 4652-60, 4791-4805, 4931-53, 5050-61, 5171-89, 5377-96, 5552-73, 5711-27,10030).
# The inhabitants of all worlds venerate the Deity in human form, that is, the Lord (AC 8341-47, 10159, 10736-38). They are delighted to hear that the Lord really became man (AC 9361). It is impossible to think of God except in human form (AC 8705, 9359, 9972). A person can worship and love anyone of whom he has some concept, not anyone of whom he has none (AC 4733, 5110, 5663 [5633 in original], 7211, 9267, 10067 [perhaps read after 10067, 10267]).
## The Lord accepts all who are in a state of goodness and venerate the Deity in human form (AC 7173, 9359 [9359, 7173 in original]).
THE WORLD OR PLANET MERCURY, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
The whole heaven is in the form of a single human being, who is therefore called the Grand Man. Every detail, both outward and inward, in the human being answers to that Grand Man, that is, to heaven. This is a secret so far unknown in the world, but I have shown the truth of it at great length.# But those who reach heaven from our world are not enough to make up that Grand Man, being relatively few, so there will need to be people from many other worlds. The Lord’s providence ensures that as soon as a deficiency in quality or quantity occurs at any point in the correspondence, people are instantly summoned from another world to fill up the numbers, so maintaining the proportion and keeping heaven stable.
# Heaven has a correspondence to the Lord, and a human being has in every detail a correspondence to heaven, so that in the Lord’s eyes heaven is a man on the grand scale, and may be called the Grand Man (AC 2996, 2998, 3624-49 [original adds 3636-43], 3741-5, 4625). The whole subject of the correspondence of man and all his parts to the Grand Man who is heaven has been described from experience (AC 3021, 3624-49, 3741-50 [3741 in original], 3883-96, 4039-55 [4051 in original], 4218-28, 4318-31, 4403-21, 4523 [4527 in original]-33, 4622-33, 4652-60, 4791-4805, 4931-53, 5050-61, 5171-89, 5377-96, 5552-73, 5711-27, 10030).
# Spirits have access to the whole of a person’s memory, but nothing passes from their memory into the person’s (AC 2488, 5863, 6192-3, 6198-9, 6214). Angels have access to the affections and purposes which initiate and direct what a person thinks, wishes and does (AC 1317, 1645, 5854 [5844 in original]).
# The spirits of each world are in the vicinity of their world, because they come from its inhabitants and share their character. It is also so that they can be of service to them (AC 9968).
Another experience which plainly showed their anxiety to acquire knowledge and enrich their memory was this. I was once writing something about future events, and they were then too far off to look into these by drawing them out of my memory. They were very cross because I was unwilling to read those things in their presence, and contrary to their usual habit they wanted to abuse me, calling me very wicked, and similar names. So as to show their annoyance they brought on a kind of painful contraction of the right side of my head as far as the ear. But such efforts did me no harm. Since, however, they had done wrong, they kept withdrawing even farther, but still kept stopping, because they wanted to know what I had written. That is how anxious they are for knowledge.
# The spirits present with a person have control over everything in his memory (AC 5853, 5857, 5859-60).
# In the heavens all kinds of goodness are shared, since heavenly love shares everything of its own with others; this is the source of their wisdom and happiness (AC 549-50, 1390-1, 1399, 10130, 10723).
[* The precise meaning of this word is not clear, but a parallel passage in SE 3233 adds: ‘there was as it were a roll of them talking at once’.-TR.]
# The eye corresponds to the intellect, since the intellect is the faculty of inner sight and concerned with non-material objects (AC 2701, 4410, 4526, 9051, 10569). The sight of the left eye corresponds to truths, that is, matters of intelligence, the sight of the right eye to the kinds of good belonging to truth, that is, matters of wisdom (AC 4410).
# In the heavens all kinds of goodness are shared, since heavenly love shares everything of its own with others; this is the source of their wisdom and happiness (AC 549-50, 1390-1, 1399, 10130, 10723).
On hearing this the spirits of Mercury asked whether such people could become angels. I was allowed to answer that those who had lived good lives of faith and charity did become angels, being no longer concerned with outward and material affairs, but with inward and spiritual ones. When they reach that state, they enjoy light surpassing that of the spirits from Mercury. To enable them to know that this is so, an angel from the heaven formed from our world, who had lived this sort of life in the world, was allowed to talk with them. More will be said about this later.
# His own life awaits each individual and accompanies him after death (AC 4227, 7439 [7440 in original]). The outer levels of one’s life are kept closed after death, and the inner levels are opened up (AC 4314, 5128, 6495). At this time all the details of thought are laid bare (AC 4633, 5128).
# Birds mean matters of reason and intellect, thoughts, ideas and cognitions (AC 40, 745, 776, 778, 866, 988, 991 [993 in original], 5149, 7441). These vary according to the genera and species of the birds (AC 3219).
## Lamps together with lanterns mean truths which good makes to shine (AC 4638, 9548, 9783).
# Lambs in heaven and in the Word mean innocence (AC 3994, 7840, 10132).
I also had a conversation with them on the same subject on another occasion. Knowing that they talked with people in their world, I asked how they teach its inhabitants. They said that they do not teach them what is the fact of the matter, but they give them a hint of it, so as to nurture and increase their desire to find out and know the fact. For if they replied to every question, the desire would disappear. They went on to say that another reason why they state the opposite is to show up the truth better; for every truth shows up best when contrasted with its opposite.
# In the heavens all kinds of goodness are shared, since heavenly love shares everything of its own with others; this is the source of their wisdom and happiness (AC 549-50, 1390-1, 1399, 10130, 10723).
To prove to them that this was so, an angelic spirit was permitted to talk with them, telling them in general terms what they knew and did not know, and asserting that there were infinite things they did not know, and all eternity would not be enough to learn even the general principles. He spoke in angelic ideas, much more readily than they did, and they were amazed to find that he could disclose what they knew and what they did not know.
Later I saw another angel speaking with them; he was to be seen at some height towards the right. He came from our world. He went through a long list of things they did not know; and then talked with them by changes of state, something they said they did not understand. So he told them that each change of state contained an infinite number of things, as also did the smallest detail of a change. On hearing this they began to humble themselves, having previously been so proud their knowledge. Their self-abasement was pictured by the letting down of their roll (for their group then appeared in the form of a roll, in front towards the left at a distance, on a level with the region below the navel.) The roll looked as if sagging in the middle but high at both sides. I could observe some to-and-fro movement taking place in it, and they were told the meaning of this; it showed what they were thinking in their state of self-abasement, while those high up at the sides were not yet humbling themselves. I saw the roll divide, those not humbling themselves being banished back towards their own globe, while the remainder stayed.
[2] I should like to take the opportunity this offers to bring in here an experience which shows what happens in the next life to learned men who acquire intelligence from their own reflection fired by a love of knowing truths for their own sake, and so for purposes remote from mundane considerations; and also what happens to those who seek to acquire intelligence from other people without reflecting for themselves, as do those whose wish to learn truths is only to gain a reputation for learning, and so to acquire honours or advantages in the world, not, that is, for unworldly purposes.
I became aware of a sound penetrating from below near my left side and reaching up to my left ear. I realised that there were spirits there trying to struggle free, though what sort of spirits they were I could not tell. But when they had struggled out, they talked with me, and said they were logicians and metaphysicians. They had, they said, plunged into deep thought on these subjects, but with no other motive than that of being called learned, and so achieving honours and wealth. They complained that they now led a miserable life, because they had no other purpose in studying these subjects, so that they had not by their means cultivated their rational faculty. Their speech was slow and had a muffled sound.
[3] Meanwhile two spirits carried on a conversation over my head, and when I asked who they were, I was told that one of them was a very famous character in the world of letters, and I was given to believe that it was Aristotle. (I was not told who the other was.) He was then put into the state he had been in while living in the world. Anyone can easily be returned to the state he had in the world, because he carries with him every state in his life. To my surprise he approached my right ear and spoke there, hoarsely, but sensibly. I was able to tell from the feel of his speech that he was of quite a different character from the scholastics who had come up first; in fact he had drawn on his own thinking in what he wrote and in devising his philosophy. Thus the terms which he invented and imposed on ideas thought about were forms of words to describe inward ideas. He had also, as I learned, been impelled to these discoveries by the pleasure he took in them and the longing to know matters relating to thinking and the intellect; and he had obediently followed the dictates of his spirit. This was why he approached my right ear, unlike his followers, known as scholastics, who do not proceed from thought to terms, but from terms to thought, which is the wrong way. Many of them do not even proceed as far as thought, restricting themselves to the terms. If they make use of these, it is to prove whatever they wish, and to impart to falsities the appearance of truth, to suit what they wish people to believe. Philosophy thus becomes for them the route to madness rather than to wisdom, and plunges them into darkness instead of light.
[4] I then discussed with him the science of analysis. I said that a small boy could say more philosophically, analytically and logically in half an hour than Aristotle had been able to say in a book,** because the whole of human thought and the speech it produces is analytical, being governed by laws derived from the spiritual world. Anyone who wanted to proceed artificially from terms to thought was rather like a dancer, who tries to use his knowledge of motor fibres and muscles in order to dance; if he concentrated on that while he was dancing, he would hardly be able to move his foot. In fact, without any such knowledge he can move all the motor fibres scattered throughout the body, and appropriately activate his lungs, diaphragm, flanks, arms, neck and so on, which whole books would not be enough to describe. I said that the case of those who sought to make terms the basis of their thinking was much the same. He approved of this, and remarked that learning to think by this route was proceeding the wrong way round. If anyone wanted to be a fool, that was the way to go about it; but he ought to think constantly about the purpose and take an inward view.
[5] He then showed me what had been his conception of the supreme power, which he had pictured to himself as having a human face with the head surrounded by a radiant halo. He now knew, he said, that that person is the Lord and the radiant halo is the Divine proceeding from Him, which flows not only into heaven but into the universe, controlling and ordering both. He who controls and orders heaven does the same to the universe, since the one cannot be separated from the other. He also said that he had believed in only one God, but that he distinguished His attributes and qualities by as many names as others worshipped gods.
[6] A woman appeared to me, who put out her hand wishing to stroke my cheek. When I expressed surprise, he said that when he was in the world he had often had such a woman appear to him and seem to stroke his cheek; and she had a beautiful hand. The angelic spirits said that once upon a time the early people had seen such women and gave them the name of Pallas. She appeared, they said, to some one of the spirits who in antiquity had taken great pleasure in ideas, and devoted themselves to thinking, but not to philosophy. Since such spirits had been present with him and had been pleased with him for basing his thinking on an inward view, they had caused such a woman to be presented to view.
[7] Lastly he sketched his idea about the human soul or spirit, which he called pneuma.*** He thought of this as a vital principle, invisible as a piece of the ether. He said that he had known that his spirit would live on after death, since it was his inward essence, which cannot die because it can think. Beyond that he had been unable to think clearly, having only dim ideas because he had no knowledge about it other than what he thought out for himself, and even the ancients told him little. Aristotle, moreover, is among the sound spirits in the next life, while many of his followers are among the foolish.
[* Johann Christian von Wolf, 1679-1754, a German philosopher who was influential in the eighteenth century.-TR.]
[** Probably a reference to Aristotle’s two works known as Analytics..-TR.]
[*** The Greek word for ‘breath’, translated into Latin as spiritus, our spirit.]
# Those who make a profession of faith as the result of teaching, without living the life of faith, have no faith at all (AC 3865, 7766, 7778, 7790, 7950, 8094). Their inner levels are opposed to the truths of faith, though in the world they are unaware of this (AC 7790. 7950).
# The Lord is the sun of heaven, the source of all light there (AC 1053, 3636, 4060). The Lord appears thus to those who are in His celestial kingdom, where love to Him is dominant (AC 1521, 1529-31, 1837, 4696). He is to be seen at middle height above the level of the right eye (AC 4321, 7078). The sun in the Word therefore means the Lord as regards the Divine love (AC 2495, 4060, 7083). The sun of the world is not visible to spirits and angels, but its place is taken by a dark mass behind the back, opposite the sun of heaven, that is, opposite the Lord (AC 9755).
# The light in heaven is strong, many times greater than the light of midday on earth (AC 1117, 1521, 1533, 1619-32, 4527, 5400, 8644). All light in the heavens comes from the Lord as the sun there (AC 1053, 1521, 3195, 3341, 3636, 3643, 4415, 9548, 9684, 10809). Divine truth coming forth from the Divine goodness of the Lord’s Divine love is visible in the heavens as light, and provides all the light there (AC 3195, 3222, 5400, 8644, 9399, 9548, 9684). The light of heaven enlightens both the sight and the intellect of angels (AC 2776, 3138). Heaven being said to be in light and heat means in possession of wisdom and love (AC 3643, 9399, 9401).
[* The parallel passage at AC 7170 defines ‘forward’ as the side turned away from the sun, and the ‘rear part’ as that facing the sun.-TR.]
This what I have been allowed to learn about the spirits and inhabitants of the world of Mercury.
ON THE WORLD OR PLANET JUPITER, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
I was allowed to associate for a longer period with the spirits and angels of the planet Jupiter than with those from the other planets. I have therefore more to report about the way they and the inhabitants of that planet live. I had many indications, and it was told me from heaven, that these spirits were from that place.
[2] I was told by angels that the earliest people in this world lived in similar fashion, divided into tribes, families and households. They were then all content with their own property, and it was unheard of to get rich at the expense of others’ property, or selfishly to dominate others. For this reason ancient times, and especially the most ancient period, were more pleasing to the Lord than those which followed. Since such was their state, there was a reign of innocence coupled with wisdom. Everyone then did good out of goodness and honest deeds out of honesty. They did not know what it was to do good and honest deeds for one’s own reputation or advantage. Then too they spoke nothing but the truth, not so much for truth’s sake as because of goodness; that is to say, their motive came not from the intellectual faculty acting alone, but from the voluntary faculty combined with the intellectual.
Such were ancient times, so that angels could then mix with human beings, and virtually lift their minds out of bodily thoughts and carry them off into heaven. In fact, they could take them touring around heaven, showing off its magnificence and happiness, sharing with them their own happiness and pleasures. The ancient writers too knew about this period and called it the Golden Age or the reign of Saturn.
[3] The reason the period was like this was, as I said, that they lived divided into tribes, the tribes divided into families, and these into households, each household living by itself. Then it never occurred to anyone to seize another’s inheritance in order to acquire wealth from it or power. Selfishness and love of the world were unknown. Every one was happy with his own property, and no less happy at other people’s property. But as time went on, this scene changed and turned into its opposite, when men’s minds were seized with the greed for power and great possessions. Then to protect itself the human race grouped itself into kingdoms and empires. Since the laws of charity and conscience, which men had had inscribed on their hearts, ceased to operate, it became necessary to pass legislation to control violent acts, so as to reward observance with honours and advantages and disobedience with punishments. This brought about so great a change that heaven itself moved away from men, retreating further and further down to the present age, when people no longer know whether heaven or hell exist, and some actually deny their existence. The purpose of these remarks is to illustrate by a parallel the condition of the people of the world of Jupiter, and to show where their uprightness and wisdom too come from. More will be said about this in what follows.
# Stars in the Word mean cognitions of good and truth, that is, truths (AC 2495, 2849, 4697). In the next life truths are represented by fixed stars, but falsities by wandering stars (AC 1128).
By this means I was able to establish what kind of life the inhabitants of Jupiter lead. The nature of the inhabitants can be known from that of the spirits, for each takes his own way of life with him from the world, and when he becomes a spirit lives in the same way. I noticed that they had a state of blessedness, an even more inward happiness. I noticed this by perceiving that their interiors were not closed to heaven, but open; and the more open to heaven one’s interiors are, the easier it is for them to receive the goodness of God, which is accompanied by blessedness and inward happiness. It is quite different with those whose lives are not in accord with heaven’s order, but have their interiors closed, and their exteriors open to the world.
[2] While the spirits of Jupiter were with me, the faces of people of our world looked smaller than usual. This was due to the effect of the idea those spirits had that their own faces were larger. For while they live as human beings in their world, they have a belief that after death their faces will be larger and round in shape. Since this idea has been impressed on them, it lasts, and when they become spirits they seem to themselves to have a larger face.
[3] The reason why they think their faces will be larger is that, according to them, the face is not part of the body, but is the part which enables them to see, hear and speak and express their thoughts. Thus the mind shines through the face, so that they think of the face as the shape taken by the mind. Knowing that they will be wiser after their life in the world, they think this means the shape of their mind and thus their face will be enlarged.
[4] They also believe that after death they will feel a fire which will warm their faces. Their reason for saying this is that the wiser among them know that fire in the spiritual sense means love; love is the fire of life, and it is this fire which gives life to angels.# Those of them who have lived in a state of heavenly love actually achieve their ambition; they feel their faces grow warm and the interiors of their minds are fired with love.
[5] For this reason the inhabitants of that world frequently wash and clean their faces, and take good care to protect them from sunburn. They have clothing made from bluish bark or cork, which they wrap around their heads to cover the face.
[6] On the subject of the faces of people of our world, which they saw through my eyes,## they said they were not handsome. Their handsomeness lay in the outer layers of skin, not in the fibres coming from within. They were surprised to see some people had faces covered with warts or spots, or otherwise disfigured. They said such faces were never to be seen among them. But they did approve of some faces, the ones that were cheerful and smiling, and had slightly pouting lips.
# Fire in the Word is love in either sense (AC 934, 4906, 5215). Holy and heavenly fire is Divine love, and every affection belonging to that love (AC 934, 6314, 6832). Hell fire is self-love and love of the world, and every lust belonging to these loves (AC 934 [965 in original], 1861, 5071, 6314, 6832, 7575, 10747). Love is the fire of life, and this is in fact the source of life itself (AC 4906, 5071, 6032).
## Spirits and angels cannot see what is in this solar system, but they did see things through my eyes (AC 1881).
[2] I was told by angels that the earliest kind of speech of all peoples on each world was by facial expression; and it originated from two areas, the lips and the eyes. The reason why this was the earliest form of speech was that the face was designed to portray what a person thinks and wants. The face is therefore called the picture and indicator of the mind. Another reason is that in the most ancient or earliest times honesty demanded that what a person wanted should shine out from his face, and no one thought of doing anything else or wanted to do so. Thus too the affections of the mind and the thoughts arising from them could be vividly and fully displayed. This enabled many things to be presented simultaneously to the eye, as it were, in visible form. This kind of speech in consequence was as much better than verbal speech as sight is better than hearing: the difference between seeing the countryside and envisaging it by listening to a verbal description.
They also said that this kind of speech matched the speech of the angels, with whom human beings were in the habit of communicating in those times. In fact, when the face speaks, or the mind speaks through the face, angelic speech reaches its final, natural form in a person; but not when the mouth speaks in words. Anyone can grasp that the most ancient people could not have had verbal speech, since the words of language are not directly inherent in things, but need to be invented and applied to them; and this could only happen over a period of time.#
[3] This kind of speech lasted so long as honesty and uprightness were observed by people. But as soon as people started to think one thing in their minds and say another, which happened when people began to love themselves and not their neighbour, speech in words began to increase, while the face conveyed nothing or told lies. As a result the inward shape of the face changed, contracting and hardening, and beginning to be almost devoid of life. But its outward shape, fired by self-love, began to look alive to men’s eyes. For what lies hidden underneath devoid of life is invisible to human eyes, but can be seen by angels, who can see what lies within.
This is what the faces are like of those who think one thing and say another. Pretence, hypocrisy, trickery and guile – which to-day pass for tactfulness – cause such results. But in the next life things are different; there you are not allowed to speak otherwise than you think. In fact, any disagreement is clearly perceptible in each single word; and when it is noticed the spirit who displays such disagreement is ejected from the company and punished. Afterwards various methods are applied to bring him back to speaking as he thinks and to thinking what he wants, so as to restore unanimity to his mind and banish division. The effect is, if he is good, that he wants what is good and thinks and speaks the truth as the result of good; if he is wicked, he wants what is evil and thinks and speaks falsely as the result of evil. Until this happens, a good man cannot be raised to heaven, nor a wicked one cast into hell. This is to ensure that hell contains nothing but wickedness and the falsity it produces, heaven nothing but good and the truth it produces.
# The Most Ancient people in this world were able to speak using the face and lips by means of inner breathing (AC 607, 1118, 7361). The inhabitants of certain other worlds have a similar manner of speaking (AC 4799, 7359, 8248, 10587). On the perfection and excellence of this manner of speaking (AC 7360, 10587, 10708).
[2] While they walk in this fashion, they always keep their faces up, as we do, so that they can see the sky as well as the ground. They do not keep their gaze fixed on the ground, a practice they call reprehensible. The worst sort of people among them do this, and if they do not become used to lifting up their faces, they are banished from their community.
[3] When, however, they sit down, they look erect like people in our world as far as the upper part of the body is concerned, but they squat cross-legged. They take great care, not only when walking, but also when sitting, to avoid being seen from behind, but only in the face. In fact, they rather like to be seen face to face, since this displays their mind. They never display a facial expression which does not match their mind, something they find impossible. Those present can by this means see quite plainly what another’s intentions towards them are, since they do not hide them, especially whether their apparent friendliness is genuine or forced. The spirits from there demonstrated this to me and their angels confirmed it. As a result their spirits too do not appear to walk upright, but rather like swimmers to assist their progress with their hands, looking around them from time to time.
[2] There was some discussion about this among the spirits, and they said that this practice is suitable for human beings, for it is their heart’s desire to have a healthy mind in a healthy body. But it is different for those who make taste the dominant factor. This makes the body ill, or at least internally languid, and this therefore has the same effect on the mind. The mind’s behaviour depends on the inward condition of the receiving organs of the body, just as sight and hearing depend on the condition of the eye and ear. It is therefore madness to make luxury and pleasure the whole joy of life; and it also leads to insensitivity in matters demanding thought, judgment and cleverness in matters relating to the body and the world. This results in human beings becoming like animals, and such people are not wrong in comparing themselves with them.
# A horse means what is intellectual (AC 2760-62, 3217, 5321, 6125, 6400, 6534, 7024, 8146, 8148). The white horse in the Book of Revelation is the understanding of the Word (AC 2760).
[2] Some wicked spirits of our world were once permitted to exercise their wicked tricks so as to annoy the spirits from Jupiter who were with me. They put up with this for quite a long time, but eventually admitted they could stand no more. They could not believe that any worse spirits existed, for their imagination and thought were so perverted by these that they seemed as if tied up, with no hope of being untied and set free except by Divine aid. When I read some passages from the Word about our Saviour’s passion, the European spirits introduced horrifying scandals, intending to corrupt the spirits of Jupiter. Enquiry was made into who they were and what they had been in the world. It turned out that some of them had been preachers, most of them from those who call themselves the Society of the Lord or Jesuits. I said that when they lived in the world they had been able to move the common people to tears by their preaching about the Lord’s passion. The reason, I went on to say, was that in the world they thought one thing and said another, so differing in what they intended in their hearts and what they professed with their lips; but now they were not allowed to speak so deceitfully, for on becoming spirits they are compelled to speak as they think. The spirits from Jupiter were particularly amazed that such a divorce between a person’s interiors and exteriors was possible that they could say one thing and think another, something they found impossible.
[3] They were surprised to hear that many from our world actually become angels and were totally different at heart. They had supposed that all in our world were like the ones they had met. But they were told that many were not like that, and that there are those whose thoughts are dictated by goodness, not by wickedness as in the case of the others. These are the ones who become angels.
To show them this was true, choirs composed of angels from our world came from heaven, which one after another together glorified the Lord with one voice and in harmony.# The spirits of Jupiter with me were so charmed by these choirs they thought themselves almost carried up into heaven. This glorifying by choirs lasted about an hour, and the delight they felt in it was conveyed to me, so that I too could feel it. They said they would tell their friends who were not there about it.
# It is called a choir when many spirits speak in unison at once (on these see AC 2595-6, 3350). Their speech has a harmony (on this see AC 1648-9). Choirs in the next life are the means by which spirits are brought into unanimity (AC 5182).
[2] The spirits from our world who made such boasts were those who regarded wisdom as merely a matter of memory, for instance, a knowledge of languages, particularly Hebrew, Greek and Latin, of experiences recorded in literature, of criticism, of experimental data, of technical terms, especially those of philosophy, and other things of the same sort. They had not used such knowledge as a means of acquiring wisdom, but regarded wisdom as consisting in the possession of such knowledge. Since they had not employed their knowledge as a means of improving their rational faculty, they have limited powers of perception in the next life. They can only discern technical terms and argue from them, and to those who see nothing else, such things are like dust or clouds obscuring the sight of the intellect (see 38 above). Those who were proud of this kind of learning are still less perceptive, while those who used their scientific knowledge as a means to undermine and annihilate the beliefs of the church have totally destroyed their intellectual faculty, so that their vision is like that of owls in pitch darkness, when they mistake falsity for truth and evil for good.
[3] Talking with such spirits made the spirits of Jupiter conclude that sciences produce obscurity and blindness. However, they were told that in this world sciences are the means of opening up the sight of the intellect, which depends on the light of heaven. But because of the dominance of matters concerned only with natural life, the life of the senses, these sciences serve them rather as means to madness, that is, proofs which favour Nature rather than God, and the world rather than heaven.
[4] They were further told that sciences are in themselves spiritual riches, and their possessors resemble the possessors of worldly riches; for these are likewise the means of performing services to oneself, one’s neighbour and one’s country, and also the means of doing evil. They can also be compared with clothes, which are both useful and ornamental, and are also a matter of pride to those who want to be respected for them alone. The spirits of the world of Jupiter quite understood this, but they were surprised that, while still living as human beings, they had stopped at the means, and preferred the things which lead to wisdom to wisdom itself, failing to see that plunging the mind into means without rising beyond them is putting it in the shade and blinding it.
[* Reading intercipiunt for inter. -TR.]
[2] The spirits and angels from the world of Jupiter answer to the PICTURING POWER OF THOUGHT in the Grand Man, that is, an activity of internal parts. The spirits of our world, however, answer to various functions of the external parts of the body. When these try to dominate, the activity or picturing of thought cannot exert its influence from within. This is the cause of the conflict between the life spheres of either party.
# A spiritual sphere, that of their life, flows out and pours forth from each person, spirit and angel and envelops them (AC 4464, 5179, 7454). Its source is their life of affection and thus thought (AC 2489, 4464, 6206). In the next life these spheres determine how groups are formed and also dissolved (AC 6206, 9606-7, 10312).
[2] They do not know that their One and Only Lord was born as a man in our world. They remarked that this was of no interest to them, only that He was a man and the ruler of the universe. When I said that in our world He is called Christ Jesus, and that Christ means the Anointed or King, and Jesus Saviour, they said they do not worship Him as King, because kingship smacks of worldly affairs, but they do worship Him as Saviour. Some spirits from our world cast doubt on the identity of their Lord with ours; they dispelled this doubt by recalling that they had seen Him in the sun, and recognised Him as the one they had seen in their world (see 40 above).
[3] On another occasion spirits from Jupiter felt a momentary doubt of the identity of their One and Only Lord with ours. But the momentary doubt was dispelled in a moment; it was due to some spirits from our world. Then to my surprise they were so ashamed of having doubted this for a moment that they told me not to publish this, for fear of being accused of some degree of disbelief, though in fact they know this better than others.
[4] These spirits were very much affected and pleased when they were told that the One and Only Lord is the only man, and it is from Him that we all derive our humanity; that we are men to the extent that we are images of Him, in so far, that is, as we love Him and love our neighbour, so that we are in a state of good. For the goodness of love and faith is the image of the Lord.
[2] They call the sun of their world the face of the Most High Lord, and believe He has His dwelling there; for which reason they also worship the sun. The rest of the inhabitants loathe them, and will not have anything to do with them, both because they are sun-worshippers and because they call themselves lords, being adored by their servants as mediating deities.
[3] The spirits showed me the head-covering these people wore, which was a dark coloured top hat.
[4] In the next life they are to be seen to the left at some height, sitting there like statues, and to begin with adored by the servants they had had. But after a while these too treat them with ridicule. To my surprise their faces shine as if on fire; this is due to their belief in having been saints. But for all their fiery faces they are actually cold and desperately anxious to get warm. This makes it plain that the fire which makes them shine is the illusory fire of self-love. In order to get warm they seem to themselves to be sawing logs; while doing so, they catch sight beneath the logs of something like a man, whom they try at the same time to strike. This is the result of attributing merit and holiness to themselves. It is the fate of those who do this in this world to seem to saw logs in the next life. The same thing happened to some from our world too, whom I described elsewhere. As an illustration I may add here my experience with these people.
*’On the lower earth, beneath the soles of the feet are also those who regarded good deeds and works as meritorious. Many of them seem to themselves to be sawing logs. The place where they are is rather cold, and they seem to gain warmth by their work. I talked with them too, and was able to ask whether they did not wish to leave that place. They replied that they had not yet worked hard enough to deserve it. But on reaching the end of that stage they are released. They are natural men, because wanting to earn salvation is not a spiritual idea, since it comes from the self, not from the Lord. Moreover they think themselves better than others, some of them actually despising others. If in the next life they do not receive more joy than the rest, they are angry with the Lord; as a result, when sawing logs, it looks to them as if something of the Lord is to be seen beneath the logs. This is the result of their indignation.’#
[* The following paragraph is repeated with minor changes from AC 4943.-TR.]
# The Lord alone possesses merit and righteousness (AC 9715, 9975, 9979, 9981-2). Those who treat deeds as meritorious, those, that is, who want to earn their entrance to heaven by the good deeds they do, in the next life want to have servants and are never content (AC 6393). They despise their neighbours and even become angry with the Lord, if they do not receive their reward (AC 9976). For the nature of their fate in the next life see AC 942, 1774, 1877, 2027. They belong to the group who appear to be sawing logs on the lower earth (AC 1110, 4943).
[2] To allow me to know how these spirits behave on approaching a person of their world, one of them was permitted to approach me. When he was near, I had an unmistakable feeling of horror and fear, but it was an outward rather than inward horror, since I knew that he was a spirit of that kind. I could actually see him, looking like a dark cloud with moving stars in it. Moving stars indicate falsities, fixed stars truths.## He attached himself to my left side towards the back, and also began to reprove me for things I had done and thought, which he drew out of my memory, also putting a bad construction on them. But he was stopped by angels. On discovering that he was in the presence of someone other than a man of his own world, he began to talk with me, saying that on approaching a person he knew all the details of his deeds and thoughts, and he then uttered a severe reproof and chastised him with various sorts of pain.
[3] On another occasion too a similar chastising spirit visited me. He attached himself to me on the left side below the waist like the earlier one. He too wanted to punish me, but he was kept off by the angels. But he demonstrated to me the kinds of punishment they are allowed to inflict on people in their world, if they do or intend to do wicked deeds. Apart from the pain in the joints there was a painful contraction around the middle of the belly, which felt like being pulled in with a narrow belt; then another punishment was spells of choking until the victim was very distressed; also, preventing them eating anything but bread for a time; and finally a death sentence, if they failed to stop doing such things, and being deprived of the joys of wife, children and companions. These too were accompanied by a sensation of pain.
# Spirits have access to the whole of a person’s memory, but nothing passes from their memory into the person’s (AC 2488, 5863, 6192-3, 6198-9, 6214). Angels have access to the affections and purposes which initiate and direct what a person thinks, wishes and does (AC 1317, 1645, 5854 [5844 in original]).
## Stars in the Word mean cognitions of good and truth, that is, truths (AC 2495, 2849, 4697). In the next life truths are represented by fixed stars, but falsities by wandering stars (AC 1128).
[2] They are called instructors, the others chastisers. When these spirits are present, angelic spirits are too. They sit by the head and fill it in their own manner. Their presence is felt like a gentle breath, for they are afraid of anyone suffering the slightest pain or anxiety at their approach or influence. They control the chastising and instructing spirits, making sure the one group does not do the person more harm than the Lord permits, and the other speaks the truth.
[3] When I had a chastising spirit with me, angelic spirits were then also present, keeping my face constantly cheerful and smiling, the region around my lips pushed forward, and my mouth slightly open. Angels are easily able to do this by their influence, when the Lord permits. They said that their presence causes the inhabitants of their world to assume the same facial expression.
[2] I was told that the spirits are like this to begin with who are subsequently found a home among those who make up the province of the SEMINAL VESICLES in the Grand Man or heaven. The semen gathers in those vesicles and is clothed in material suitable for preserving the prolific principle of the semen from being dissipated; but this can be shed at the cervix of the uterus, so that what is contained within can serve the purpose of causing conception, that is, of impregnating the ovum. As a result this part of the semen displays an effort and as it were a burning desire to strip itself off, leaving the semen to perform its function. Something similar was to be seen in the case of this spirit. He came to me in rough clothing and repeated that he was burning with desire to reach heaven, and he now began to perceive that he was the kind of spirit who could. I was allowed to tell him that this was perhaps an indication that he would soon be admitted. He was then told by angels to take off his clothes; he was so eager that he got them off quicker than anything. This was a way of picturing the nature of the desire of those in the province answering to the seminal vesicles.
[3] I was told that such spirits, when prepared for heaven, are stripped of their clothes and dressed in shining new ones, and they become angels. They likened them to grubs, which after passing through their humble stage are changed into nymphs and so into butterflies; these then receive a different dress with wings of blue, yellow, silvery or golden colour. Then they are free to fly in the air, as if their own heaven, celebrate marriages and lay eggs, thus ensuring the propagation of their kind. Then at the same time they are assigned as food the sweet and pleasant nectar and fragrance of various flowers.
[2] One of the spirits of Jupiter who inspire fear came up to my left side below the elbow and talked with me from that position. His speech was strident, nor were the words separate and divided one from another, so that it took a long time before I was able to grasp his meaning. While he was speaking, he also struck fear into me at times. He warned me that I too should make the angels welcome when they came. But I was allowed to answer that it was not for me to do this, but all were received in my presence as they are themselves.
[3] Soon some angels from that world arrived, and I was able to perceive from the way they talked with me that they were quite different from the angels of our world. Their speech was not in spoken words, but in ideas which spread in all directions through my interiors; they also had an effect on my face, making it agree with each detail, beginning from the lips and spreading out to the periphery in all directions. The ideas which took the place of words were separated, but only slightly.
[4] Afterwards they talked with me by means of ideas even less separate one from another, so that there seemed to be hardly any interval between them. It seemed to my way of perception like the sense of words apprehended by those who pay attention to the sense but ignore the words. I found this speech easier to understand, and more filled with meaning. Like the previous kind of speech its influence was felt on the face, but to match their speech this was more continuous. But unlike the previous kind it did not begin from the lips, but from the eyes.
[5] Later still they spoke even more continuously and fully, and then my face was unable to keep pace with suitable movements; but I felt the influence acting on my brain, which then behaved in similar fashion. Finally they spoke in such a way that their speech fell only on my inner intellect. It was as fluid as a rarefied atmosphere. I could fell the influence, but not distinguish its details.
These types of speech were rather like fluids; the first like flowing water, the second like a more rarefied liquid, the third in comparison like air, and the fourth like a rarefied atmosphere. The spirit on my left side, whom I mentioned before, interjected remarks from time to time, especially to warn me to show restraint in dealing with his angels. For there were spirits from our world who introduced unpleasant ideas. He said he had not understood what the angels were saying, but he did later on, when he came close to my left ear. At that time too his speech was not as strident as before, but like that of other spirits.
# Chariots mean the teachings of the church (AC 2761 [2760 in original], 5321, 8215). Horses mean what is intellectual (AC 2760-2, 3217, 5321, 6125, 6400, 6534, 7024, 8146, 8148, 8381). The white horse in the Book of Revelation means the understanding of the Word (AC 2760). Elijah in the representative sense means the Word (AC 2762, 5247). Since the Word is the source of all the church’s teaching and its understanding, Elijah was called ‘the chariots of Israel and his horsemen’ (AC 2762). He was therefore carried up by a chariot and horses of fire (AC 2762, 8029).
# Blue tinged with red or flame colour corresponds to the good of celestial love; blue tinged with white or a shining look corresponds to the good of spiritual love (AC 9868).
[2] The average age of people there at death is thirty, counting by the years of this world. The reason why they die within such a short span of time is that the Lord’s Providence ensures that the population does not exceed the numbers who can be supported by that world. It is also because after reaching that age, they resist the guidance of spirits and angels, which those who have not yet reached that age accept, so that spirits and angels rarely approach those who are older. They reach maturity more quickly than people in our world, and get married in the first flush of youth. Their delights then are to love their wife or husband, and to take care of their children. Their other delights they admittedly call delights, but comparatively external ones.
THE WORLD OR PLANET OF MARS, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
The spirits of Mars are among the best of all spirits from the worlds of this solar system. For to a large extent they are like celestial men, not dissimilar from those of the Most Ancient Church in this world.# When their nature is pictured, they are shown with their faces in heaven and their bodies in the world of spirits, and those of them who are angels with their faces turned towards the Lord, and their bodies in heaven.
# The first and most ancient church in this world was a celestial church, the leading one of all (AC 607, 895, 920, 1121-4, 2896, 4493, 8891, 9942, 10545). A church is called celestial when its principal feature is love to the Lord, but spiritual when its principal feature is charity towards the neighbour and faith (AC 3691, 6435, 9468, 9680, 9683, 9780).
# Heaven has a correspondence to the Lord, and a human being has in every detail a correspondence to heaven, so that in the Lord’s eyes heaven is a man on the grand scale, and may be called the Grand Man (AC 2996, 2998, 3624-49 [original adds 3636-43], 3741-5, 4625). The whole subject of the correspondence of man and all his parts to the Grand Man who is heaven has been described from experience (AC 3021, 3624-49, 3741-50 [3741 in original], 3883-96, 4039-55 [4051 in original], 4218-28, 4318-31, 4403-21, 4523 [4527 in original]-33, 4622-33, 4652-60, 4791-4805, 4931-53, 5050-61, 5171-89, 5377-96, 5552-73, 5711-27,10030).
## Distances in the next life appear real, and are rendered visible according to the inner states of angels and spirits (AC 5605 [5604 in original], 9104, 9440, 10146).
[2] It may be known from this that the speech of the inhabitants of Mars is of a different type from that of the inhabitants of our world. It has little sound, but is almost silent, following a shorter path to penetrate the inner hearing and sight. Being of such a nature it is more perfect, more full of the concepts of thought, and so closer to the speech of spirits and angels. The actual affection in the speech is pictured in their faces, and the thought in their eyes; for with them thought and speech, as well as affection and facial expression, act as one. They consider it a crime to think one thing and say another, or to wish for one thing and show something else by facial expression. They do not know what hypocrisy or deceitful pretence or guile are.
[3] I have been able to learn by associating with certain of the Most Ancient peoples of this world that they too could speak like this. To illustrate this I should like to report what I have heard, as follows.
*’I was shown by a kind of influence which I cannot describe what speech was like among those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church.# It was not articulate, as speech in words is in our time, but silent. It was produced not by outer breathing, but by a kind of inner breathing, so it might be termed thought-speech. I was also able to grasp what inner breathing was like; it proceeded from the navel towards the heart, and so through the lips without making any sound when they spoke. It did not enter the other’s ear by the external route, striking on what is called the ear-drum, but by an internal route, in fact by what is nowadays called the Eustachian tube. I was shown how by speaking like this they could express much more fully the decisions of the mind and the ideas of thought than can ever be achieved by articulate sounds or spoken words. Such speech is equally regulated by breathing, but this is outer breathing. For there is no word, or rather no part of a word, which is not regulated by the expiration of breath. But in the case of these people it was much more perfect, because it was regulated by inner breathing, which, because it is internal is more perfect, and better suited and adapted to the ideas of thought. Moreover it was helped by slight movements of the lips and corresponding changes of facial expression. For, since they were celestial people, whatever they thought shone out from their faces and eyes. These changed in conformity, the facial expression reflecting the affections of their lives, the eyes the light. They were never able to display a look on their faces which did not agree with what they were thinking. Since they spoke by means of inner breathing, the breathing of a person’s very spirit, they were able to associate and talk with angels.’
[4] The way the spirits of Mars breathed was demonstrated to me,## and I perceived that their breathing proceeded from the region of the thorax towards the navel, and from there flowed up through the chest towards the mouth with an imperceptible expiration. This, together with the other proofs I experienced, allowed me to see that they possessed a celestial character, so that they were not dissimilar from those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church in this world.
[* The following paragraph is repeated with some changes from AC 1118 -TR.]
# The first and most ancient church in this world was a celestial church, the leading one of all (AC 607, 895, 920, 1121-4, 2896, 4493, 8891, 9942, 10545). A church is called celestial when its principal feature is love to the Lord, but spiritual when its principal feature is charity towards the neighbour and faith (AC 3691, 6435, 9468, 9680, 9683, 9780).
## Spirits and angels breathe (AC 3884-5, 3891, 3893).
# People’s faces in our world in ancient times were under the influence of the cerebellum; at that time faces behaved in concert with a person’s inner affections. But later on the influence came from the cerebrum, when people began to lie and show in their faces pretended affections they did not feel. For the changes which their faces underwent in consequence as time went on see AC 4325-8.
[2] Any in their communities who begin to have wrong thoughts, leading to evil intentions, are banished from them. They leave them by themselves, so that they live pitifully outside their community, among rocks or elsewhere, being no longer looked after by it. Some communities try various methods of bringing them to their senses; but when these attempts prove vain they break off contact with them. By such means they take precautions to prevent the desire to rule or to gain wealth sneaking in; that is to say, they make sure that no one out of a desire to rule gets control of one community, and then many more, and that no one out of a desire for wealth steals their property from others. Each individual there lives content with his own property, and with his own good name, a reputation for being fair and loving his neighbour. This pleasure and peace of mind would be destroyed, if those who think and intend evil were not ejected, and if they did not prudently and severely confront self-love and the love of the world in their earliest stages. It is these loves which are the motives behind empires and kingdoms. In these there are few who do not want to rule and possess other people’s property, for there are few who behave justly and fairly from a love of justice and fairness, even fewer who do good out of charity rather than through fear of the law or being deprived of their lives, of wealth, or of good name and reputation for that reason.
All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Matt. 28:18.
But unlike those from the world of Mars, Christians do not believe this.
[2] They also said that they have a belief there, that there is nothing about them which is not filthy and hellish, and that all good is the Lord’s. Indeed they went so far as to say that of themselves they are devils, and the Lord rescues them from hell, continually holding them back.
[3] Once when the Lord was named, I saw those spirits abase themselves so sincerely and deeply that I cannot describe it. Their self-abasement contained the thought that of themselves they were in hell, so that they were utterly unworthy of looking towards the Lord, who is holiness itself. This thought was so deeply planted in their belief that they were almost beside themselves, and it kept them on their knees until the Lord lifted them up, and then, as it were, rescued them from hell. On recovering from this self-abasement they are filled with good and love, which gives them heartfelt joy. When they abase themselves like this, they do not face towards the Lord, not daring to do so, but look away. The spirits who were around me said that they had never witnessed such self-abasement.
They went on to say that the food eaten in that world is the fruit of trees, especially a certain round fruit which grows on their earth, and also vegetables. Their clothing consists of garments which they make out of the bark fibres of certain trees. These have such a consistency that they can be woven and also glued together with a kind of gum they have. Moreover they reported that they know there how to make liquid fires, to provide themselves with light in the evening and at night.
[2] While this bird was flying round my head and was still lively, a spirit was seen rising up from below through the region of the loins as far as the chest. He wanted to take the bird away, but because it was so beautiful, the spirits around me prevented him, for they all had their gaze fixed on it. But the spirit who had come up insistently persuaded them that he had the Lord with him, and was acting on His instructions. Although most of them did not believe this, they stopped preventing him from taking away the bird. But at that instant an influence from heaven forced him to let go, and he quickly let it fly free from his hand.
[3] After this incident the spirits around me, who had watched the bird and its successive changes intently, discussed it among themselves for quite a long time. They perceived that such a vision must certainly have some heavenly meaning. They knew that something flaming means celestial love and its affections; the hand to which it adhered means life and the power of life; the changes of colour, variations in life as regards wisdom and intelligence. A bird has a similar meaning, with the difference that something flaming means celestial love and what is to do with it, a bird spiritual love and what is to do with that. (Celestial love is love to the Lord, spiritual love is charity towards the neighbour.)# The bird’s changes in colour and liveliness, until it was turned to stone, mean successive changes in spiritual life as regards intelligence.
[4] They also knew that spirits who come up through the region of the loins to that of the chest cling obstinately to the false belief that they are in the Lord, so that they believe that everything they do, however wicked, is done with the Lord’s consent. However, this was not enough to let them know who it was that were meant by this vision. They were eventually informed from heaven that the inhabitants of Mars were meant. Their celestial love, which many of them still retain, was meant by the flaming object which adhered to the hand. The bird to begin with, when its colours were at their loveliest and its liveliness most vigorous, meant their spiritual love. However, when the bird was turned to stone and became lifeless, eventually turning a dark colour, this meant the inhabitants of that world who departed from the good of love and are devoted to evil, while still believing that they are in the Lord. The spirit who rose up and wanted to carry off the bird had a similar meaning.
# The first and most ancient church in this world was a celestial church, the leading one of all (AC 607, 895, 920, 1121-4, 2896, 4493, 8891, 9942, 10545). A church is called celestial when its principal feature is love to the Lord, but spiritual when its principal feature is charity towards the neighbour and faith (AC 3691, 6435, 9468, 9680, 9683, 9780).
[2] There was spirit over my head who talked with me. It was possible to tell from the sound of his voice that he was more or less in a sleeping state. In this he talked a lot, and displayed such prudence in what he said that he could not have done better wide awake. I was able to perceive that he was being used as a person through whom angels spoke; in that state he could grasp what was said and reproduce it.# For he spoke nothing but the truth, and if he felt any influence from another source, he allowed it in, but did not reproduce it. I asked him about his state, and he said that it was one of peace, and he had no anxiety about the future. At the same time he provided services, which allowed him to be in touch with heaven. I was told that such people answer in the Grand Man to the superior sagittal sinus, which lies between the two hemispheres of the brain, and they remain in a quiet condition there, however much the brain on either side is in turmoil.
[3] While I was talking with this spirit, some spirits moved towards the fore part of the head, where the one was whom they were crowding out. He therefore went off to one side to make room for them. These spirit newcomers were talking among themselves, but neither I nor the spirits around me could understand what they were saying. I was informed by angels that they were spirits from the world of Mars, who possessed the trick of talking among themselves without the other spirits present understanding or perceiving anything. I was surprised that such speech was possible, since all spirits share a common language, which flows from their thought, and is composed of ideas, which are heard as words in the spiritual world. I was told that those spirits have a special way of forming ideas, which they express by means of the lips and face, so that others cannot understand them; and at the same moment they deliberately withdraw their thoughts, taking particular care to allow no hint of their affection to show. This is because, if any hint of affection were perceived, then the thought would be obvious, since thought flows from the affection and is, as it were, contained in it.
I was informed further that the inhabitants of the world of Mars, not however all of them, but those who regard heavenly life as merely a matter of knowledge, not of showing love in the way they live, have devised this way of speaking, and on becoming spirits they retain this. It is these who are especially meant by the stone bird. For producing speech by means of facial expressions and convolutions of the lips, while removing affections and withdrawing thoughts from others, is taking the life out of speech and making it like a statue, and gradually making oneself like one too.
[4] But although they fancy that their conversations among themselves are not intelligible to others, still angelic spirits perceive all the details of their conversations. This is because not all the thought behind them can be withdrawn. To prove this to them they were given a live demonstration. I was pondering the fact that the wicked spirits of our world are not ashamed of attacking others. This idea reached me from angelic spirits who perceived their speech. Those Martian spirits then acknowledged, to their own surprise, that this was the subject of their conversation. Moreover, an angelic spirit was able to uncover more of their conversations and thoughts, however hard they tried to withdraw their thoughts from him.
[5] Later these spirits exercised an influence from above on my face. It looked like a fine striped rain; this was a sign that they had no affection for truth and good, for this is pictured by stripes. Then they spoke openly with me, and said that the inhabitants of their world converse in a similar manner. They were told that this was wicked, because it blocks off the internals, so that they leave these for the externals, and they deprive them too of life. It is particularly wicked because speaking like that is dishonest. Honest people have no wish to say or even think anything which others may not know, even if the others include everyone, even the whole of heaven. But those who do not want others to know what they say are passing judgment on others, holding a poor opinion of them and a good one of themselves; and the habit reduces them to the point that they hold and express a poor opinion of the church, heaven and even the Lord Himself.
[6] I was told that those who love knowledge, without living as knowledge dictates, answer in the Grand Man to the inner membrane of the skull. But those who have become accustomed to speak without affection and to keep their thoughts to themselves, not sharing them with others, answer to that membrane when ossified, because from having some spiritual life they come to have none.
# Contact is made between communities of spirits and angels by sending spirits to them as emissaries; these are called subordinates (AC 4403, 5856, 5983, 5985-9).
Take as an example the animals of the earth, and also the creatures of the sky, the birds. They know everything needed by their loves. These loves are: to feed themselves, to find a safe place to live, to reproduce, to bring up their young, in some cases to build up a store for the winter. They have therefore all the knowledge they need, since this is contained in these loves and is imparted to them, as if to receptors designed for the purpose. In the case of certain animals this knowledge is such as to cause us profound astonishment. Their knowledge is inborn, and we call it instinct, but it belongs to the natural love which is theirs.
[2] If man possessed his proper love, love to God and towards the neighbour (this is man’s proper love, a heavenly love distinguishing him from the beasts), then man would have not only all the knowledge he needs, but also all intelligence and wisdom; for these flow into those loves from heaven, that is, from the Deity by way of heaven. But because man does not acquire those loves by birth, but their opposites, self-love and the love of the world, he cannot help acquiring by birth all ignorance and lack of knowledge. Yet by Divine means he is led towards some degree of intelligence and wisdom, though he does not actually acquire any, unless self-love and the love of the world are taken away, thus opening the way to love to God and towards the neighbour.
[3] Love to God and love towards the neighbour contain in themselves all intelligence and wisdom, as may be proved by those who possessed those loves in the world. On coming after death into heaven they have there such knowledge and wisdom as they were previously quite unaware of. In fact, they think and talk there like the rest of the angels, saying ineffable things, which their ears had never heard nor their minds known. The reason is that these loves possess the ability to receive such things into themselves.
ON THE WORLD OR PLANET OF SATURN, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
The spirits from that world are to be seen in front at a considerable distance, lower down on a level with the knees; and this is where that world too appears. When the gaze is turned in that direction, a great number of spirits, all from that world, comes into view. They are to be seen on this side of that world, and to the right of it. I was allowed to talk with them too, and so to discover what they are like as compared with others. They are upright and restrained; and because they have a low opinion of themselves, they also appear small in the next life.
Whenever anyone wants to mislead the spirits from there, seducing them from their belief in the Lord, or from their self-abasement before Him and from uprightness of life, they say they want to die. Then there are to be seen in their hands small knives, with which they seem intent on striking their chests. On being asked why they do this, they reply that they would rather die than be taken away from the Lord. The spirits of our world sometimes make fun of them on this account, and heap insults on them for behaving like that. But then they reply that they are perfectly well aware that they are not killing themselves, but that this is merely an appearance arising from their intention, which makes them prefer death to being prevented from worshipping the Lord.
[2] Since the spirits of our world answer in the Grand Man to natural and bodily sense, I have been allowed to learn by plain experience how the spiritual and the natural man fight and quarrel, if the natural man is not in a state of faith and charity.
[3] The spirits of the world of Saturn were seen coming from far off, and then direct communication was established between them and such spirits of our world. On becoming aware of them our spirits became almost mad, and started to attack them, throwing out disparaging remarks about faith and also about the Lord; and amid their rudeness and insults they actually plunged in among them, and the madness from which they were suffering made them attempt to inflict injury. But the spirits of Saturn were not at all frightened, being safe and calm. However, the spirits of our world, finding themselves among them began to be distressed and to have difficulty in breathing, so that they hurled themselves away, one in one direction, another in another, and disappeared.
[4] This made the bystanders aware what the natural man is like, if he is separated from the spiritual man, when he enters a spiritual sphere; he is driven mad. For the natural man when separated from the spiritual can draw only on the world’s wisdom, and gets nothing from heaven. Anyone who relies only on the world’s wisdom believes nothing but what his senses tell him, and trusts what the deceptive impressions of the senses make him believe. Unless these are taken away by influence from the spiritual world, they lead to false beliefs. That is why spiritual matters are meaningless to him, to such a point that he can scarcely bear to hear the spiritual mentioned. As a result such people go mad, if they are kept in a spiritual sphere. But this does not happen while they are living in the world. Then they either think about spiritual matters in a natural way, or they close their ears to them, that is, they hear but do not listen.
[5] That experience also proved that the natural man cannot invade, that is, climb up to, the spiritual man. But when a person is in a state of faith and thus enjoys spiritual life, the spiritual man exerts an influence on the natural man, and thinks in him. Spiritual influence, that is, an influence from the spiritual world, can occur working on the natural world, but not the reverse.#
# Influence is spiritual, not physical or natural, so that the spiritual world influences the natural world, but the natural does not influence the spiritual world (AC 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-8, 5477, 6322). There is an apparent influence of a person’s externals on his internals, but this is misleading (AC 3721).
ON THE WORLD OR PLANET OF VENUS, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
Spirits and angels think of the planet Venus as to be seen on the left, a little further back and at some distance from our world. We say that the spirits think of it like this, because the sun of the solar system is not visible to any spirit, nor is any planet. Spirits simply have an idea of their existence. This idea alone makes them think of the sun of the solar system as something jet-black behind them, and the planets not wandering as in the solar system, but occupying fixed positions (see 42 above).
[* Restored from AC 7249.-TR.]
ON THE SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS OF THE MOON
Some spirits appeared overhead, and I heard from there voices like thunder; for their voices thundered just like the claps of thunder which come from the clouds following lightning flashes. I supposed that there were a huge number of spirits who knew the trick of making their voices sound like that. The more simple spirits present with me laughed at them, which very much surprised me. The reason for their laughter was soon revealed, which was that these thundering spirits were not numerous, but only few, and also as small as boys. Another reason was that previously they had struck terror into them by similar thunderings, yet had not been able to do them any harm.
[2] To show me what they were like, some of them came down from the height where they were thundering. I was surprised to see one carrying another on his back, so they approached me as a pair. Their faces were not unattractive in appearance, but longer than those of other spirits. In height they resembled a boy of seven, but were stronger in body; so they were dwarfs. I was told by angels that they were from the moon.
[3] The one who was carried by another came to me, attaching himself to my left side below the elbow. He spoke to me from that position, and said that when they give voice they thunder like that. This frightens spirits who want to harm them, making some of them run away, so that they can go where they want in safety. To prove to me that they could make such a noise, he retreated from me to join a few others, but without going out of sight, and made the same kind of thunder. Moreover, they demonstrated that their voice came out of their abdomen like a belch, and this caused the thunder.
[4] I gathered that this arises from the fact that the inhabitants of the moon do not speak so much from the lungs like the inhabitants of other worlds, but from the abdomen, using some air which collects there. This is because the moon is not surrounded by the same kind of atmosphere as the other worlds. I was informed that the spirits of the moon answer in the Grand Man to the scutiform or xiphoid cartilage,* to which the ribs are connected in front, and from which the linea alba descends, which is the fulcrum of the abdominal muscles.
[* Both these terms were formerly in use for what is to-day generally called the sternum.-TR.]
THE REASONS WHY THE LORD CHOSE TO BE BORN IN OUR WORLD AND NOT IN ANOTHER
There are many reasons, as I was informed from heaven, why the Lord was pleased to be born and take on human nature in our world and not in another. THE CHIEF CAUSE was for the sake of the Word, which could thus be written in our world; and having been written, could be circulated throughout the world; and once circulated, could be preserved for all posterity, thus enabling it to be made plain that God became man, even to all in the next life.
# Natural light by itself cannot yield any knowledge about the Lord, heaven and hell, how people live after death, or about Divine truths, which are a person’s means of achieving spiritual and everlasting life (AC 8944, 10318-20). This can be established from the fact that many people, including the educated, do not believe in them, despite being born where the Word is known, and having been taught by it about these subjects (AC 10319). It was therefore necessary for a revelation to be made from heaven, since human beings are by birth destined for heaven (AC 1775).
# In the next life the heathen are taught by angels, and those who have lived good lives in accordance with their own religion accept the truths of faith and acknowledge the Lord (AC 2049, 2595, 2598, 2600-1, 2603, 2861 [2661 in original], 2863, 3263).
# Angels in the heavens and people on earth understand the Word differently; the angels follow its inner or spiritual sense, people here its outer or natural sense (AC 1769-72, 1887, 2143, 2333, 2395 [2396 in original], 2540-1, 2545, 2551). The Word is a unifying bond between heaven and earth (AC 2310, 2895 [2495 in original], 9212, 9216, 9357, 10375). The Word was therefore written entirely by means of correspondences (AC 1404, 1408-9, 1540, 1619, 1659, 1709, 1783, 8615, 10687). The inmost sense of the Word deals exclusively with the Lord and His kingdom (AC 1873, 2249, 2523, 7014, 9357).
In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made by His means, and nothing that was made was made without Him. And the Word was made flesh, and lived among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only son of the Father. No one has ever seen God, but the only son, who is in the Father’s bosom, He has explained Him. John 1:1-4, 14, 18.
The Word is the Lord in respect of Divine truth, and so Divine truth coming from the Lord.## But this is a mystery which few can understand.
# The Word is natural in its literal sense (AC 8783). This is because the natural is the lowest level on which the spiritual and celestial levels rest, and as it were the foundation on which the others are built. Otherwise the inner or spiritual sense of the Word, if devoid of an outer or natural sense, would be like a house without foundations (AC 9430, 9433, 9824, 10044, 10436).
## The Word is the Lord as regards Divine truth, and thus Divine truth coming from the Lord (AC 2859, 4692, 5075, 9987). All things were created and made by means of Divine truth (AC 2803, 2894 [2884 in original], 5272, 7835 [perhaps 7678]).
THE WORLDS IN THE STARRY SKY
Those in heaven are able to speak and associate with angels and spirits coming not only from the worlds of this solar system, but also from worlds in space beyond the solar system. This is true not only of their spirits and angels, but also of their actual inhabitants; but only with those whose interiors are open, so that they can hear those speaking from heaven. A person can do the same while living in the world, if the Lord permits him to speak with spirits and angels. For man is, in respect of his interiors, a spirit. The body he carries round with him in the world is only to enable him to function in this ultimate sphere, the natural or earthly one.
But no one is allowed to talk with spirits and angels as if he were a spirit himself, unless he is, as regards faith and love, capable of associating with angels. Nor is this association possible, unless his faith and love are directed to the Lord. For it is by means of faith and love to Him, that is, by the truths of teaching and a life of good actions coming from Him, that man is linked to Him. When he is so linked, he is safe from the assaults of wicked spirits from hell. Others cannot have their interiors opened to such an extent, since they are not in the Lord. This is why there are few to-day allowed to talk and converse with angels. An obvious proof of this is the fact that to-day there is hardly any belief in the existence of spirits and angels, let alone their presence with every person, and that these put a person in touch with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord. Even less do people believe that when a person’s body dies, his spirit lives on and in human form as before death.
# Motion, progress and change of place in the next life are changes in the state of inner life; they still appear as real to spirits and angels as if they were actually taking place (AC 1273-7, 1377, 3356, 5605, 10734).
[2] It has been calculated that if there were a million worlds in the universe, and three hundred million human beings in each world, and two hundred generations in six thousand years, and if each human being or spirit were given a space of three cubic metres,* the total number of people or spirits, if all added together, would still not occupy a thousandth part of the volume of this world, but perhaps the volume of one of the satellites of the planets Jupiter or Saturn. Such a volume would be beneath notice on the scale of the universe, since these satellites are barely visible to the naked eye. How insignificant would this be to the Creator of the universe, who, being infinite, would not be satisfied even if they filled the whole universe?
[3] I talked with angels on this subject, and they said that they shared a similar idea about the small size of the human race compared with the infinite size of the Creator; but their thinking was in terms of states, not space. In their opinion as many myriads of worlds as could ever be imagined would still be as nothing to the Lord. However, I shall in what follows report on the worlds in the starry sky from direct experience. This will show how my spirit was able to travel to such places, while my body remained in its own place.
[* An approximation; the original uses a word meaning ell. -TR.]
THE FIRST WORLD IN THE STARRY SKY, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS: A REPORT BASED ON THINGS HEARD AND SEEN
Under the Lord’s guidance I was taken by angels to a world in the starry sky, where I was allowed to look at the world itself, but not to talk with its inhabitants, only with spirits from it. All the inhabitants or people of each world become spirits when their life in the world is over, and they remain in the vicinity of their own world. I was, however, able to gather information from them about their world and the condition of its inhabitants. For when people leave the body, they take with them their whole previous life and everything in their memory.#
[2] Being taken to worlds in space does not mean being taken or travelling in body, but in spirit. The spirit is guided through varying states of inner life, which appear to him like travels through space.## Agreement or similarity in states of life determines how close people come, for agreement or similarity of life links them, disagreement or dissimilarity separates them. This can allow it to be seen how travel in spirit takes place, and how one can approach distant places, while the person still keeps to his same place.
[3] But taking spirits by changes of inner state outside their own globe, making the changes advance by stages until a state is reached which agrees with or resembles that of the people to whom they are being taken, is something only the Lord can do. For there must be continuous guidance and planned advance from first to last, on both outward and return journeys. It especially needs the Lord’s help for this to happen to a person who in body is still in the world of nature, and consequently subject to spatial constraints. Those who are dependent on the impressions conveyed by the bodily senses, and think only in these terms, cannot be brought to believe this actually happened.
[4] The reason is that the bodily senses cannot grasp the idea of travel without movement through space. But those whose thinking comes from the senses of the spirit a little withdrawn or distanced from the body’s senses, can be brought to believe and grasp it, since inner thinking has no concept of space or time, but their place is taken by the things which give rise to space and time. It is therefore for these people that the following reports on the worlds in the starry sky are intended, not for the others, unless they are the sort of people who will allow themselves to be instructed.
# After death a person keep with him his memory of everything it contained in the world (AC 2476-86).
## Motion, progress and change of place in the next life are changes in the state of inner life; they still appear as real to spirits and angels as if they were actually taking place (AC 1273-7, 1377, 3356, 5605, 10734).
Confirmation that this was so came from some spirits in my company who, on reaching that great gap, were not allowed to cross; they began to shout out that they were dying. They resembled people struggling in their death-agony. So they stopped this side of that chasm, and could not travel any further. For the fiery smoke rising up from the chasm gripped them and subjected them to these tortures.
# The light in the heavens is strong (AC 1117, 1521-2, 1583, 1619-32, 4527, 5400, 8644). All light in the heavens comes from the Lord, who is the sun there (AC 1053, 1521, 3195, 3341, 3636, 4415, 9548, 9684, 10809). Divine truth coming forth from the Lord is visible in the heavens as light (AC 3195, 3222, 5400, 8644, 9399, 9548, 9684). That light enlightens both the sight and the understanding of angels and spirits (AC 2776, 3138). The light also enlightens the understanding of people in the world (AC 1524, 3138, 3167, 4408, 6608, 8707, 9128 [9126 in original], 9399, 10569).
The lady whom I saw had a broad garment covering her chest, behind which she could hide. It was made so that one could put one’s arms into it and so put it on, and thus be lost to view. Its lower part could be tucked up; when tucked up and held close to the body it looked like the bodices worn by women in our world. But the same garment could also be worn by a man. A gentleman was seen to take one from a lady and put it round his back, and when he unfastened the lower part it fell to his feet like a gown, and he walked off wearing it like this. What I saw in that world, I saw not with my bodily eyes, but with the eyes of my spirit. A spirit is able to see things in a world, when permitted to do so by the Lord.
[2] Neither spirits nor angels can see anything in the world by using their own sight; for to them the world’s light, that is, sunlight, is like thick darkness. In the same way neither can a person with his bodily sight see anything in the next life, for to him the light of heaven is like thick darkness. But still spirits and angels can, at the Lord’s good pleasure, see things in the world through a person’s eyes. The Lord, however, only permits this in the case of those whom He allows to talk with spirits and angels and be present with them. They were allowed to see things in this world, and as clearly as I do, by using my eyes. They could also hear people talking with me. It has sometimes happened that spirits have through me seen friends, whom they had known while living in the body, as vividly present as previously, and have been astonished. They have even seen their husbands and children, and wanted to tell them they were there and could see them, asking me to tell them how they were in the next life. But I was forbidden to tell them this and to disclose that they had been seen, especially because they would have called me mad, or at least thought these were mental delusions, as I was well aware that despite their verbal professions they did not at heart believe in the existence of spirits, that the dead have risen again, and are present among spirits; nor in the possibility of their seeing and hearing by means of a person.
[3] When my inner sight was first opened and those in the next life saw the world and things in it through my eyes, they were so astonished that they called it the greatest of miracles, and felt a new joy at the possibility of earth communicating with heaven and heaven with earth. Although this joy lasted for months, it has now become so familiar to them that they are no longer surprised at it. I was informed that the spirits and angels with other people do not see anything at all in the world, but only perceive the thoughts and affections of those with whom they are.
[4] From these facts it can be established that man was so created that, while living among people in the world, he would at the same time live in heaven among angels, and conversely. He was likewise so created that heaven and the world could be simultaneously present with him and act together, and so that people should know what happens in heaven, and angels should know what happens in the world. When people die, they are thus able to pass from the Lord’s kingdom on earth to His kingdom in the heavens, not as if entering a new one, but the same one that they lived in while in the body. But by becoming immersed in bodily matters man has shut himself off from heaven.
THE SECOND WORLD IN THE STARRY SKY, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
Afterwards I was brought by the Lord to a world in space, which was even further away from our world than the first one I have described. It became plain that it was more distant, because the journey to it in my spirit lasted two days. This world lay to the left, the previous one to the right. Remoteness in the spiritual world does not depend on spatial distance, but on difference of state, as was said above. I was therefore able to deduce from the time the journey to it took, two whole days, that the state of the interiors affecting people there, that is, the state of their affections and consequently of their thoughts, is so very different from those affecting spirits from our world. Since I was transported there by changes of interior state, I was able to observe the successive changes as they happened up to my arrival. This took place while I was awake.
They noticed from their position that I was not from their world, but from some distant place. So they spoke to me from there, asking about various matters; and I was able to reply to their questions. Amongst other things I told them which world I was from and what it was like. Afterwards I told them about the planets in our solar system. I also told them about the spirits of the world or planet of Mercury, and how they travel to many worlds in order to acquire knowledge of various matters. On hearing this they said that they too had seen them on a visit.
On seeing this I was able to tell them that they ought not to worship what is dead, but what is alive. They replied to this, saying that they knew that God is alive and is not a stone, but that when they view a stone which resembles a human being they think of a living God. They found it impossible any otherwise to concentrate the ideas of their thought and direct them to an invisible God. Then I was able to tell them that the ideas of thought can be concentrated and directed towards an invisible God, when they are directed towards the Lord, who can be thought of as God visible in human form. By this means man can be linked to an invisible God by thought and affection, and so by faith and love, when he is linked to the Lord, but not in any other way.
I saw a woman wearing a gown patterned with roses of different colours. So I asked where in that world they got their clothes. They replied that they gather from plants material which they spin into thread, and they arrange the threads in layers* of double or triple thickness, wetting the cloth with a sticky liquid to give it consistency, and subsequently colouring the woven cloth with herbal dyes. I was given a demonstration of how they make thread. The women sit half-lying** on the ground and use their toes to twist it, and when twisted they pull it towards themselves and work it up with their hands.
[* Reading stratim for statim from AC 10163.-TR.]
[** Reading demisupinatae from AC 10164.-TR.]
THE THIRD WORLD IN THE STARRY SKY, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
Some spirits became visible far off, who were unwilling to come close. The reason was that they could not bear the company of the spirits from our world who were then around me. I realised from this that came from another world. I was told afterwards that they came from a certain world in space, but I was given no indication where it might be. These spirits utterly refused to think about their bodies, or indeed about anything to do with the body or matter; in this they were quite different from the spirits of our world. This was why they were unwilling to come close; but when some of the spirits from our world had been sent away, they came closer and talked with me.
However, I then had a feeling of unease, which is caused by the clash of spheres. All spirits and communities of spirits are surrounded by spiritual spheres.# These proceed from the life of their affections and so their thoughts, so when their affections are opposed, there is a clash leading to uneasiness. The spirits from our world reported that neither did they dare to get close to them, because when they did, they not only felt gripped by uneasiness, but even seemed to themselves to be tied hand and foot with snakes, which they could not untie until the spirits left. This appearance is due to the correspondence. The spirits of our world answer in the Grand Man to the external senses or bodily sense-perception, and in the other life this is pictured by snakes.##
# A spiritual sphere, that of their life, flows out and pours forth from each person, spirit and angel and envelops them (AC 4464, 5179, 7454). Its source is their life of affection and thus thought (AC 2489, 4464, 6206). In the next life these spheres determine how groups are formed and also dissolved (AC 6206, 9606-7, 10312).
## A person’s external sensory faculty is pictured in the spiritual world by snakes, because it is concerned with the lowest levels and as compared with a person’s inner levels it lies on the ground, and as it were, creeps. As a result those who base their reasoning on that sensory faculty were called snakes (AC 195-7, 6398, 6949).
But I was not allowed to see what these temples were like inside. I was only told that sunlight is admitted through openings between the branches, and is everywhere passed through crystals, which turn the light around the walls into colours like the rainbow, especially shades of blue and orange, which they particularly like. This is their architecture, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our world.
I asked what happens to wicked people among them. They said no one was allowed in their world to behave badly, but if anyone had wicked thoughts and did wicked deeds, he is rebuked by a certain spirit, who threatens him with death if he persists in wrongdoing. If he still persists, he loses consciousness and dies. In this way the people of that world are saved from being infected by the wicked.
One of the spirits of this kind was sent to me, to talk with me as he does with the wicked. In addition he caused me a certain amount of pain in the abdominal region, saying that this was what he did to those who have wicked thoughts and do wicked deeds, threatening them with death if they persisted. They said that those who profane sacred things are severely punished. Before the spirit appears to punish them, they have a vision of a lion’s jaws gaping wide open, livid in colour, looking as if it intended to swallow their head and tear it from the body. This gives them a dreadful fright. They call the spirit who punishes them a devil.
# Heaven has a correspondence to the Lord, and a human being has in every detail a correspondence to heaven, so that in the Lord’s eyes heaven is a man on the grand scale, and may be called the Grand Man (AC 2996, 2998, 3624-49 [original adds 3636-43], 3741-5, 4625). The whole subject of the correspondence of man and all his parts to the Grand Man who is heaven has been described from experience (AC 3021, 3624-49, 3741-50 [3741 in original], 3883-96, 4039-55 [4051 in original], 4218-28, 4318-31, 4403-21, 4523 [4527 in original]-33, 4622-33, 4652-60, 4791-4805, 4931-53, 5050-61, 5171-89, 5377-96, 5552-73, 5711-27, 10030).
THE FOURTH WORLD IN THE STARRY SKY AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
I was taken to yet another world in space outside the solar system; this was brought about by changes in my mental state, changes, that is, affecting my spirit. For, as I have said several times before, a spirit is taken from place to place by nothing but changes in his inner state. These changes seem to him exactly like movement from one place to another or travelling. It took around ten hours of continuous changes for me to reach their state of life from my own, so for me to travel there in my spirit. I was travelling eastwards, towards the left, and I seemed to be gradually climbing above the horizontal plane. I was also able to watch clearly my progress and advance from my previous position, until at length those I had left behind disappeared from view. Meanwhile I conversed on various subjects with the spirits accompanying me.
We had with us a certain spirit who during his life in the world had been a most impassioned prelate and preacher as well as writer. My spirit companions thought from my idea of him that he must be an outstanding Christian at heart. For in the world an idea is formed and a judgment made based on a person’s preaching and writings, rather than on his life, if this is not manifest; and if there seems to be anything discordant in his life, excuses are offered. For the idea formed, one’s thought and perception about anyone, puts a favourable gloss on everything about him.
[2] The spirit with me, who had been a prelate and preacher in the world, was also then investigated, to see what his concept was of one God and three Persons; he pictured three Gods, but joined together to form one. But this threefold unity was represented as invisible, because it was Divine. When this idea was presented, it was perceived that he was only thinking about the Father and not about the Lord, and that his concept of an invisible God was nothing but a concept of nature in its first beginnings. As a result, the inmost level of nature was his Divinity, so that he could easily be brought to acknowledge nature as God. It needs to be known that in the next life anyone’s concept of anything is pictured vividly, so that investigation is possible into each person’s thought and perception on matters of faith. The concept of God is the principal one in everyone’s thinking; for if it is a true one, it is the means which links him with the Divine and consequently with heaven.
[3] Then when these spirits were asked what was their concept of God, they replied that it was not of an invisible God, but God visible in human form. They knew this not only by perceiving it inwardly, but also from the fact that He had appeared to them as a man. They added that if they thought of God as invisible, as some of their visitors did, that is to say, devoid of form and quality, they found it totally impossible to think about God, since anything invisible like this cannot be reduced to a concept one can think about.
On hearing this I was allowed to tell them that they were right to think of God in human form, and that many people from our world have a similar idea, especially when thinking about the Lord. I told them that the ancients too thought like this, and related the stories of Abraham, Lot, Gideon and Manoah and his wife, as they are set forth in our Word. All these saw God in human form, and acknowledged Him whom they saw as the Creator of the universe, calling Him Jehovah; this too came from inward perception. But this inward perception has now been lost in the Christian world, and remains only with simple folk who have faith.
[2] On hearing this I was allowed to say that such a concept of a Trinity co-existing with a Unity is in agreement with the concept angels have of the Lord. For He teaches that the Father and He are one, and that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father; that he who sees Him sees the Father, and he who believes in Him believes in and knows the Father. He also teaches that the Comforter, whom He calls the Spirit of truth, as well as the Holy Spirit, goes forth from Him, and does not speak of His own accord, but what the Lord says; by this is meant the Divine which goes forth.
[3] I went on to suggest that the concept of a Trinity co-existing with a Unity is in agreement with the Being and the Coming-into-being of the Lord’s life, when He was in the world. The Being of His life was the Divine Itself, since He was conceived of Jehovah. The being of anyone’s life is the source from which he was conceived. The Coming-into-being of the life from that Being is the human in form. The being of everyone’s life which he has from his father is called the soul, and the coming-into-being of life from that source is called the body. Soul and body make up a single person. The analogy between them is as between what is contained in effort and what is in the resultant action, for an act is an effort in action, so that the two are one. Effort in a person is called the will, and effort in action is called an act. The body is the instrument by means of which the principal, that is, the will, acts; and instrument and principal are one in acting. So it is with the soul and body, and this is the concept of them held by angels in heaven. From this they know that the Lord made His Human Divine by the Divine in Himself, which was His soul derived from the Father.
Moreover, the creed everywhere accepted in the Christian world is not against this, for it teaches:
Although Christ is God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. Indeed, He is wholly one and a single person; because, as the body and the soul are one man, so too God and Man is one Christ.##
Because there was such a union, or such a unity, in the Lord, He rose again not only as to the soul, but also as to the body, which He glorified in the world, unlike any man. He also taught His disciples about this, saying:
Feel me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have.### [Luke 24: 39.]
The spirits could perfectly well understand these words, since they fall within the grasp of angelic spirits. They then added that the Lord alone has power in the heavens, and the heavens are His. In reply to this I was able to tell them that the church in our world also knows this from the Lord’s words spoken before He went up into heaven. For He then said:
All power has been given me in heaven and on earth. [Matt. 28:18.]
# A spiritual sphere, that of their life, flows out and pours forth from each person, spirit and angel and envelops them (AC 4464, 5179, 7454). Its source is their life of affection and thus thought (AC 2489, 4464, 6206). In the next life these spheres determine how groups are formed and also dissolved (AC 6206, 9606-7, 10312).
## From the Athanasian Creed.
### Immediately after death a person rises again in spirit, and this spirit has human form and is a person in every detail (AC 4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 8991, 10594, 10597, 10758). People rise again in spirit and not bodily (AC 10593-4). The Lord alone rose again bodily (AC 1729, 2083, 5078, 10825).
I told them that the same thing happened in our world in ancient times, in front, for instance of Abraham, Sarah, Lot, the inhabitants of Sodom, Manoah and his wife, Joshua, Mary, Elizabeth and the Prophets as a class. The Lord also appeared in the same way, and those who saw Him did not know that He was not a man in the world, until He revealed Himself. This, I said, rarely happened at the present time, because people should not be forced to believe by such means. For a forced belief, such as is induced by miracles, does not stick, and could also be damaging to those who might have belief established in them by means of the Word without any coercion.
Afterwards a number of other women were seen by him on his right; they were tending sheep and lambs, which they were then taking to a drinking-trough, fed through a small channel from a lake. They were similarly dressed, holding shepherds’ crooks in their hands, with which they brought the sheep and lambs to drink. They said the sheep follow the direction pointed out with their crooks. The sheep seen were large with long, broad and woolly tails. The women’s faces seen close up were full and lovely. Men were also seen with faces the colour of human flesh, as in our world. But there was a difference; the lower part of their faces was black instead of bearded, and their noses had a whiter colour than flesh.
[2] Afterwards the spirit, who in the world, as I said before, had been a preacher, was taken further on, but against his will, because he was still thinking about the woman who had so delighted him. This was plain from the fact that a kind of shadow of him was still to be seen where he had previously been. He then reached the people who were naked. These were to be seen walking about in pairs, being in each case husband and wife. They wore a loin-cloth, and some kind of covering around the head. While in their company the spirit was brought into the state he had been in when he wanted to preach; so he then said that he wanted to preach to them on the Lord crucified. But they said they did not wish to hear such a story, not knowing what it was. They knew, they said, that the Lord is alive. So then he declared that he would preach on the Lord living. But this too they refused to hear, saying that they felt something in his speech that was not heavenly, because there was much in it for his own sake or for the sake of his reputation and honour. They could tell by listening to the sound of his speech whether it came from the heart or not; and being of such a nature he could not teach them. So he fell silent. When living in the world he had been a most eloquent speaker, very skilled in moving his listeners to holy thoughts. But this eloquence had been a skill he learned, so something of his own and from the world, not from heaven.
[2] I added that they are allowed to hold this belief, because there is no other way that those who, as I said, base their thinking on outward sense-impressions, could think of their soul or spirit living as a person in human form, except by re-entering the body they carried around with them in the world. Unless therefore the body were said to be resurrected, they would at heart reject the teaching on resurrection and everlasting life as incomprehensible.
Yet thinking like this about resurrection has this advantage, that they do believe in a life after death. The consequence of this belief is that, when they lie sick in bed and cease to base their thinking, as previously, on worldly and bodily matters, that is, on sense-impressions, they then believe that they will live again immediately after dying.
[3] At this time they also talk about heaven, and how they hope to live there as soon as they die, putting aside all they have been taught about the Last Judgment. I told them how I have several times been surprised how it is that, when those who have faith talk about life after death and their friends who are dying or have died, without at the same time thinking about the Last Judgment, they believe their friends will live or are living as people immediately after death. The moment they start thinking about the Last Judgment, this idea is changed into a material idea of their earthly body, which has to be reunited with their soul.
[4] For they are unaware that each person is inwardly a spirit, and the life of the body and all its parts comes from the spirit, not from the body by itself. They do not know that it is the spirit which is the real person, sharing its form, but invisible to the body’s eyes, being visible only to the eyes of spirits. Hence it is too that, when a person’s spirit has its sight opened, which is the result of the withdrawal of the body’s sight, angels can be seen as people. So it was that angels appeared to the ancients, as related in the Word.
I have had several conversations with spirits whom I knew when they were people living in the world, and asked whether they wanted to be clothed again with their earthly bodies, as they had previously imagined. On hearing this they ran off to a distance at the mere idea of being reunited, in astonishment at having been led in the world to think so by blind faith without any understanding.
There were also fields to be seen which were turning white as the crop was almost ripe. I was shown the seeds or grain of that crop, which resembled the grains of Chinese wheat.* I was also shown loaves made from this, which were small, breaking up into four pieces. Grassy plains with flowers were also to be seen there, as well as trees with fruits like pomegranates. There were shrubs which, though not vines, bore berries from which they prepared wine.
[* Probably rice. -TR.]
[* The German mile was equivalent to 6.64 English miles, giving a figure of 3320 miles or about 5300 km for the circumference.-TR.]
THE FIFTH WORLD IN THE STARRY SKY, ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS
On another occasion I was taken to yet another world in space outside the solar system. The journey was by means of changes of state lasting for nearly twelve hours without a break. I was accompanied by a number of spirits and angels from our world, with whom I conversed as we progressed on our journey. I travelled at one time obliquely upwards, at another obliquely downwards, but constantly towards the right, which in the next life is towards the south. In only two places did I see any spirits, and in one I spoke with them. This progress or journey allowed me to observe how immense in the Lord’s heaven for angels and spirits. The uninhabited regions allowed me to deduce that it is so immense that, if there were many tens of thousands of worlds, each containing as large a population of human beings as ours, there would still be room enough for them to live for ever without filling it up. I reached this conclusion by comparing it with the extent of the heaven surrounding our world and designed for it, which was so small in comparison that it would not equal one hundred millionth part of the uninhabited space.
[2] They went on to say that their visitors also confused them by saying that the spirits of that world ought to have faith and believe what their visitors said. Their reply to this was that they did not know the meaning of faith or believing, since they could perceive in themselves that a thing was so. They came from the Lord’s celestial kingdom, where interior perception allows everyone to know truths which we call matters of faith. They are enlightened by the Lord, and in this differ from those in the spiritual kingdom. A further sign that the angelic spirits of that world came from the celestial kingdom was the sight of a flame, which is the source of their ideas. For the light in the celestial kingdom is like a flame, but in the spiritual kingdom brilliant white.
Those from the celestial kingdom when speaking about truths never say more than ‘yes, yes’ or ‘no, no’; they never reason about whether a matter is so or not. It is these of whom the Lord says:
Your speech is to be ‘yes, yes, no, no’. Anything further is from evil. [Matt. 5:37.]
This is why those spirits said they did not know what it was to have faith or believe. They regard this as being as if someone told his companion, who could see houses or trees with his own eyes, that he ought to have faith or believe they were houses or trees, when he can clearly see that they are. That is the nature of those from the Lord’s celestial kingdom, and of these angelic spirits.#
[3] We told them that there are few in our world endowed with interior perception, because when they are young they learn truths which they do not put into practice. A person has two faculties, called the intellect and the will. Those who only allow truths into their memory and so a little way into the intellect, and not into their life, that is, into the will, being unable to have any enlightenment or inward sight from the Lord, say that things must be believed or one must have faith. They also reason about truths, asking whether they are true or not; in fact, they are unwilling to have them perceived by any inward sight or any kind of enlightenment through the intellect. They say this because truths for them are devoid of light from heaven, and those who see without light from heaven can see falsities as truths and truths as falsities. As a result many people in this world have become so blinded, that, even though a person does not put truths into practice, or live by them, they still say he can be saved by faith alone; as if a person’s humanity did not come from and depend on the way he lives, but on knowing such things and believing them without living by them.
[4] Afterwards we talked with them about the Lord, about love directed to Him and towards the neighbour, and about regeneration. We said that loving the Lord means loving the commandments He gives, which is living according to them out of love.## Love towards the neighbour is wishing and consequently doing good to one’s fellow citizen, one’s country, one’s church and the Lord’s kingdom, not selfishly so as to be noticed or to earn merit, but from an affection for good.### On regeneration we said that those who are regenerated and put truths at once into practice in their lives, come to be able to perceive them inwardly. But those who first take truths into their memory, and then wish for and do what they demand are those who have faith; for they act from faith, which is then called conscience. The spirits said that they perceived this was so, and hence could see what faith was. I spoke with them by means of spiritual ideas, which allow such matters to be presented and grasped lucidly.
# Heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one of which is called the celestial, the other the spiritual kingdom (AC 3887, 4138). The angels in the celestial kingdom have countless more pieces of knowledge and immeasurably more wisdom than those in the spiritual kingdom (AC 2718). Celestial angels do not base their thought and speech on faith as do spiritual angels, but on inner perception that this is how things are (AC 202, 597, 607, 784, 1121, 1387, 1398, 1442, 1919, 7680, 7877, 8780). Celestial angels only say about the truths of faith ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; but spiritual angels argue whether it is so or not (AC 202, 337, 2715, 3246, 4448, 9166 [9196 in original]).
## Loving the Lord is living according to His commandments (AC 10143, 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645 [10648 in original]).
### Loving the neighbour is doing good and acting justly and correctly in every task and office through affection for good, justice and right (AC 8120-2, 10310, 10336). Living in love toward the neighbour is living in accordance with the Lord’s commandments (AC 3249).
Then they demonstrated to me their concept of evil in a person and of good in the Lord, showing how they are kept apart. They set one next to the other, so that they were almost touching, but still retaining their identity. But they were as if tied together in a way I cannot describe, so that good guided evil and restrained it from acting as it pleased; and good thus bent evil in the direction it wished, without evil being aware of it. This is how they represented the control of good over evil and at the same time a state of freedom.
[2] Then they asked how the Lord appears in the presence of angels from our world. I said that He appears in the sun as a man, surrounded by the fire of the sun, which is the source of all the light the angels in the heavens enjoy. The heat which is radiated from it is Divine good, and the light from it is Divine truth; both of these come from Divine love, which is the fiery appearance to be seen surrounding the Lord in that sun. But that sun is only seen by angels in heaven, not by spirits below heaven, since these are further distanced from the reception of the good of love and the truth of faith than the angels in the heavens (see 40 above). The answer to their questions about the Lord and His appearance in the presence of angels from this world was granted to them, because it then pleased the Lord to manifest Himself before them, and to restore to order what had been upset by evil spirits there, about whom they had complained. The reason why I was taken there was to witness this.
[2] Afterwards I saw that flaming beam of light descend quite deep into the lower parts of the earth there. It then appeared at one time a flame colour tending to white, at another white tending to dark, at another dark. I was told by angels that this appearance was due to the way the truth coming from good and the falsity coming from evil were received by the inhabitants of the lower parts of that land; it was certainly not the flaming beam which underwent these various changes. They also said that the lower parts of that land were inhabited by both good and wicked people; but they were kept well apart, in order that the wicked could be controlled by the Lord by means of the good. They added that the good are from time to time lifted up by the Lord into heaven, and their place is taken by others; this continues all the time. As the flaming beam came down the good were likewise separated from the wicked, and all was restored to order. For the wicked had by various tricks and devices penetrated into the homes of the good and attacked them. This was the reason for that visitation.
[3] The cloud which as it came down gradually changed becoming bright and assuming human form, then becoming a flaming beam, was a community of angels with the Lord in their midst. This allowed me to know the meaning of the Lord’s words about the Last Judgment reported in the Gospels, that He would come with angels in the clouds of heaven with glory and power [Matt. 24: 30; Mark 13: 26; Luke 21: 27].
I was able to talk with one of the monastic spirits and enquire what he was doing there. He said it was to teach them about the Lord. Asked what else, he said about heaven and hell; and further, about trusting everything he was going to say; and further, about the power of remitting sins and opening and closing heaven. He was then tested on his knowledge of the Lord, the truths of faith, the remission of sins, personal salvation, and heaven and hell. It transpired that he knew hardly anything, having vague and false notions about every single subject. All he had was a desire to gain advantage and exercise control; this he had acquired in the world and brought with him from there. He was therefore told that, having been led by that desire to journey to that world and being so deficient in his teaching, he could do nothing for the spirits of that world but deprive them of heaven’s light and substitute the darkness of hell, so ensuring that hell, and not the Lord, would rule amongst them. Moreover, he was crafty in seducing, but a fool as regards heavenly matters; and being such a one, he was then cast into hell. By this the spirits of that world were freed from these attackers.
[2] The rule of self-love, the opposite of the rule of love towards the neighbour, began when man estranged himself from the Lord. For in so far as a person fails to love and worship the Lord, so far does he love and worship himself, and he equally loves the world. Clans were then compelled in the interests of security to bring families and households together, so beginning various kinds of kingdom. In step with the growth of that love, evils of every kind increased, such as enmity, envy, hatred, revenge, brutality and trickery directed against all opponents. For nothing but evil pours forth from the self of those dominated by self-love, since a person’s self is nothing but evil, so that the self, being evil, cannot receive any good from heaven. That is how it is that, when self-love is dominant, it is the father of all such evils.# Moreover it is characteristic of that love that, in so far as restraints are relaxed, its headlong career ends up with each individual of this sort wanting to rule over all others throughout the world, and to possess their property. In fact, not satisfied with this, he wants to rule over the whole of heaven, as may be seen by reference to the contemporary Babylon. Such now is the rule of self-love, a rule as far removed from that of love towards the neighbour as heaven is from hell.
[3] Yet however much the rule of self exhibits this character in communities, in, that is to say, kingdoms and empires, the rule of love towards the neighbour is still possible in such countries in the case of those whose faith and love for God have made them wise, since these people love the neighbour. If the Lord’s Divine mercy permits, I shall describe elsewhere how these people in the heavens too live divided into clans, families and households, even though grouped into communities, but depending upon their spiritual relationships, which arise from the good of love and the truth of faith.
# A person’s self, which he inherits from his parents, is nothing but a mass of evil (AC 210, 215, 731, 874, 876, 987, 1047, 2307, 2308 [2318 in original], 3518, 3701, 3812, 8480, 8550, 10283-4, 10286, 10731). A person’s self is loving oneself more than God, and the world more than heaven, and treating the neighbour as worthless as compared with oneself, except for selfish reasons; so it is loving oneself and thus self-love and love of the world (AC 694, 731 [perhaps carried over from previous set of references], 4317, 5660). Self-love and love of the world are the source of all evils, if they are dominant (AC 1307-8, 1321, 1594, 1691, 3413, 7255, 7376, 7488 [7480, 7488 in original], 8318, 9335, 9348, 10038, 10742). These evils are contempt for others, enmity, hatred, revenge, brutality and trickery (AC 6667, 7370 [7372 in original], 7373-4, 9348, 10038, 10742). All falsity arises from these evils (AC 1047, 10283-4, 10286).
[* This would also be the effect if the obliquity of the axis of rotation of the planet were much less than the Earth’s.-TR.]
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