165. I lastly conversed with the spirits of that earth concerning the belief of the inhabitants of our Earth on the subject of the resurrection, in that they cannot conceive that men come into the other life immediately after death, and then appear as men as to the face, the body, the arms, the feet, and all the external and internal senses; still less that they are then clothed in garments, and have mansions and dwelling-places; and that the sole reason of this is that most persons here think from the sensuals which belong to the body, and therefore believe in the existence of nothing but what they see and touch; and that few of them can be withdrawn from external sensual things to interior things, and thus be elevated into the light of heaven, in which such things are perceived. Hence it is, that they can have no idea of their soul or spirit as of a man, but as of wind, or air, or a breath without form, in which there is yet something vital. This is the reason why they do not believe they shall rise again till the end of the world, which they call the Last Judgment, when the body, though mouldered into dust, and scattered by every wind, will be brought together again and conjoined to its soul or spirit. I added, that it is permitted them to believe this, since those who, as was said, think from external sensual things, can conceive no otherwise than that the soul or spirit cannot live as a man in a human form, unless it receive again that body which it carried about in the world; wherefore, unless it were asserted that the body will rise again, they would reject from their heart as incomprehensible the doctrine of the resurrection and of eternal life. But nevertheless this thought concerning the resurrection has this advantage with it, that it leads them to believe in a life after death, a consequence of which belief is, that when they lie on a sick bed, and do not, as theretofore, think from worldly and corporeal things, thus not from sensual things, they then believe that they shall live immediately after their decease; they then also speak of heaven, and of the hope of a life there immediately after death, quite apart from their doctrinal concerning the Last Judgment. I related further, that sometimes it had been matter of surprise to me, that when those who are in faith speak of a life after death, and of their friends and relatives who are dying or dead, and do not at the same time think about the Last Judgment, they believe that they will live or are living as men immediately on their decease. But as soon as thought concerning the Last Judgment flows in, this idea is changed into the material idea concerning their earthly body, that it is again to be conjoined to their soul; for they do not know that every man is a spirit as to his interiors, and that this it is which lives in the body and in each of its parts, and not the body which lives of itself; and that it is the