Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
eye sees spirits in their own form, which is the human form, not only
the spirits that are in the spiritual world, but also the spirit of
another man while it is yet in its body.
454. The form of the spirit is the human form because man is created
in respect to his spirit in the form of heaven, for all things of
heaven and of the order of heaven are brought together in the things
that constitute the mind of man;{1} and from this comes his capacity
to receive intelligence and wisdom. Whether you say the capacity to
receive intelligence and wisdom or the capacity to receive heaven it
is the same thing, as can be seen from what has been shown about the
light and heat of heaven (n. 126-140); the form of heaven (n.
200-212); the wisdom of angels (n. 265-275); and in the chapter that
the form of heaven as a whole and in part reflects a single man (n.
59-77); and this by virtue of the Divine Human of the Lord, which is
the source of heaven and its form (n. 78-86).
{Footnote 1} Man is the being into whom are brought together
all things of Divine order, and by creation he is Divine order
in form (n. 4219, 4222, 4223, 4523, 4524, 5114, 6013, 6057,
6605, 6626, 9706, 10156, 10472). So far as a man lives in
accordance with Divine order he is seen in the other life as a
man, complete and beautiful (n. 4839, 6605, 6626).
455. That which has now been said can be understood by the rational
man, for he can see it from the connection of causes and from truths
in their order; but it is not understood by a man who is not
rational, and for several reasons, the chief of which is that he has
no desire to understand it because it is opposed to the falsities
that he has made his truths; and he that is unwilling to understand
for this reason has closed to his rational faculty the way to heaven,
although that way can still be opened whenever the will's resistance
ceases (see above, n. 424). That man is able to understand truths and
be rational whenever he so wishes has been made clear to me by much
experience. Evil spirits that have become irrational in the world by
rejecting the Divine and the truths of the church, and confirming
themselves against them, have frequently been turned by Divine power
towards those who were in the light of truth, and they then
comprehended all things as the angels did, and acknowledged them to
be true, and also that they comprehended them all. But the moment
these spirits relapsed into themselves, and turned back to the love
of their will, they had no comprehension of truths and affirmed the
opposite. [2] I have also heard certain dwellers in hell saying that
they knew and perceived that which they did to be evil and that which
they thought to be false; but that they were unable to resist the
delight of their love, that is, their will, and that it is their will
that drives their thought to see evil as good and falsity as truth.
Evidently, then, those that are in falsity from evil have the ability
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