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
510. Everyone goes to his own society in which his spirit had been in
the world; for every man, as regards his spirit, is conjoined to some
society, either infernal or heavenly, the evil man to an infernal
society and the good man to a heavenly society, and to that society
he is brought after death (see n. 438). The spirit is led to his
society gradually, and at length enters it. When an evil spirit is in
the state of his interiors he is turned by degrees toward his own
society, and at length, before that state is ended, directly to it;
and when that state is ended he himself casts himself into the hell
where those are who are like himself. This act of casting down
appears to the sight like one falling headlong with the head
downwards and the feet upwards. The cause of this appearance is that
the spirit himself is in an inverted order, having loved infernal
things and rejected heavenly things. In this second state some evil
spirits enter the hells and come out again by turns; but these do not
appear to fall headlong as those do that are fully vastated.
Moreover, the society itself in which they had been as regards their
spirit while in the world is shown to them when they are in the state
of their exteriors, that they may thus learn that even while in the
life of the body they were in hell, although not in the same state as
those that are in hell itself, but in the same state as those who are
in the world of spirits. Of this state, as compared with those that
are in hell, more will be said hereafter.
511. In this second state the separation of evil spirits from good
spirits takes place. For in the first state they are together, since
while a spirit is in his exteriors he is as he was in the world, thus
the evil with the good and the good with the evil; but it is
otherwise when he has been brought into his interiors and left to his
own nature or will. The separation of evil spirits from good spirits
is effected by various means; in general by their being taken about
to those societies with which in their first state they had
communication by means of their good thoughts and affections, thus to
those societies that they had induced to believe by outward
appearances that they were not evil. Usually they are led about
through a wide circle, and everywhere what they really are is made
manifest to good spirits. At the sight of them the good spirits turn
away; and at the same time the evil spirits who are being led about
turn their faces away from the good towards that quarter where their
infernal society is, into which they are about to come. Other methods
of separation, which are many, will not now be mentioned.
512. LIII. THIRD STATE OF MAN AFTER DEATH, WHICH IS A STATE OF
INSTRUCTION FOR THOSE WHO ENTER HEAVEN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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