35926#pid#Supplements on the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World

ppp12949#pid#1. Supplement on the Last Judgment

The Last Judgment Has Taken Place

The earlier booklet Last Judgment dealt with the following subjects:

“Judgment Day” Does Not Mean the End of the World §§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc1`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc5`

The Reproduction of Humankind Will Not Cease `@@@The Last Judgment ccc6`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc13`

Heaven and Hell Come from Humankind `@@@The Last Judgment ccc14`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc22`

All Humans without Exception Who Have Been Born and Have Died since the Beginning of Creation Are either in Heaven or in Hell `@@@The Last Judgment ccc23`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc27`

A Last Judgment Must Take Place Where Everyone Is Together, So It Must Take Place in the Spiritual World, and Not in the Physical World `@@@The Last Judgment ccc28`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc32`

A Last Judgment Occurs When the Church Is at Its End, and the Church Is at Its End When There Is No Faith Because There Is No Caring `@@@The Last Judgment ccc33`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc39`

Everything That Was Foretold in the Book of Revelation Has Been Fulfilled at the Present Time `@@@The Last Judgment ccc40`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc44`

The Last Judgment Has Taken Place `@@@The Last Judgment ccc45`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc52`

Babylon and Its Destruction `@@@The Last Judgment ccc53`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc64`

The First Heaven, and How It Was Done Away With `@@@The Last Judgment ccc65`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc72`

The State of the World and the Church from Now On `@@@The Last Judgment ccc73`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc74`

ppp12948#pid#2. The primary purpose of this supplement to Last Judgment is to make known what the state of the world and the church was like before the Last Judgment and how that state has changed after it, and also how the Last Judgment was carried out on Protestants.

ppp12947#pid#3. In the Christian world it is commonly thought that on the day of the Last Judgment the whole of the heavens that we see with our eyes and the whole earth that we live on are going to come to an end, that new heavens and a new earth are going to come into being to replace them, and that our souls will then be reunited with our bodies, allowing us to live as human beings again.

This particular belief has arisen because the Word has been understood only in its literal meaning: in fact, there was no other way it could be understood before its spiritual meaning was disclosed. There is also the fact that many people have come to believe that the soul is nothing more than a breath that we exhale and that spirits—and angels, too—are made of wind. As long as that was all there was to their understanding of souls and spirits and angels, there was no other way they could think about the Last Judgment.

In fact, though, we are completely human after death, just as human as we are in this world except that we are then clothed with spiritual bodies rather than our former earthly ones. And spiritual people see spiritual bodies just as earthly people see earthly bodies. Once we come to understand that this is the case, then we are in a position to realize that the Last Judgment is not going to happen in this earthly world but in the spiritual world. After all, that is where all the people who have ever lived and died are gathered together.

ppp12946#pid#4. When we realize this, then we can rid ourselves of absurd notions that would otherwise plague our thinking about the state of our souls after death, about a reunion of those souls with our rotted bodies, about a destruction of the created universe, and therefore about the Last Judgment.

Concerning the state of our souls after death, we would otherwise have the notion that they must be like a breath or a breeze or like ether, fluttering around in the air or else being no longer in space at all but instead in that “somewhere-or-other.” We will not be able to see anything because souls have no eyes, hear anything because they have no ears, or say anything because they have no mouths—we will be blind, deaf, and mute, and will be in a state of constant waiting, which cannot help but be profoundly depressing—waiting for the day of the Last Judgment when our souls will finally be given back the abilities that were the source of all our life’s pleasures. Further, we would think that the soul of everyone from the first creation must be in this wretched state, that people who lived fifty or sixty centuries ago are still fluttering about in the air like this or existing in that “somewhere-or-other,” waiting for the judgment. And other depressing things.

ppp12945#pid#5. Allow me to skip over the absurd notions we would have concerning the destruction of the universe if we did not know that we are just as human after death as before. These notions are all of the same nature, and there are a lot of them.

Once we know that we are not breaths or breezes after death but spirits—and if we have led good lives, angels in heaven—and that spirits and angels have a form that is human in every way, then we can think intelligently about our state after death and about the Last Judgment. We do not need to think about these matters on the basis of an unintelligible faith, a faith that spawns only idle beliefs that are handed down through the ages. We can instead use our intellect to conclude for certain that the Last Judgment foretold in the Word is not going to happen in this earthly world but in the spiritual world, where everyone is gathered together. We can recognize as well that when the Last Judgment happens, that fact will surely be revealed, for the sake of the credibility of the Word.

ppp12944#pid#6. Set aside for a moment the idea of the soul as a breath that we exhale and think instead about your own state or the state of your friends or your children after death. Don’t you think that you are going to live as a person, and don’t you think the same of them? And since they would have no life worthy of the name if they had no senses, surely you think they will be seeing and hearing and talking. Think also of how eulogies depict the deceased: they are in heaven with the angels, in white robes, in beautiful gardens.

Now go back to the idea of the soul as a breath that will live without sensations until after the Last Judgment. Couldn’t you lose your mind wondering, “What kind of creature will I be? Where will I be all this while? Will I be flying around in the air or left in that ‘somewhere-or-other’? But the preacher told me that if I had good beliefs and lived a good life I’d be joining the blessed after I die!” Believe instead, because it is the truth, that you will be just as human after death as before, the only difference being the difference between what is earthly and what is spiritual. This is what everyone thinks who believes in eternal life and has not been exposed to hypotheses and hearsay about the soul.

ppp12943#pid#7. You can conclude from what has been said so far that the Last Judgment cannot take place in the physical world but can take place in the spiritual world. You can also see that the Last Judgment did in fact happen in that world, from the eyewitness accounts in the earlier booklet Last Judgment (§§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc45`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc72`) and also from the eyewitness accounts of the judgment on Protestants, which follow below [§§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc14`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc31`].

Anyone who gives it careful consideration might also be able to tell that this has happened from the fact that new information about heaven, the Word, and the church is now being revealed. Who could make all this up out of nothing?

ppp12942#pid#8. The State of the World and the Church before and after the Last Judgment

What has been said above shows that the Last Judgment has already taken place in the spiritual world; but if there is to be any knowledge about the state of the world and the church before and after that judgment, the following information is essential.

1. What is meant by the first heaven and the first earth that passed away (`Revelation 21bbb1`).

2. Who the people of the first heaven and the first earth were and what they were like.

3. Before the Last Judgment on these people was carried out, much of the communication between heaven and earth, and also therefore between the Lord and the church, was blocked.

4. Since the Last Judgment, that communication has been restored.

5. That is why revelations for the new church were given after the Last Judgment and not before.

6. The state of the world and the church before the Last Judgment was like evening and nighttime; after it, the state is like morning and daytime.

ppp12941#pid#9. 1. What is meant by the first heaven and the first earth that passed away, described in `Revelation 21bbb1`. The first heaven and the first earth in this passage do not mean the heavens that we here on earth see with our eyes or the planet that we live on, nor do they mean the first heaven that is the abode of all the people since creation who have lived rightly. Rather, they mean gatherings of spirits who made pseudo-heavens for themselves between heaven and hell; and since all spirits and angels live in lands just as we do, those lands are meant by the first heaven and the first earth.

I witnessed the passing away of that heaven and that earth; in the booklet Last Judgment (§§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc45`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc72`) I describe what I saw.

ppp12940#pid#10. 2. Who the people of the first heaven and the first earth were and what they were like. This has also been described in the booklet Last Judgment [§§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc68`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc71`], but since understanding what follows depends on a recognition of who they were and what they were like, I need to say more about them now.

All those people who gathered below heaven and made pseudo-heavens for themselves in various places (which they actually called “heavens”) were closely connected with angels of the lowest heaven. The connection, though, involved only outward matters, not inward ones. Many were “the goats” mentioned in `Matthew 25bbb41`–`Matthew 25bbbccc46` or members of their family. They were people who had not done evil things in the world and who had lived good moral lives, but who had not done what was good for good reasons; they had in fact separated faith from caring and had therefore not regarded evil deeds as sins. Since they had lived like Christians outwardly, they were closely connected with the angels of the lowest heaven, who resembled them outwardly, although not inwardly. These angels were in fact the sheep [mentioned in `Matthew 25bbb31`–`Matthew 25bbbccc40`]. They were people of faith too, but in their case their faith was the result of their caring.

Because of this close connection, there was no way to avoid making allowances for the goats, since separating them before the Last Judgment would have been harmful to the people in the lowest heaven. These people would actually have been dragged down with the others into destruction. This is what the Lord foretold in Matthew:

Jesus spoke a parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while people slept, an enemy of his came and sowed tares and went away. When the grain had sprouted and bore fruit, the tares also appeared. The servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Lord, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Do you want us to go and gather in the tares?’ But he said, ‘No, because while gathering in the tares, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First gather the tares and bind them in bundles for burning; then gather the wheat into the barn.”’ The one who sowed good seed is the Son of Humanity; the field is the world; the good seeds are the children of the kingdom; the tares are the children of the evil one; the harvest is the close of the age. As the tares are gathered and burned, so it will be at the close of the age.” (`Matthew 13bbb24`–`Matthew 13bbbccc30`, `Matthew 13bbbccc37`–`Matthew 13bbbccc40`)

The close of the age is the last time of the church; the tares are people who are inwardly evil; the wheat is people who are inwardly good; binding the former in bundles for burning is the Last Judgment on them; “because while gathering in the tares, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow until the harvest” means that by separating them before the Last Judgment harm might have been done to good people.

ppp12939#pid#11. 3. Before the Last Judgment on these people was carried out, much of the communication between heaven and earth, and therefore between the Lord and the church, was blocked. Any enlightenment we have comes to us from the Lord through heaven and enters us by an inner route. As long as there were gatherings of people like this between heaven and the world, that is, between the Lord and the church, we could not be enlightened. It was like what happens when the brilliance of the sun is obscured by the interference of a black cloud or when the sun is eclipsed by the moon and its light is cut off. This means that if anything had been revealed by the Lord it would not have been understood, or if it were understood it would not have been accepted, or if it were accepted, over time it would have been smothered.

Since all the gatherings that were causing obstructions have now been dispersed by the Last Judgment, we can see that:

4. Communication has been restored between heaven and the world, that is, between the Lord and the church.

ppp12938#pid#12. 5. That is why revelations for the new church were given after the Last Judgment had taken place and not before. This is because once communication is restored by the Last Judgment we can be enlightened and reformed. That is, we can understand the divine truth of the Word, accept it as something we understand, and retain it as something we have accepted. The obstacles have in fact been removed. So John says that after the first heaven and the first earth passed away, he saw a new heaven and a new earth, and then saw the holy city Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and he heard the one who sat on the throne say, “Behold, I am making all things new” (`Revelation 21bbb1`, `Revelation 21bbbccc2`, `Revelation 21bbbccc5`).

On Jerusalem as meaning a church, see `@@@The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord cccTeachings on the Lord 62`–`@@@The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord ccc64`, and for new principles taught by that church, see §`@@@The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord ccc65` there.

ppp12937#pid#13. 6. The state of the world and the church before the Last Judgment was like evening and nighttime; after it, the state is like morning and daytime. When the light of truth cannot be seen and truth is not accepted, the state of the church in the world is like evening and nighttime. We can see that this was the state of the church before the Last Judgment from what was said above in §`@@@11`. When the light of truth becomes visible, though, and truth is accepted, the state of the church in the world is like morning and daytime.

This is why in the Word these two states of the church are called evening and morning or night and day, as in the following passages:

The holy one said to me, “Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings: then the holy place will be set right.” (`Daniel 8bbb14`)

The vision of evenings and mornings is the truth. (`Daniel 8bbb26`)

One day that is known to Jehovah will not be day or night, because there will be light around the time of evening. (`Zechariah 14bbb7`)

Someone crying out to me from Seir, “Watchman, what of the night?” The watchman said, “Morning is coming, but so is night.” (`Isaiah 21bbb11`, `Isaiah 21bbbccc12`)

The following sayings of Jesus concern the last time of the church:

Stay awake, because you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the rooster’s crow, or in the morning. (`Mark 13bbb35`)

Jesus said, “I must work while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.” (`John 9bbb4`)

For other examples, see also `Isaiah 17bbb14`; `Jeremiah 6bbb4`, `Jeremiah 6bbbccc5`; `Psalms 30bbb5`; `Psalms ccc65bbb8`; `Psalms ccc90bbb6`.

Since this is the meaning of evening and morning, in order to fulfill the Word the Lord was entombed in the evening and then rose in the morning.

ppp12936#pid#14. The Last Judgment on Protestants

In my earlier booklet Last Judgment [§§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc53`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc64`], I dealt with the judgment on the people meant by Babylon and also gave some information about the judgment on Muslims [§§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc50`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc51`] and people of other religions. I did not deal with the judgment on Protestants, though. I noted only that they were in the center, arranged there by nationality [§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc48`], with the Catholics around their circumference, the Muslims around the Catholics, and various other non-Christians around the Muslims.

The reason Protestants occupied the center or central area was that they read the Word and worship the Lord. This means that they have the most light; and the spiritual light that radiates from the Lord as the sun (the Lord in essence being divine love) reaches out in all directions and enlightens even the people who are at the outermost circumference, opening them to understand as many truths as their religion can accept. In its essence, spiritual light is divine wisdom; it enters our understanding to the extent that the knowledge we have gained in the past gives us an ability to perceive it. It does not travel through space like the light of this world but travels through our desire for and perception of what is true, so it comes to the farthest reaches of heaven in an instant. These workings are what give rise to apparent distances in that world.

For more on this subject, see `@@@Teachings on Sacred Scripture 104`–`@@@The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture ccc113`.

ppp12935#pid#15. I need to describe the judgment on Protestants in the following sequence:

1. The Protestants on whom the Last Judgment was carried out

2. The signs and the reckoning that preceded the Last Judgment

3. An outline of what happened during the judgment

4. The salvation of the sheep

ppp12934#pid#16. 1. The Protestants on whom the Last Judgment was carried out. The only Protestants on whom the Last Judgment was carried out were individuals who in this world had acknowledged God, read the Word, listened to sermons, observed the sacrament of the Supper, and had not neglected the church’s holy days of worship, but who had seen nothing wrong with adultery and various kinds of theft, deceit, vengefulness, hatred, and the like. Even though they acknowledged God, they thought nothing of sins against him; they read the Word but thought nothing of its precepts for life; they heard sermons but paid no attention to them; they took the sacrament of the Supper but did not desist from the evils of their prior life; they observed the holy days of worship, but did nothing to amend their lives. So outwardly they lived as though they were religious, but inwardly they had no religion whatsoever.

[2] These were the people meant by the dragon in `Revelation 12bbb0`, for it says there that the dragon appeared in heaven, fought with Michael in heaven, and drew down a third of the stars of heaven. It says these things because people like this communicated with heaven by virtue of their acknowledgment of God, their reading of the Word, and their outward worship.

They are also meant by the goats in Matthew 25[`Matthew 25bbbccc41`–`Matthew 25bbbccc46`], who are not told that they have done evil things but that they have failed to do good things. All such people fail to do good things that are genuinely good, because they do not turn their backs on evil deeds as sinful; even though they do not do them, they see nothing wrong with them. This means that they are doing them in spirit, and even do them physically when they can get away with it.

ppp12933#pid#17. The Last Judgment was carried out on all these Protestants. It did not involve Protestants who had no belief in God, felt contempt for the Word, and threw the holy principles of the church out of their hearts, since all such Protestants had been cast into hell when they came from the earthly world into the spiritual world.

ppp12932#pid#18. All the people who had lived like Christians outwardly and yet saw no intrinsic value in living a Christian life made common cause with the heavens outwardly but with the hells inwardly. Since their connection with heaven could not be abruptly cut off, they were kept in the world of spirits, which is halfway between heaven and hell, and were allowed to form communities there and to live together just as they had in this world. They were also allowed to use arts unknown in our world to make everything look wonderful there and so to convince themselves and others that they were indeed in heaven; so on the basis of these appearances they called their communities “heavens.” These “heavens” and “earths” where they lived are the ones meant in `Revelation 21bbb1` by the first heaven and the first earth that passed away.

ppp12931#pid#19. As long as they stayed there, the deeper levels of their minds were closed and the outward levels were open, so the evils that united them to the hells did not show. Once the Last Judgment started, though, their deeper levels were revealed; and then everyone could see what they were really like. Since they were in full cooperation with the hells, they could no longer pretend to live a Christian life but instead rushed enthusiastically into all kinds of evil and wicked practices. They turned into devils and even looked like devils—some black, some fiery, some as gray as corpses. The ones who were full of pride in their own intelligence looked black; the ones obsessed with gaining power over everyone looked fiery; and the ones who totally disregarded and had contempt for the truth looked as gray as corpses.

That is how the scenes of their drama changed.

ppp12930#pid#20. In the world of spirits, which is halfway between heaven and hell, Protestants make up the core, or form a central area, and are arranged there by nationality. In that central area, the British are in the middle, the Dutch to the south and east, the Germans to the north, the Swedes to the west and north, and the Danes to the west; but of these nationalities, only those people live in that central area whose earthly lives were governed by caring and by the faith that comes from caring. There are many communities there. Around them are Protestants who did not lead lives of faith and caring. These are the ones who made pseudo-heavens for themselves.

Heaven, though, is arranged differently than this, and so is hell. The reason Protestants occupy the central area there is that the Word is read among them and the Lord is worshiped as well, which means that this is where the greatest light is—a light that spreads from there as from its center to the whole circumference, and brings enlightenment. The light in which spirits and angels live comes from the Lord as the sun. That sun, in its essence, is divine love, and the light that radiates from it is, in its essence, divine wisdom. This is the source of everything spiritual in that world.

On the Lord as the sun in the spiritual world, and on the light and warmth that come from it, see `@@@Heaven and Hell 116`–`@@@Heaven and Hell ccc140`.

ppp12929#pid#21. The whole arrangement of communities in that world is an arrangement based on differences among various kinds of love. This is because love is our very life; and the Lord, who is divine love itself, arranges these differences according to the way that that love is received. Further, the various kinds of love are beyond counting and are known to the Lord alone.

The Lord joins the communities together in such a way that they all, in effect, lead one human life—the communities of the heavens leading one life of heavenly and spiritual love, and the communities of the hells, one life of demonic and hellish love. He also joins the heavens and the hells in mutual opposition.

Because there is this kind of arrangement, after death we all go to the community of our own love. We cannot go anywhere else, because our love strongly resists our doing so.

This is why people who are devoted to spiritual love are in heaven and people who are devoted only to earthly love are in hell. Spiritual love is given us solely through a life of caring. If we neglect a life of caring, our earthly love remains earthly; and earthly love that is not subservient to spiritual love actually opposes it.

ppp12928#pid#22. With this in mind we can tell which Protestants were subject to the judgment. It was not the ones who were in the central area but those around them, who, as noted, seemed to be Christians because of their outward morality but who were not Christians inwardly, because they had no spiritual life.

ppp12927#pid#23. 2. The signs and the reckoning that preceded the Last Judgment. Above the people who had made pseudo-heavens for themselves something like storm clouds appeared as a result of the Lord’s presence in the angelic heavens that were overhead, especially his presence in the lowest heaven. His presence increased there in order to prevent any of that heaven’s inhabitants from being carried off to destruction at the same time because of the closeness of their connection [with the pseudo-heavens].

The higher heavens also came down closer to them, which revealed the deeper levels of the people on whom the judgment was about to come. Once this happened these people no longer bore any resemblance to moral Christians as they had before, but became instead like demons. They rioted and squabbled with each other about God, the Lord, the Word, faith, and the church; and since their compulsions to evil had been given free rein as well, they rejected all these things with contempt and ridicule, and plunged into wickedness of every kind.

That is how the state of these supposed heaven-dwellers changed. At the same time, all the wonderful things they had made for themselves by arts unknown in the world vanished. Their mansions turned into wretched huts, their gardens into swamps, their churches into rubble, and even the hills they lived on into piles of rocks and other such things that corresponded to their lawless dispositions and compulsions. This is because everything we see in the spiritual world corresponds to the feelings that are prevalent among spirits and angels. These were signs of the coming judgment.

ppp12926#pid#24. As the revealing of their deeper natures increased, the hierarchy among these inhabitants changed and was reversed. The ones who made the strongest arguments against the holy principles of the church invaded the center and took control, while the rest, whose arguments were less forceful, retreated to the circumference and hailed the ones in the middle as their guardian angels.

In this way they bound themselves into bundles for hell.

ppp12925#pid#25. In connection with these changes of their state, there were various disturbances of the dwellings and lands around them, followed by earthquakes, which were massive because their [spiritual] upheavals were massive. Here and there, too, gaps opened up toward the hells that were underneath them, and in this way communication with those hells was opened. Then I could see great exhalations that looked like smoke with sparks of fire rising up.

These were also signs that came in advance. They were the ones meant by what the Lord said in the Gospels about the close of the age and then the Last Judgment:

Nation will rise against nation. There will be great earthquakes in various places. There will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. And there will be distress of nations, the sea and the waves roaring. [`Luke 21bbb10`, `Luke 21bbbccc11`, `Luke 21bbbccc25`]

ppp12924#pid#26. The reckoning was carried out by angels. Before any community that is bound together by evil comes to an end, there is always a reckoning first. During the reckoning the angels kept urging the people to change their ways and threatening them with destruction if they did not.

During that time the angels also explored whether there were any good people among them, and removed these from the community; but the crowds were so stirred up by their leaders that they hurled insults at the angels and charged at them, trying to drag them into the public square and torment them in all kinds of unspeakable ways. What happened there was like what happened in Sodom [`Genesis 19bbb1`–`Genesis 19bbbccc29`].

Many of them came from a faith separated from caring; and there were a few as well who claimed to believe that caring was important but still lived wicked lives.

ppp12923#pid#27. 3. An outline of what happened during the judgment. The reckoning and the signs foretelling the coming judgment could not make them give up their criminal behavior. Nothing could deter them from their plots to overthrow everyone who acknowledged the Lord as God of heaven and earth, held the Word to be holy, and lived a caring life. As a result, the Last Judgment came upon them; it happened in the following way.

ppp12922#pid#28. The Lord appeared in a bright cloud, surrounded by angels, and out of the cloud came a sound like trumpets. This was a sign representing the Lord’s protection of heaven’s angels and his gathering of good people from all sides.

The Lord does not bring destruction on anyone. All he does is protect his own and withdraw them from their communication with the evil. Once the good people have been withdrawn, the evil become fully engaged in their own obsessions and therefore plunge into all kinds of reprehensible behavior.

At that stage all the people who were about to perish gathered together, looking like a great dragon whose tail was stretched out in a curve and raised toward the sky, thrashing back and forth on high as though it wanted to destroy heaven and drag it down. This effort proved fruitless, though, because the tail was thrown back down, and the body of the dragon, which also looked as though it had risen up, sank down again.

I was allowed to see this representation so that I would know, and could make known, which people are meant by the dragon in Revelation. Specifically, the dragon means all those who read the Word, listen to sermons, and observe the rites of the church, but see nothing whatever wrong with the cravings for evil behavior with which they are saturated. Inwardly, they think about acts of theft and cheating, adultery and obscenity, hatred and vengeance, lying and blasphemy, and are therefore living like devils in spirit, although in their outward lives they are like angels. These are the people who made up the body of the dragon. The ones who made up the tail were like these others in regard to their thoughts and intentions, but had been particularly dedicated in the world to faith as something separate from caring.

ppp12921#pid#29. Then I saw what happened to the rocks people were living on: some of them sank to the deepest depths, some were carried far away, some split open in the middle so that the people living on them were cast down into a cave, and some were submerged as if by a flood. I saw the many people on them gathered into groups like bundles, sorted by types and subtypes of evil, and cast far and wide into whirlpools, swamps, marshes, and deserts, all of which were hells.

The rest, who did not live on those rocks but on either side of them (even though they were given to the same kinds of evil), fled thunderstruck to the Catholics, Muslims, and people of other religions and professed those religions. They could do this without even changing their minds because they actually had no religion. To prevent them from leading the others in those religions astray, though, they were driven off and forced down to live with their true companions in the hells.

This provides a general outline of their fate. The details of what I saw are more than can be described here.

ppp12920#pid#30. 4. The salvation of the sheep. After the Last Judgment was accomplished, joy broke out in heaven and a greater light than ever broke forth in the world of spirits. The nature of the joy in heaven after the dragon was cast down is described in `Revelation 12bbb10`, `Revelation 12bbbccc11`, `Revelation 12bbbccc12`. Light broke forth in the world of spirits because those hellish communities had been in the way like clouds that were darkening the earth. A similar light then arose on us in this world, too, bringing us a new enlightenment.

ppp12919#pid#31. Then I saw angelic spirits rising from the lower regions in great numbers and being lifted up into heaven. These were the sheep, individuals from previous centuries who had been held there and protected by the Lord so that they would not be overcome by the malignant aura that flowed out from the dragon and so that their caring would not be suffocated by it.

These are the people meant in the Word by the ones who woke up and came out of their graves, by the souls of those who had been killed because of their testimony for Jesus, and by those who were part of the first resurrection.

ppp12918#pid#32. Supplement on the Spiritual World

The Spiritual World

The spiritual world was the topic of the book Heaven and Hell, which offers a description of many of the features of that world; and because we all enter that world after death, it also describes what our state will then be like.

Surely everyone knows that we will go on living after death, because we are born human, created in the image of God [`Genesis 1bbb27`], and because the Lord tells us this in his Word. Until now, though, there has been no knowledge of what life will be like for us then. People believe that we will then be souls, but their concept of a soul is that it is something airy or ethereal, which retains some capacity for thought, but has no eyesight, no hearing, and no ability to speak. Yet the fact is that we are still human beings after death—so much so that we do not realize we are not still in the physical world. As we used to in the world, we see, hear, and talk. As we used to in the world, we walk, run, and sit. As we used to in the world, we eat and drink. As we used to in the world, we sleep and wake up. As we used to in the world, we enjoy making love to our spouse. Briefly put, we are still human in every way.

This makes it clear that our death is simply a continuation of our life. Death is just a transition.

ppp12917#pid#33. There are many reasons for our not knowing that this is the state we will be in after death. One of them is that we have been unable to be enlightened because we have had so little belief in the immortality of the soul. This is clear from the many people, including scholars, who believe that we are the same as animals, our only advantage over them being that we are capable of speech. So even though such people’s words affirm life after death, at heart they deny it. This type of thinking has made them so oriented to their physical senses that they cannot believe we continue to be human after death; after all, they do not see [the souls of the dead] with their eyes. So they say, “How can a soul be human?”

It is different for people who believe they are going to go on living after death. Inwardly, they believe that they are going to arrive in heaven, enjoy themselves in the company of angels, see heavenly paradises, stand before the Lord in white garments [`Revelation 3bbb4`–`Revelation 3bbbccc5`], and so on. No matter how their outer thinking may stray from this when they think about the soul on the basis of scholarly theories, these remain their inner thoughts.

ppp12916#pid#34. It is clear that people are still human after death—even though they are not visible to our physical eyes—from the angels seen by Abraham, Gideon, Daniel, and other prophets; from the angels seen at the Lord’s tomb and later from those seen a number of times by John in Revelation; and above all from the Lord himself, who showed the disciples that he was human by being touched and by eating and yet he also vanished from their sight. The reason they could see him was that the eyes of their spirits were opened, and when these are opened we can see things in the spiritual world just as clearly as we see things in this earthly world.

ppp12915#pid#35. Because it has pleased the Lord to open the eyes of my spirit and to keep them open for nineteen years now, I have been granted the opportunity to see what is in the spiritual world and also to describe it.

I swear to you that these things are not mere visions but are things I have seen when I was wide awake.

ppp12914#pid#36. The difference between a person in the earthly world and one in the spiritual world is that the latter is clothed with a spiritual body and the former with an earthly body. A spiritual person sees another spiritual person just as clearly as an earthly person sees another earthly person, but an earthly person cannot see a spiritual one and a spiritual person cannot see an earthly one. This is because of the difference between what is earthly and what is spiritual. (The difference between these could be described, but the description would not be brief.)

ppp12913#pid#37. On the basis of my own eyewitness experience of many years, I can testify to the following. Just as in the physical world, in the spiritual world there are landmasses, hills and mountains, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, lakes and oceans. There are parks and gardens, groves and forests. There are mansions and houses. There are manuscripts and books. There are jobs and business transactions. There are precious stones, gold, and silver. To put it briefly, that world contains absolutely everything that exists in the physical world, although in heaven, these things are infinitely more perfect.

ppp12912#pid#38. In general, the difference is this. Everything in the spiritual world comes from a spiritual source and is therefore spiritual in its essence. The source of everything there is a sun that is pure love. Everything in this earthly world comes from an earthly source and is therefore earthly in its essence. The source of everything here is a sun that is pure fire.

As a result, spiritual people need to be nourished by food that is spiritual in origin, just as earthly people need to be nourished by food that is earthly in origin.

There is more on this topic in Heaven and Hell [§§`@@@Heaven and Hell ccc111`, `@@@Heaven and Hell ccc116`–`@@@Heaven and Hell ccc125`, `@@@Heaven and Hell ccc340`, `@@@Heaven and Hell ccc582`].

ppp12911#pid#39. The British in the Spiritual World

We have two levels of thought, outer and inner. In our outer thinking we are in this earthly world, but in our inner thinking we are in the spiritual world. In good people these levels are in harmony with each other, but in evil people they are not. In this earthly world it is rarely clear what someone is like inwardly, because from early childhood we have tried to be moral and have learned to seem so; but in the spiritual world our nature is plain to see. Spiritual light uncovers this. And we are then spirits, and the spirit is the inner self.

Since I have been granted the opportunity to be in that light and to see by that light what the inner selves of people from various nations are like—this through associating with angels and spirits for many years—I have a duty to reveal this information; it is important.

I will first say something about that excellent nation, the British.

ppp12910#pid#40. The better individuals among the British people are at the center of all Christians (see §`@@@20` above on the Christians being at the center [of the world of spirits]). This is because they have a profound intellectual light. This trait of theirs is not noticeable to anyone in the earthly world but it is obvious in the spiritual world. They owe this light to their freedom of thought and consequent freedom of speech and writing. (Among other peoples who have no such freedoms, the intellectual light is smothered because it has no outlet.)

This light is not automatically activated in them, however; it is stimulated by others, especially by those who are famous or powerful among them. As soon as people hear statements from these authorities or read something they have recommended, then this light blazes forth; it rarely happens before [such stimulation].

Because of this the British in the spiritual world are assigned governors and are given preachers renowned for their scholarship and brilliance. The people willingly obey edicts and advice from them because to do so is in their nature.

ppp12909#pid#41. They seldom leave their own community in the spiritual world because they love it the way they loved their country in the physical world. They all have similar dispositions, too, which lead them to associate closely with friends from their own country, and rarely with others. They also help each other out and love honesty.

ppp12908#pid#42. There are actually two major cities just like London in the spiritual world. Most British people come into one or the other of them after they die. I have been granted the opportunity to see these and to walk around in them.

The center of one of them is [like] the part of London, England, where the merchants are concentrated, which is called the Exchange. That is where their governors live. Above that city center is the eastern quarter; below it is the western quarter; on its right side is the southern quarter, and on its left is the northern quarter. 

[2] In the eastern quarter reside individuals who were more devoted than others to leading a life of caring. The mansions there are magnificent. The wise live in the southern quarter; they have an abundance of glorious possessions. In the northern quarter live people who more than others had loved freedom of speech and of writing. In the western quarter live individuals who profess faith [alone]. There is an entrance to the city toward the right in this last area, and there is also an exit from the city there. Individuals who live evil lives are sent away through that exit.

The priests who live in the west—who, as just noted, profess faith [alone]—do not dare come into the city [center] by its main streets, but enter instead by rather narrow alleys, because no one is allowed to live in the city [proper] except those who are devoted to a faith that comes from caring. 

[3] I have heard complaints raised about the preachers from the west—that they compose their sermons with such skill and eloquence, weaving in a concept of justification by faith that is foreign to their listeners, that the listeners cannot tell whether one is supposed to do what is good or not. They preach a goodness within that they distinguish from outer goodness, sometimes calling the latter “credit seeking” and therefore unacceptable to God—though they still call it good because it is useful. However, when people from the eastern and southern quarters of the city hear sermons on these mystical topics they walk out of the building; and later those preachers are stripped of their priesthood.

ppp12907#pid#43. The other major city that is like London is not in the Christian central area described in §`@@@20` but lies outside it, to the north. British people who have been inwardly evil come into this London after they die. In the center of it there is open access to hell. Hell swallows these people up from time to time.

ppp12906#pid#44. I once heard some priests from Britain talking to each other about faith alone and saw a kind of statue they had made to represent how they saw faith alone. In the dim light they had, it looked like a huge giant, and to their eyes it had a beautiful human form; but when light from heaven was let in, the upper part looked like a monster and the lower like a serpent, not unlike the description of the Philistines’ idol, Dagon [`Judges 16bbb23`; `1 Samuel 5bbb0`]. When they saw this, they backed away, and some bystanders threw the statue into a pond.

ppp12905#pid#45. From people from Britain in the spiritual world I have gathered that they have two different religious perspectives: one is focused on teachings about faith, and the other on teachings about the way to live. Individuals who have been ordained into the priesthood are focused on teachings about faith, while individuals who have not been ordained (commonly known as the laity) are focused on teachings about how to live. This focus on how to live is manifestly present in the prayer read in churches on Sundays to people who are about to take the Holy Supper, in which it is clearly stated that if they are not turning their backs on evil deeds because they are sins, they are casting themselves into eternal damnation, and that if they come to take Holy Communion on any other terms, the Devil will enter into them as he entered into Judas [`Luke 22bbb3`; `John 13bbb27`].

I have occasionally talked with British clergy about the discrepancy between this teaching of the importance of how we live and the teachings about faith. They gave no response, but were having thoughts that they did not dare express.

You may find this prayer in §§`@@@The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem ccc5`, `@@@The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem ccc6` `@@@The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem ccc7` of Teachings about Life for the New Jerusalem.

ppp12904#pid#46. I have often seen a particular British man who became famous because of a book he had published some years before, a book in which he labored to prove a union of faith and caring through the inflow and inner working of the Holy Spirit, proposing that this inflow affects us in an indescribable way and without our awareness of it. However, it does not touch, let alone move, our will or arouse our thinking to do anything (in what would be apparent independence). It only allows our will to act. The thinking behind this is that otherwise we would be playing a role in divine providence, and also that our evils would then appear before God. This rules out outward works of caring as being of any benefit to our salvation but nevertheless advocates them for the public good. Because his arguments were ingenious and no one saw the snake in the grass, this book was accepted as the height of orthodoxy.

[2] After his departure from the world this author held to the same dogma and was unable to retreat from it because he had thoroughly convinced himself. Some angels talked with him and told him that his dogma was not the truth but only an eloquent presentation of something clever, and that the truth was that we should abstain from doing evil and do good as though we were doing it on our own, but with a recognition that it was being done by the Lord. They said that until we do that, there is no faith at all, and certainly not the complex thing that he was imagining and calling “faith.” Since this conflicted with his dogma, he was encouraged to use his astute intellect to inquire further and see whether this kind of unrecognized inflow and inner working actually did occur, without any outward effort on the individual’s part. He seemed then to focus his mind and to follow wandering paths in his thought, always with the conviction that this was the only way we could be restored to wholeness and be saved. Every time he reached the end of a path, though, his eyes were opened and he saw that he had gone astray. He actually admitted it to some who were present.

[3] For a couple of years I saw him wandering like this; and at the end of his journey, he admitted that there was no such inflow unless the evil in the outer self was removed, which was accomplished by turning one’s back on evil because it is sinful, in apparent autonomy. Eventually I heard him say that all the people who convinced themselves of this heresy had been driven insane by their pride in their own intelligence.

ppp12903#pid#47. I talked with Melanchthon and asked him about his situation. He did not want to answer, so I was told about his situation by others. They said that he was sometimes in a stone-vaulted room and sometimes in hell, and that because it was so cold in the room, he seemed to be wearing a bearskin. They said that because of the uncleanness of his room he did not admit newcomers from the world who came to him as visitors, drawn by his reputation and fame.

He still talked about faith alone, something he had done more to establish than anyone else in the world.

ppp12902#pid#48. The Dutch in the Spiritual World

I stated in §`@@@20` above that Christians among whom the Word is read and the Lord is worshiped are at the center of the nations and peoples of the whole world of spirits because they are in the greatest spiritual light; and the light radiates from them as from a center into the entire surroundings, even the most remote, and brings enlightenment (see what is presented in `@@@Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 104`–`@@@The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture ccc113`).

Within this Christian central region, Protestants are assigned particular places according to how receptive they are to spiritual light from the Lord. Since the British have that light hidden away in the intellectual part of themselves, they are in the inmost region of that central area. The Dutch, though, keep that spiritual light more closely connected to earthly light, which means that the light they see is not as snowy white. Instead, they see something that is not completely clear, but is receptive to a rationality that comes from both spiritual light and spiritual warmth; so they have been given homes in the eastern and southern parts of that central Christian area. They have homes in the east because they are receptive to spiritual warmth, which is their caring, and homes in the south because they are receptive to spiritual light, which is their faith.

[2] See `@@@Heaven and Hell 141`–`@@@Heaven and Hell ccc153` on these facts: that geographical regions in the spiritual world are not like geographical regions in the earthly world; that the particular region people live in depends on how receptive they are to faith and love; and that the people in the east are the ones who excel in love and caring, while the people in the south are the ones who excel in intelligence and faith.

[3] Another reason they are in the central area of the Christian region is that for them, business is what they love most and money is loved as a means; and this is a spiritual love; but when money is what is loved most and business is loved as a means, that is an earthly love that comes from greed.

The Dutch are more devoted than anyone else to the spiritual love just mentioned. That love truly equates to the common good, and this includes and subsumes the good of the nation.

ppp12901#pid#49. The Dutch hold more firmly to their religious principles than others do. They will not be moved. If someone proves to them that this or that teaching is out of step with the other things they believe, they still will not accept it. They turn away and remain fixed in the position they had held before. They also avoid undertaking any investigation of inner truth; on spiritual matters they keep their rational faculty strictly obedient [to what they already believe].

Since this is their nature, when they come into the world of spirits after death they are brought to accept spiritual teachings from heaven, which are divine truths, in a completely different way than others are. They are not taught them, since they are not receptive. Instead, this is what they go through: They are offered descriptions of what heaven is like, and then are granted the opportunity to go up to heaven and see it for themselves. Then anything [there] that is in harmony with their own disposition is instilled into them and they are brought back down to their own people, full of a longing for heaven.

[2] For example, suppose that they do not accept the truth that God is one in person and in essence, that that God is the Lord, and that the Trinity is within him. Suppose, too, that they do not accept the truth that faith and caring, even if they are acknowledged and made the subject of conversation, do not accomplish anything unless people actually live them, and that faith and caring are given by the Lord when we turn our backs on evil deeds because they are sins. If they do not accept these truths when they are taught them and persist instead in thinking of God as three persons and thinking no more of religious practice than that some such thing exists, they are reduced to misery and deprived of their business until they see that they are completely out of options.

Then they are brought to some people who have everything, whose businesses are flourishing. At the same time, under heaven’s influence it occurs to them to think about why these people have this success, and to reflect on what these people believe about the Lord and how they live. They notice in particular that these people turn their backs on evil deeds because they are sins. They even make a few inquiries about it, and what they learn confirms their thinking and reflection.

They then go back and forth, back and forth like this [between their own lives and those of the successful people]. Eventually, they decide of their own accord that if they want to get free of their misery they need to believe and live as these others do. Then they accept this faith and lead this life of caring, and as they do so, they are given wealth and an enjoyable life.

Therefore although they are not open to being corrected by others, in this way the ones who had lived any kind of life of caring in the world can correct themselves and become prepared for heaven.

[3] Thereafter they are more steadfast than other people are, to the point that they could be called embodiments of constancy; they do not allow themselves to be swayed by any faulty rationale, any fallacy, any confusion created by subtly deceptive reasoning, or any misleading insight, no matter how many supporting arguments it might have.

ppp12900#pid#50. It is easy to identify the Dutch in the spiritual world because they dress as they did in the earthly world, except that the clothes of the ones who have accepted the spiritual faith and way of life just mentioned are neater and more elegant. The reason they still dress the same is that they remain steadfastly loyal to their religious principles, and in the spiritual world everyone is clothed according to those principles. This is why people in the spiritual world who are devoted to divine truths wear clothes of white linen.

ppp12899#pid#51. The cities where the Dutch live are protected in a unique way. All their streets are covered and gated to prevent the Dutch from being seen by anyone on the surrounding cliffs and hills. They structure things in this way because of their deep-seated concern to keep their negotiations confidential and not make their intentions public, since in the spiritual world observers can see your plans just by looking at you.

Curious visitors sometimes come there to find out what life is like in those cities. When they are about to leave the Dutch take them to gateways [at the ends] of their streets that are locked, then take them by other routes to more gateways that are locked, until the visitors become thoroughly frustrated, at which point they are finally released. This is done to ensure that they never come back.

[2]`fff1` Wives who seek to control their husbands live on one side of the city and are allowed to get together [with their husbands] only when the husbands have sent them an invitation, which is done with some formality. Then those couples are taken to homes occupied by married partners, neither of whom is trying to dominate the other. They are shown how well-decorated and clean these homes are and how enjoyable their lives are, and they see that this is because mutual love is part of the couple’s marriage. The wives who are attentive to this, and are moved by it, stop trying to control their husbands and instead share life together with them. These couples are then given homes nearer to the center and are called angels. This is because marriage love is a heavenly love; it has nothing to do with domineering.

`nnb1. [NCBS note] The section numbering in the first edition goes from 51 to 53, skipping 52.

ppp12898#pid#53. During the days of the Last Judgment I saw many thousands of people from that nation cast out of those cities and out of the surrounding towns and regions, people who in this world had not performed any good action for the sake of its connection with religion or conscience, but had done so solely for the sake of their own reputation, in order to be regarded as honest so that they could make a profit. When people like this lose their concern for their reputation or profit, which happens in the spiritual world, they plunge into all kinds of criminal behavior, robbing everyone they run into when they are in the fields and outside the cities.

I saw them cast down, some into a burning chasm that extended beneath the eastern quarter and others into a dark cave that extended beneath the southern quarter. I witnessed this on January 9, 1757.

The ones who lived by their religion, though, and had a conscience as a result, were allowed to stay.

ppp12897#pid#54. I have spoken with Calvin, but only once. He was in a community of heaven that can be seen toward the front, above the head. He said that he did not agree with Luther and Melanchthon about faith alone, because so often the Word speaks of works and commands us to act, and therefore faith and works are to be united. I heard from a governor of that community that Calvin was welcome there because he was honest and caused no trouble.

ppp12896#pid#55. Elsewhere I will discuss what happened to Luther; I have seen and heard him a number of times. Here I will say only that he has often tried to let go of his belief about faith alone, but without success, and that therefore he is still in the world of spirits, which is halfway between heaven and hell, and sometimes life is hard for him there.

ppp12895#pid#56. Roman Catholics in the Spiritual World

In §§`@@@The Last Judgment ccc53`–`@@@The Last Judgment ccc64` of the booklet Last Judgment I wrote about the Roman Catholics and the Last Judgment on them. In the spiritual world Catholics surround the area where the Protestants are, but they are separated from them by an intervening space that they are not allowed to cross. Some from the Order of the Jesuits, though, use devious means to set up channels of communication with Protestants. They also send their agents along uncharted paths with the intent of luring Protestants away from Protestantism. These agents are found out, however, and after they have been punished they are either sent back to their people or cast into hell.

ppp12894#pid#57. After the Last Judgment circumstances in the spiritual world changed. Newly arrived people are no longer allowed to congregate in large groups as they had been doing. Now instead there are pathways assigned for every type of love, whether good or evil. People who arrive from this world immediately take these pathways, which lead them to a community that corresponds to what they love. Evil people are drawn to a community that is closely connected with the hells, and good people to a community that is closely connected with the heavens. This new arrangement prevents people from forming pseudo-heavens the way others did in the past. In the world of spirits, which is halfway between heaven and hell, there are countless communities like this. There are as many communities as there are general and specific kinds of good and evil loves; and in the interim before these communities are either taken up into heaven or cast down into hell, they have a close connection with us in this world, because we too are halfway between heaven and hell.

ppp12893#pid#58. All Catholics who have not been outright idolaters, who have done good things with sincerity of heart because of the teachings of their religion, and who have also focused on the Lord are brought to communities that have been established near the border with the Protestants. There they are given instruction: they hear readings from the Word and sermons about the Lord, and the ones who accept these truths and apply them to their lives are taken up into heaven and become angels.

There are many communities of these kinds of Catholics in each region, and they are thoroughly protected against the cunning, deceitful schemes of monks and against the leaven of Babylon.

All Catholic children as well are in heaven. They have no knowledge of the false teachings of their parents’ religion, because they have been raised by angels under the watchful care of the Lord.

ppp12892#pid#59. All people who come into the spiritual world from our earth, including Catholics, are kept at first in the confession of faith and the religion of their homeland. Therefore the Catholics there always have someone set over them to represent the papacy, someone to whom they give the same ritual adoration they gave the pope in the world. It is rare for anyone who has actually been a pope in the world to play the role of pope there. One exception, though, is the person who had been pope of Rome twenty years previously. He was given this position in the spiritual world because at heart he had treasured a conviction that the Word was holier than people believed and that the Lord was to be the focus of worship. After he had served as a pope there for a few years, he stepped down and went over to join the Protestant Christians. He is still with them, and is leading a blessed life. I was granted an opportunity to talk with him. He said that he reveres the Lord alone, because the Lord is God and has power over heaven and earth. He also said that prayers to the saints are of no value and that the same holds true for masses in their honor. He said that in the world he had tried to reform the church but had been unable to for various reasons, which he told me.

When a great northern city where Catholics lived was destroyed on the day of the Last Judgment, I saw him being carried away on a sedan chair and set down in a place of safety. Something quite different happened to his successor.

ppp12891#pid#60. I may add to this an account of a memorable occurrence. I was granted an opportunity to talk with Louis XIV, the great-grandfather of the present king of France, who during his earthly life had worshiped the Lord, read the Word, and recognized the pope as no more than the head of the church. In the spiritual world he therefore has a highly honored position, governing the best community of people from France.

I saw him once apparently going down a flight of stairs, and after he had done so I heard him say that it seemed to him as though he were at Versailles. Then there was silence for a couple of hours, after which he said that he had just talked with his great-grandson, the king of France, about the Bull Unigenitus, saying that he himself no longer held his former position on it; he now did not accept the bull, because it was detrimental to the French nation. He said that he had impressed this thought very deeply upon the current king’s mind.

This happened at about 8 p.m. on December 13, 1759.

ppp12890#pid#61. The Catholic Saints in the Spiritual World

It is common knowledge that we all have innate, that is, inherited, evil from our parents, but few know what that evil is. It consists of a love of controlling others. The nature of this love is that the more its reins are let out, the more it breaks forth until it becomes a burning desire to control everyone; ultimately it wants to be called upon and worshiped as God.

This love is the serpent that deceived Eve and Adam. It said to the woman, “God knows that on the day when you eat of the fruit of the tree your eyes will be opened, and then you will be like God” (`Genesis 3bbb4`, `Genesis 3bbbccc5`). The more the reins are let out, then, and we plunge into this love, the more we turn away from God and toward ourselves and become atheists. Then the divine truths of the Word may indeed serve us as means; but since our goal is to have control over others, we take the means to heart only to the extent that is expedient for us.

This is why the people who have this love of controlling others, whether at an extreme level or only halfway, are all in hell. In fact, this demonic love is present wherever you encounter people who by nature cannot stand even a mention of God.

ppp12889#pid#62. This love is characteristic of those Catholics who exerted control over others because of the irresistible itch of the pleasure involved, and who had no use for the Word and preferred the decrees of the pope. First they are deprived of all their outer knowledge so completely that they no longer know anything about the church; then they are cast into hell and become devils.

There is a particular separate hell for the ones who want to be called upon as gods. The people who live there are so deep in fantasy that they see not what is, but what is not. It is like the delirium of people with a severe fever who see little things in the air, in the room, and on their bedspread that are not there at all.

This worst of all evils is meant by the head of the serpent that was trampled by the seed of the woman, and that wounded his heel (`Genesis 3bbb15`). The heel of the Lord (who is the seed of the woman) is the emanating divine influence at the outermost level, which is the Word in its literal meaning.

ppp12888#pid#63. Given the fact that we inherit this characteristic of wanting control [over some people]—and gradually, as the reins are let out, wanting control over more people and eventually over everyone—and since at its core this love is a desire to be called upon and worshiped as God, therefore all the people who have been canonized by papal bull are moved out of sight of others and hidden away, cut off from any contact with those who worship them. This is to prevent that worst root of their inner evils from being activated, which would lead them into the delirious fantasies of the hell mentioned just above. This kind of delirium obsesses people who during their earthly lives longed and worked to become saints after death so that people would pray to them.

ppp12887#pid#64. When arriving in the spiritual world, many Catholics, particularly the monks, look for their saints, especially the patron saint of their order. They are bewildered when they cannot find them. Later, others inform them that their saints are living as ordinary people, among either those in the heavens or those in the hells, depending on how they lived their life in the world; and in either case they are completely unaware that anyone is worshiping them or praying to them. (The ones who do know and who want to be prayed to are in that separate, delusional hell mentioned just above.)

The worship of saints is so distasteful in heaven that as soon as such worship is mentioned the angels shudder, because to the extent that worship is offered to any human, worship is diverted from the Lord. In this case, he is not the sole focus of worship, and if the Lord is not our sole focus, there is a division that robs us of our relationship with him and the happiness of life that flows from it.

ppp12886#pid#65. To teach me what the Catholic saints are like so that I could make the information known, a hundred or so of them who knew they had been canonized were brought up from the lower earth. Most of them rose up behind me—only a few in front of me. I talked with one who was said to have been Xavier. When he was talking with me he was behaving very foolishly. He did manage to tell me, though, that when he remained where he belonged he was not a fool, but became one whenever he thought of himself as a saint.

I heard a murmur to the same effect from the ones who were behind me.

ppp12885#pid#66. It is different for the so-called saints who are in heaven. They know nothing whatever about what is happening on earth; and when I talked with them, no such idea ever came to their minds.

On just one occasion, Mary, the Lord’s mother, passed by. I saw her overhead, dressed in white. She paused for a moment and said that she had been the Lord’s mother and that he had indeed been born of her, but that when he became God he shed everything human that he had received from her. Now, therefore, she reveres him as her God and does not want anyone to think of him as her son, because everything in him is divine.

ppp12884#pid#67. Here I may add another account of a memorable occurrence. To the Parisians who are together in a community in the spiritual world a woman sometimes appears in midair, wearing radiant clothes and having a saintly face. She says that she is Geneviève, but when some begin to worship her, both her face and her clothing change so that she looks like a peasant. She criticizes people for wanting to worship a woman who is no more esteemed among her friends than a servant girl would be, and marvels at the fact that people in the world are taken in by this kind of nonsense.

Some angels said that the reason she appears in that community is to separate worshipers of mere human beings from worshipers of the Lord there.

ppp12883#pid#68. Muslims and Muhammad in the Spiritual World

In the spiritual world, Muslims appear beyond the Catholics in the west; they form a kind of perimeter around them. The main reason they appear there is that they recognize the Lord as the greatest prophet, the Son of God, and the wisest of all, who was sent into the world to teach us.

In the spiritual world, the place where each person lives in relation to the central Christian region, inhabited by Protestants, is determined by that person’s acknowledgment of the Lord and of the oneness of God. This is because such acknowledgment joins people’s minds to heaven and determines their distance from the east, above which is the Lord. People who lack that acknowledgment in their hearts because they have lived an evil life are in the hells underneath these communities.

ppp12882#pid#69. Since our religion is absolutely central to our nature and everything else about us derives from that center, and since Muslims think of Muhammad whenever they think of their religion, there is always a Muhammad set visibly before Muslims in the spiritual world; and in order to turn their faces toward the east, above which is the Lord, he is placed next to the central Christian region.

This is not, however, Muhammad himself, the writer of the Qur’an, but someone else who plays that role. It is not always the same individual either; it changes. At one time it was a man originally from Saxony who had become a Muslim after being taken captive by some Algerians. Because he had originally been a Christian, he was persuaded to talk to them about the Lord, saying that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, as they had believed in the world, but the son of God himself; he instilled in them a concept of the oneness of the Lord with the Father both in person and in essence.

This Muhammad was followed by others who were persuaded to say similar things, with the result that many Muslims have gained a belief concerning the Lord that could be called truly Christian. These Muslims are brought to a community nearer to the east where they are granted communication with heaven, and eventually are raised into heaven itself.

In the place where this Muhammad is to be found, the fire of a burning torch appears as a sign so that people will know where he is; but this fire is visible only to Muslims.

ppp12881#pid#70. The real Muhammad, the writer of the Qur’an, is not seen in public these days. I was told that in the beginning he was the leader of the Muslims in the spiritual world, but because he wanted to control all aspects of their religious life as if he himself were God, he was removed from where he was living, which was next to the Catholic region, and was sent down to the right near the southern quarter.

At one point malevolent individuals persuaded several Muslim communities to acknowledge Muhammad as God. To quell this uprising, Muhammad himself was brought up from the lower regions and shown to them. I, too, saw him at that time. He looked like those body-oriented spirits who have no deeper perception, with a face that was almost black. I heard him say only these words: “I am your Muhammad.” Shortly afterward he appeared to sink back down and return to his place.

ppp12880#pid#71. As for their religion, this kind of belief was allowed because it suits the viewpoint of those in the Middle East. That is why it has been accepted in so many nations—this and the fact that in it the rules given in the Ten Commandments are made matters of religious practice, and there is material from the Word in it as well. In particular, the Lord is recognized as the Son of God and as the wisest of all. Islam also eliminated the idolatrous practices of many nations.

The reason an inward religion was not opened to them by Muhammad was their polygamy, which causes an unclean atmosphere to blow toward heaven. This is because the marriage of one husband and one wife corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the church.

ppp12879#pid#72. Many of them are very receptive to truth and are capable of seeing what is right on the basis of rational argumentation—something I have been able to observe in my conversations with them in the spiritual world. I talked with them about the one God, about resurrection, and also about marriage.

Concerning the one God, they said that they see no sense in what Christians say about the Trinity, namely, that there are three persons and that each one is God, and yet they maintain that there is nevertheless one God. I said in response that angels in the Christian heaven do not say things like that; they say that God is one person and has one essence, but there is a trinity that exists within him. I added that people on earth refer to this trinity as three “persons,” but actually all three exist within the Lord. To support this I read to them the passages in Matthew and Luke about the Lord’s conception by God the Father [`Matthew 1bbb18`–`Matthew 1bbbccc25`; `Luke 1bbb26`–`Luke 1bbbccc38`], and then the passage where the Lord says that he and the Father are one [`John 10bbb30`]. When they heard this they perceived that it was so and said that the Lord’s essence, then, is divine.

[2] As for resurrection, they said they see no sense in what Christians say about our state after death. Christians say the soul is something like air or a breeze and is incapable of experiencing any pleasure before being reunited with its body on the day of the Last Judgment. I replied that only a particular group of Christians says things like that; Christians who are not part of that denomination believe instead that they will go to heaven after they die, will talk with angels, and will enjoy heavenly delight, and although they do not specify what that delight is, they see it as being not unlike the pleasures they experience in the world. I added that many things about our state after death are just now being revealed to Christians, things they had not known about before.

[3] I have also had many conversations with them about marriage, saying among other things that marriage love is a heavenly love and is possible only between two individuals, and that a husband’s partnering with many wives blocks access to the heavenliness of this love. They heard the reasons and perceived the fairness in them. I added that polygamy was permitted them because they were Middle Easterners; if polygamy had not been allowed, they would have been even more vulnerable than Europeans to falling into flagrant adulteries of the filthiest kinds and would have destroyed themselves.

ppp12878#pid#73. Africans, and People of Other Religions, in the Spiritual World

The people of other religions, who had had no knowledge of the Lord, appear farther from the center than the people who had had such knowledge. They are arranged in such a way that those who are at the farthest edge are all complete idolaters and worshipers of the sun or the moon.

The ones who acknowledge one God, though, and who take precepts like those of the Ten Commandments to be religious principles that determine how they live, are situated in a higher region and therefore have more direct communication with the Christians who are in the central region. Their location keeps this communication from being blocked by Muslims and Catholics.

People of other religions are also sorted by disposition and by their ability to receive light through the heavens from the Lord. Some of them are shallow by nature and some are deep. How deep or shallow they are is attributable not to their native soil but to the religion they practice. The Africans are by nature deeper than the rest.

ppp12877#pid#74. All the people who acknowledge and worship one God as creator of the universe have a concept of God as a human being. They assert that no one can have any other mental image of God than this. When they hear that many actually think of God as a little cloud, they ask where these people are; and when they are told that they are among the Christians, they say that this cannot be. They are given the reply, though, that these people get this idea from the fact that God is called a spirit in the Word [`John 4bbb24`], and they think of a spirit only as a little wisp of cloud, not realizing that every spirit and every angel is a human being. Such people were examined to find out whether the spiritual concept they have now was like the earthly one they used to have, and it turned out that those who inwardly recognize the Lord as the God of heaven and earth have a different spiritual concept than they used to.

I heard a particular Christian elder stating that no one could have a concept of a divine-human being. I saw him taken to various people of other religions, going in sequence to people of greater and greater depth; these people took him to their heavens, and eventually to a Christian heaven. At every step, how they inwardly perceived God was communicated to him; he realized that they all conceived of God as a human being, which is the same as having a concept of a divine-human being.

ppp12876#pid#75. There are many communities of people of other religions, especially Africans, who, when they have been taught about the Lord through angels, say that it makes perfect sense that God, the creator of the universe, became visible in the material world. After all, he created us and loves us; and how else could he become visible to our eyesight except in human form? When they are told that he did not become momentarily visible the way angels do but was instead born as a human and became visible in this way, they pause for a moment and ask whether he was born of a human father. When they hear that he was conceived by the God of the universe and born of a virgin, they say that this means he has a divine essence, and that because this essence is infinite and is life itself, he was not the same kind of human as others are. Angels then tell them that he looked just like other people do, but that when he was in the world his divine essence, which is intrinsically infinite and is life itself, cast out the finite nature and life he had received from his mother. In this way he took his human nature, which had been conceived and born in the world, and made it divine.

Since Africans think more spiritually within themselves than others do, they understood and accepted this.

ppp12875#pid#76. Because this is also what Africans in this world are like, a revelation is occurring among them at the present time, beginning in central [Africa] and spreading outward, though not all the way to the seacoasts. They acknowledge our Lord as the Lord of heaven and earth. When monks arrive there, the Africans laugh at them. They also laugh at Christians who talk about a threefold Divinity and about being saved by what you think. The Africans say that there are no worshipful people who do not put their religion into practice. If we do not live by our religion, they say, we cannot help but become stupid and evil, because we are not open to anything from heaven. Even malice that is ingenious the Africans call stupid, because within it there is not life but death.

I have heard the angels rejoicing over this revelation [in Africa], since it is opening up for them a communication with the human rational faculty that had previously been closed by a blindness in regard to matters of faith.

I have been informed by a heavenly source that angelic spirits are communicating to the inhabitants of that region what it says in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord, [Teachings for the New Jerusalem] on the Word, and Teachings about Life for the New Jerusalem, which have just been published.

ppp12874#pid#77. The African men I have talked with in the spiritual world wore garments of striped linen. They told me that these clothes were correspondential, and that the women wore garments of striped silk.

They said of their children that they often ask the women who are their teachers for something to eat, saying that they are hungry, and yet when they are given some food they look at it, taste it to see whether it agrees with them, and eat only a little. Clearly then, the cause is a spiritual hunger, which is a longing for knowing genuine truths. This is an actual correspondence.

When the Africans in the spiritual world are unsure whether something they are perceiving and enjoying is the truth, they draw a sword. If the sword gleams, they know that the truths they are engaged with are genuine; they also know this from the way the sword gleams. This too is caused by a correspondence.

On the subject of marriage, they said that by law they were actually allowed to have more than one wife, but that they still had only one because true marriage love cannot be divided. If it is divided, its essence, which is heavenly, perishes. It becomes superficial and therefore merely lustful. Before long, as its potency dwindles, that love becomes cheapened; and once its potency is completely lost, that love becomes tiresome. True marriage love, on the other hand, which is inward, derives nothing from lust. It lasts forever and grows in potency, and proportionally, in delight.

ppp12873#pid#78. As for people who come their way from Europe, the Africans said that these are not allowed in. A few, though—most of them monks—do manage to get through. In these cases, the Africans ask them what they know; when the Europeans start speaking about their religious beliefs, the Africans call it nonsense that hurts their ears. They send them off to do work that is useful. If the Europeans refuse to do this work, the Africans sell them as slaves, and by law are allowed to punish them whenever they want. If the Europeans cannot be coerced into doing anything useful, they are eventually sold to social outcasts for next to nothing.

ppp12872#pid#79. Jews in the Spiritual World

Before the Last Judgment the Jews were in a valley on the left side of the central Christian area, but afterward they were transferred to the north and forbidden to interact with Christians unless those Christians were traveling outside of their own cities.

In that [northern] region there are two large cities to which Jews are brought after death. Before the Last Judgment both of these were called Jerusalem, but afterward they were renamed, because now that the judgment has taken place “Jerusalem” means the church where the Lord alone is worshiped.

The residents of these cities are governed by converted Jews who caution them not to speak disparagingly of Christ and who punish any who do.

The streets of these cities are ankle-deep in muck and their houses are full of unclean things giving off such foul smells that no one else can come near.

ppp12871#pid#80. From time to time an angel with a rod in his hand appears in midair above them. He leads them to believe that he is Moses. He urges them to give up the folly of waiting for a messiah there, since Christ, who is ruling over them and over everyone, is the Messiah. He tells them that he himself knows this now, and that even when he was living in the world he knew something about Christ. After hearing this they go their way; most of them forget it but a few retain it. The ones who retain it are sent to synagogues of converted Jews, and are taught. The ones who accept this teaching are given new clothes instead of the ragged ones they had been wearing. They are also given a beautifully written copy of the Word and a nicer home in the city.

The ones who do not accept what they are taught are cast down into hells underneath that large region of theirs, many into forests and deserts, where they keep robbing each other.

ppp12870#pid#81. In the spiritual world Jews trade in various commodities, just as they do in this world—especially in precious stones, which they get by clandestine routes from heaven, where precious stones are plentiful.

The reason why they deal in precious stones is that they read the Word in its original language and hold its literal meaning to be holy; and precious stones correspond to the literal meaning of the Word (on this correspondence, see `@@@Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 42`–`@@@The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture ccc45`). They sell them to people of other religions who live near them in the northern region.

They also possess the skill to manufacture similar stones and create the illusion that they are genuine, but individuals who do this are severely punished by the governors.

ppp12869#pid#82. More than others, Jews are unaware that they are in the spiritual world; they think they are still in the physical world. This is because they are thoroughly external people and do not think about their religion in an inward way. Therefore they still speak about the Messiah as they had before, saying that he is going to come with David and, gleaming with jewels, go before them and lead them into the land of Canaan, along the way raising up his rod and making the rivers dry so they can cross. The Christians (whom they refer to among themselves as “Gentiles”) will then seize the hem of their garments, pleading to be allowed to go with them. They will accept the rich in proportion to their wealth and the rich will also serve them. They are unwilling to know that in the Word, the land of Canaan means the church and Jerusalem means the church in respect to its teachings, so “Jews” means all the people who will be part of the Lord’s church. On this meaning of “Jews” in the Word, see `@@@Teachings on Sacred Scripture 51`.

[2] When they are asked whether they truly believe that they are going to come into the land of Canaan, they say that they will indeed go down there when the time comes. When they are told that that land is not big enough for them all, they say that it will be enlarged.

When it is pointed out that they do not know where the Bethlehem [of prophecy] is or who belongs to the lineage of David, they reply that the Messiah who is to come knows this.

When they are asked how the Messiah, the Son of Jehovah, could live among such evil people, they say that they are not evil. When they are reminded that in his song in `Deuteronomy 32bbb0` Moses describes them and indicates that they are very wicked, they reply that at that point Moses was angry because he was not allowed to go with them; but when they are told that Moses wrote this at Jehovah’s command, they fall silent and withdraw to confer.

When they are told that they were originally descended from a Canaanite woman and also from Judah’s whoring with his own daughter-in-law (Genesis 38:[`Genesis 38bbbccc2`, `Genesis 38bbbccc16`]), they get angry and say that it is enough for them that they are descended from Abraham.

When they are told that there is a spiritual meaning within the Word that is about Christ alone, they say that this is not true; there is nothing within the Word except gold. And more along the same lines.

ppp12868#pid#83. Quakers in the Spiritual World

There are fanatical spirits who are convinced they are divinely inspired. They are kept apart from all others and are so thickheaded that they believe they are the Holy Spirit. When Quakerism was just beginning, these spirits were drawn forth from the surrounding forests where they had been wandering. They infested many individuals [on earth], filling them with the conviction that they were being impelled by the Holy Spirit. And because those who were infested felt an inflow physically, this conviction took possession of them all to such an extent that they believed they were holier and more enlightened than other people. As a result, they could not be induced to give up their [new] religion.

People who have completely convinced themselves of this come after death into the same kind of fanaticism. They are separated from others and sent away to kindred spirits in the forests, where from a distance they look like wild boars. People who have convinced themselves less completely are first separated from others and then sent to a similar place in a wilderness in the far south, where caves serve as their places of worship.

ppp12867#pid#84. After the fanatical spirits just mentioned have been distanced from them and the infestation of quaking that had taken over their bodies has ceased, they then just feel a motion on their left side.

I have been shown that from very early on, Quakers started straying more and more into evil practices, and eventually into heinous acts, under the command of their “holy spirit”—practices they keep secret from everyone. I have talked, though, with the founder of their religion and with Penn, both of whom said that they had had no part in anything like that.

After they die, individuals who have perpetrated such acts are sent away to a place of darkness and they sit in the corners there, looking like the dregs in a bottle of oil.

ppp12866#pid#85. Because Quakers rejected the two sacraments, baptism and the Holy Supper, and yet still read the Word and preach about the Lord, and because when they speak they are possessed by fanatical spirits and therefore mix the holy teachings of the Word with truths that have been profaned, no community is formed from them in the spiritual world. Instead, their associations are broken up and they wander here and there, then disappear from view, and gather in the wilderness location mentioned above [§`@@@83`].

ppp12865#pid#86. Moravians in the Spiritual World

I have had many conversations with Moravians (also known as Herrnhuters). At first they were to be found in a valley not far from the Jews. After they had undergone examination and had been revealed for what they were, they were taken off to some uninhabited areas.

The examination of them revealed that they were very knowledgeable and skillful in how to captivate people’s minds, presenting themselves as a remnant of the apostolic church. For this reason they would call each other “brother” and use the term “mother” of women who were open to learning their deeper mysteries. They also said that they more than others stress faith and that they love the Lord because he suffered on the cross, calling him the Lamb and the Throne of Grace, and more in the same vein, in order to foster a belief that they are the true Christian church. People who are taken in by their smooth words are then examined by the Moravians to see whether they are the kind to whom they would dare disclose their mysteries. If those who are examined are not the right kind, the Moravians keep their mysteries to themselves; but if they find they can disclose their mysteries to them, they do so. They then give them warnings and even utter threats against any of them who would divulge their secret teachings about the Lord.

ppp12864#pid#87. Since they continued to present themselves in this same manner in the spiritual world, and yet [the angels] perceived that their inward thoughts differed from what they were presenting outwardly, to uncover this discrepancy they were brought into the lowest heaven. They could not stand the atmosphere of caring and consequent faith among the angels there, so they hurried away.

Later, because in the world they had believed that they were the only people who were really alive and that after death they would enter the third heaven, they were actually taken up to that heaven. But when they sensed the atmosphere of love for the Lord there, they felt as though they were having a heart attack. They began to suffer intense inner pain and to have convulsions like people in the throes of death, so they hurled themselves headfirst out of there. This was the first method by which it was revealed that inwardly they attach no value whatever to caring for their neighbor or loving the Lord.

They were then sent to people charged with the task of exploring the deeper levels of their thinking. The report these people made of them was that they despise the Lord, reject the life of caring so completely that they loathe it, regard the Word of the Old Testament as useless, and look down on the Word of the Gospels. All they do with Scripture is take what they please from Paul in the passages where he talks about faith alone. Such are the mysteries that the Moravians keep hidden from the world.

ppp12863#pid#88. So it became clear that the Lord is someone they regard as Arians do, that the Word of the prophets and of the Gospels is something they despise, and that the life of caring is something they hate, when in fact these are the three pillars on which all heaven rests. Therefore the ones among them who knew and believed in these mysteries were judged to be antichrists who rejected the three essential beliefs of the Christian church—the divine nature of the Lord, the Word, and caring. They were cast out of the Christian world into a wilderness that is at the border of the southern region, near the Quakers.

ppp12862#pid#89. I heard Zinzendorf when he arrived in the spiritual world shortly after his death. He was allowed to talk just as he had previously in the world—arguing that he knew the mysteries of heaven and that no one would enter heaven except those who relied on his teaching. He insisted that those who do good deeds for the sake of salvation are utterly damned, and that he would sooner accept atheists into his congregation than them.

He said that the Lord was adopted by God the Father as his son because of his suffering on the cross, but that he was nevertheless just an ordinary human being. When it was explained to him that the Lord was conceived by God the Father, he replied that he thought whatever he pleased about that but did not dare to talk the way Jews did.

From his followers, too, I sensed multiple objections when I read the Gospels.

ppp12861#pid#90. The Moravians said they had been given a sensation and had taken this as an inner confirmation of their teachings, but they were shown that this sensation had come from delusional spirits who confirm for people whatever constitutes their religion, and that these spirits enter more fully into people who, like the Moravians, are passionate about their religion and are constantly thinking about it. There these spirits actually talked with them, and they recognized each other.