Excerpt from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Few are solicitous or wish to know what spiritual truth is; and what truth (not) spiritual. They are so far from being solicitous about it as to be scarcely willing to hear the word spiritual, for at the bare mention of it gloom assails them, together with sadness, and loathing is excited, and so it is rejected. That this really happens has also been shown me.While my mind was dwelling on such things, there were spirits present from Christendom, who were then let into the state in which they had been in the world; and they were not only affected with sadness at the mere thought of spiritual good and truth, but were also seized with so great a loathing, from aversion, that they said they felt within them the like of that which in the world excites vomiting. But it was given me to tell them that this was in consequence of their affections having been fixed upon merely earthly, bodily, and worldly things — for when a man is immersed in these he loathes the things of heaven. They had frequented places of worship where the Word is preached, from no desire to know the things which are of heaven, but from some other desire contracted from the time of early childhood. From this it was plain what is the quality of Christendom at this day.
The cause — to speak generally — is that the Christian Church at this day preaches faith alone and not charity, and thus doctrine but not life.
When life is not preached, a man comes into no affection of good; and when he is in no affection of good, he is also in no affection of truth.It is for this reason that it is contrary to the delight of the life of most persons to hear anything more about the things of heaven than what they have known from infancy.
• Why is man in this world?
And yet the fact is that man is in this world in order to be initiated by his activities there into the things which are of heaven, and that his life in this world is hardly a moment in comparison with his life after death, for this is eternal. But there are few who believe that they will live after death; and for this reason also, heavenly things are of no account to them. But this I can declare with certainty: that man immediately after death is in the other life, and that his life in this world is wholly continued there, and is of the same quality as it had been in this world. This I can assert, because I know it; for I have talked after their decease with almost all with whom I had been acquainted in the life of the body, and thus by living experience it has been given me to know what lot awaits everyone, namely, a lot according to his life; yet those who are of such a quality do not believe even these things.
(from Arcana Cœlestia 5006:2-4)