Transition from the Natural World to the Spiritual World

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The Resuscitation of Man from the Dead, and His Entrance into Eternal Life

Being permitted to describe in connected order how man passes from the life of the body into the life of eternity, in order that the way in which he is resuscitated might be known, this has been shown me, not by hearing, but by actual experience.

I was reduced into a state of insensibility as to the bodily senses, thus almost into the state of dying persons, retaining however my interior life unimpaired, attended with the power of thinking, and with sufficient breathing for life, and finally with a tacit breathing, that I might perceive and remember what happens to those who have died and are being resuscitated.

Celestial angels were present who occupied the region of the heart, so that as to the heart I seemed united with them, and so that at length scarcely anything was left to me except thought, and the consequent perception, and this for some hours.

I was thus removed from communication with spirits in the world of spirits, who supposed that I had departed from the life of the body. Besides the celestial angels, who occupied the region of the heart, there were also two angels sitting at my head, and it was given me to perceive that it is so with everyone.

The angels who sat at my head were perfectly silent, merely communicating their thoughts by the face, so that I could perceive that another face was as it were induced upon me; indeed two, because there were two angels. When the angels perceive that their faces are received, they know that the man is dead.

After recognizing their faces, they induced certain changes about the region of the mouth, and thus communicated their thoughts, for it is customary with the celestial angels to speak by the province of the mouth, and it was permitted me to perceive their cogitative speech.

An aromatic odor was perceived, like that of an embalmed corpse, for when the celestial angels are present, the cadaverous odor is perceived as if it were aromatic, which when perceived by evil spirits prevents their approach.

Meanwhile I perceived that the region of the heart was kept very closely united with the celestial angels, as was also evident from the pulsation.

It was insinuated to me that man is kept engaged by the angels in the pious and holy thoughts which he entertained at the point of death; and it was also insinuated that those who are dying usually think about eternal life, and seldom of salvation and happiness, and therefore the angels keep them in the thought of eternal life.

In this thought they are kept for a considerable time by the celestial angels before these angels depart, and those who are being resuscitated are then left to the spiritual angels, with whom they are next associated. Meanwhile they have a dim idea that they are living in the body.

As soon as the internal parts of the body grow cold, the vital substances are separated from the man, wherever they may be, even if inclosed in a thousand labyrinthine interlacings, for such is the efficacy of the Lord's mercy (which I had previously perceived as a living and mighty attraction), that nothing vital can remain behind.

The celestial angels who sat at the head remained with me for some time after I was as it were resuscitated, but they conversed only tacitly. It was perceived from their cogitative speech that they made light of all fallacies and falsities, smiling at them not indeed as matters for derision, but as if they cared nothing about them. Their speech is cogitative, devoid of sound, and in this kind of language they begin to speak with the souls with whom they are at first present.

As yet the man, thus resuscitated by the celestial angels, possesses only an obscure life; but when the time comes for him to be delivered to the spiritual angels, then after a little delay, when the spiritual angels have approached, the celestial depart; and it has been shown me how the spiritual angels operate in order that the man may receive the benefit of light.

(Arcana Coelestia 168-181)

(continuation of this subject to follow)

Learning About Heaven and Hell (Pt 5)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

CONCERNING VASTATIONS

There are many persons who during their life in this world from simplicity and ignorance have imbibed falsities of religious belief, and yet have had a kind of conscience in accordance with the principles of their faith, and have not like others lived in hatred, revenge, and adultery. In the other life these persons cannot be introduced into heavenly societies so long as they remain in these falsities, for they would contaminate them. They are therefore kept for a time in the lower earth, in order that they may get rid of their false principles. The time that they remain there is longer or shorter according to the nature of the falsity, and the life contracted thereby, and according to the degree in which they have confirmed themselves in their principles. Some suffer there severely, others not severely. These sufferings are what are called Vastations, of which there is frequent mention in the Word.* When the period of vastation is completed, they are taken up into heaven, and as newcomers are instructed in the truths of faith, and this by the angels by whom they are received. 

There are some who are very willing to be vastated and thus get rid of the false principles which they have brought with them from the world. (No one can get rid of his false principles in the other life except by the lapse of time and by means provided by the Lord.) While these persons remain in the lower earth, they are kept by the Lord in the hope of deliverance, and in the thought of the end in view, which is that they may be amended and prepared to receive heavenly happiness.

Some are kept in a middle state between sleep and waking, and think very little, except when they as it were awake - which takes place by alternations - and then they remember what they had thought and done in the life of the body, and again they relapse into the middle state between being awake and being asleep. In this way these are vastated. They are under the left foot, a little in front.

Those who have fully confirmed themselves in false principles are reduced to complete ignorance, and then they are in obscurity and confusion, so that when they merely think of the things in which they have confirmed themselves, they have inward pain. But after some time has passed, they are as it were created anew, and are imbued with the truths of faith.

Those who have assumed righteousness and merit on account of their good works, and so have attributed the efficacy of salvation to themselves, and not to the Lord and His righteousness and merit, and have confirmed themselves in this in thought and in life, in the other world have their principles of falsity turned into phantasies, so that they seem to themselves to be hewing wood: this is exactly as it appears to them. I have spoken with them. When they are engaged in their labor, and are asked whether they are not fatigued, they reply that they have not yet accomplished enough work to be able to merit heaven. When they are hewing the wood there appears to be something of the Lord under the wood, thus as if the wood were merit that they are getting. The more of the Lord there appears in the wood, the longer they remain in this condition; but when that appearance begins to cease, their vastation is drawing to an end. At length they become such that they too can be admitted into good societies, but still they long fluctuate between truth and falsity. Great care is taken of them by the Lord, because they have lived a dutiful life, and He from time to time sends angels to them. These are they who in the Jewish Church were represented by the hewers of wood —

Now therefore ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God. ... And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose. (Josh. 9:23, 27).

Those who have lived a good civic and moral life, but have persuaded themselves that they merit heaven by their works, and have believed that it is sufficient to acknowledge an only God as the Creator of the universe, in the other life have their false principles turned into such phantasies that they seem to themselves to be cutting grass, and are called grass-cutters. They are cold, and try to warm themselves by this cutting. Sometimes they go round and inquire among those whom they meet whether they will give them some heat, which indeed spirits can do, but the heat which they receive has no effect upon them, because it is external and what they want is internal heat; and therefore they return to their cutting, and thus gain heat by their labor. Their cold I have felt. They are always hoping to be taken up into heaven, and sometimes consult together how they may introduce themselves by their own power. As these persons have performed good works, they are among those who are vastated; and at length, after some time has passed, they are introduced into good societies, and are instructed.

Those however who have been in the goods and truths of faith, and have gained therefrom a conscience and a life of charity, are taken up by the Lord into heaven immediately after death.

There are girls who have been enticed into harlotry, and thus persuaded that there is no evil in it, being in other respects rightly disposed. These, because they are not yet of an age to be able to know and judge concerning such a life, have an instructor with them, quite severe, who chastises them whenever in thought they break out into such wantonness. Of him they are in great fear, and in this way are vastated. But adult women who have been harlots and have enticed other women, do not undergo vastation, but are in hell.

* Vastation in the Latin is the same word as wasting or laying waste.

(Arcana Coelestia 1106-1113)

Learning about Heaven and Hell (Pt 4-b)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Concerning other hells, distinct from those previously described.

Those who are deceitful and who suppose that they can obtain all things by deceitful craft, and who have confirmed themselves in this idea by their success in the life of the body, seem to themselves to dwell in a kind of tun or vat at the left, which is called the Infernal Tun, over which there is a covering, and outside of it a small globe on a pyramidal base, which they conceive to be the universe, under their inspection and rule. Precisely thus does it appear to them. Those of them who have deceitfully persecuted the innocent are there for ages. I was told that some have remained there already for twenty ages.* When they are let out they are possessed with such phantasy that they suppose the universe to be a globe about which they walk and which they trample with their feet, believing themselves to be gods of the universe. I have seen them at times and spoken with them about their phantasy; but as they had been of this nature in the world, they could not be withdrawn from it. I have also at times perceived with what subtle deceit they could pervert the thoughts, turning them in a moment in other directions, and substituting others, so that it could hardly be known that it was done by them, and this so naturally as to be beyond belief. Being of this character, these spirits are never admitted to men, for they infuse their poison so clandestinely and secretly as not to be noticeable.

There is at the left another tun - as it appears to them - in which are some who in the life of the body had supposed that when they did evil they did good, and the converse; so that they had made good to consist in evil. These remain there for a while, and then are deprived of rationality, on the loss of which they are as if asleep, and what they then do is not imputed to them; but yet they seem to themselves to be awake. On their rationality being restored to them they return to themselves and are as other spirits.

Toward the left and in front there is a certain chamber in which there is no light, but mere darkness, from which it is called the Dark Chamber. In it are those who have longed for the goods of others, continually hankering after them, and also whenever possible getting possession of them under some specious claim, in the most conscienceless manner. There are some there who when they lived in this world had been in stations of much dignity, but had based the respect due to sagacity on wily practices. In that chamber they consult together - just as when they lived in the body - how to take other people in. The darkness there they call delicious. I was shown the appearance of those who are there and had acted fraudulently. As in clear daylight I saw what they at last come to. Their faces are more hideous than those of the dead, ghastly in hue like a corpse, and pitted with horrible cavities, the result of living in the torment of anxiety.

There was a phalanx of spirits rising up from the side of Gehenna on high toward the front, from whose sphere it was perceived-for the quality of spirits may be perceived from their sphere alone, at their first approach - that they accounted the Lord as vile, and held all Divine worship in contempt. Their speech was undulatory. One of them spoke in a scandalous way against the Lord, and was at once cast down toward one side of Gehenna. They were being carried from the front up overhead, in the endeavor to meet with some with whom they might conjoin themselves in an attempt to reduce others to subjection, but they were retarded on the way, and were told to desist, because the attempt would be hurtful to them, so they came to a halt. Then they were seen. They had black faces, and had a white bandage round their heads, by which is signified that they regard Divine worship - and therefore the Lord's Word - as black, and useful only to keep the vulgar under the restraint of conscience. Their abode is near Gehenna, where are flying dragons, not venomous, from which it is called the Habitation of Dragons. But because they are not deceitful, their hell is not so grievous. Such spirits ascribe all things to themselves and their own prudence, and boast that they fear no one. But they were shown that a mere hiss would terrify them and put them to flight, for on a hiss being heard they thought in their terror that all hell was rising to carry them off, and from heroes they suddenly became like women.

Those who in the life of the body have thought themselves holy, are in the lower earth before the left foot. At times they there appear to themselves to have a shining face, which flows from their idea of their own holiness. But the outcome with them is that they are kept in the most intense desire to ascend into heaven, which they suppose to be on high. This desire is increased and is turned more and more into anxiety, which grows immensely until they acknowledge that they are not holy; and when they are taken out of that place, they are enabled to perceive their own stench, which is very offensive.

A certain spirit supposed that he had lived holily in the world because he was esteemed as holy by men and so merited heaven. He said that he had led a pious life, and had spent much time in prayer, supposing it to be sufficient for each person to look out for his own interests. He also said that he was a sinner, and was willing to suffer even to being trodden under foot by others, which he called Christian patience; and that he was willing to be the least, in order that he might become the greatest in heaven. When examined in order to see whether he had performed or had been willing to perform anything of good, that is, any works of charity, he said that he did not know what these were; but only that he had lived a holy life. But because he had as his end his own preeminence over others, whom he accounted vile in comparison with himself, at first, because he supposed himself to be holy, he appeared in a human form shining white down to the loins, but was turned first to a dull blue, and then to black; and as he desired to rule over others, and despised them in comparison with himself, he became blacker than others. (Concerning those who desire to be greatest in heaven, see Arcana Coelestia 450, 452.)

I was led through some abodes of the first heaven, from which I was permitted to see afar off a great sea swelling with mighty waves, the boundaries of which stretched beyond the range of vision, and I was told that those have such phantasies, and see such a sea, with fear of being sunk in it, who have desired to be great in the world, caring nothing whether by right or by wrong, provided they could secure their own glory and renown.

The phantasies which have been indulged in the life of the body are turned in the next life into others, which, however, correspond to the first. For example, with those who have been violent and merciless on earth, their violence and unmercifulness are turned into incredible cruelty; and they seem to themselves to kill whatever companions they meet, and to torture them in various ways, wherein they take what is to them the greatest possible delight. Those who have been bloodthirsty take delight in torturing other spirits, even to bloodshed, for they suppose spirits to be men, not knowing otherwise. At the sight of blood - for such is their phantasy that they as it were see blood - they are greatly delighted. From avarice there break forth phantasies as if they were infested with mice, and the like, according to the species of avarice. Those who have been delighted with mere pleasures, having these as their ultimate end, as their highest good, and as it were their heaven, find their highest delight in staying in privies, perceiving there what is most enjoyable. Some take delight in urinous and noisome pools, some in miry places, and so on.

Moreover there are penalties of various kinds with which in the other life the evil are most grievously punished, and into which they run when they return to their foul cupidities, and by which they contract shame, terror, and horror for such things, until at last they desist from them. The penalties are various, being in general those of laceration, of discerption or pulling to pieces, of sufferings under veils, and many others.

Those who are tenacious of revenge and who think themselves greater than all others, regarding them as of no account in comparison with themselves, suffer the punishment of laceration in the following manner: They are mangled in face and body until there is scarcely anything human left; the face becomes like a broad round cake, the arms look like rags, and these being stretched out, the man is whirled around on high and all the time toward heaven, while his character is proclaimed in the presence of all until shame penetrates him to the inmost. Thus, a suppliant, he is compelled to beg for pardon in terms that are dictated to him. Afterwards he is carried to a miry lake, which is near the filthy Jerusalem, and is plunged and rolled in it till he becomes a figure of mud; and this is done repeatedly, until such cupidity is taken away. In this miry lake there are malicious women belonging to the province of the bladder.

Those who in the life of the body have contracted a habit of saying one thing and thinking another, especially those who under the appearance of friendship have longed for the possessions of others, wander about, and wherever they come ask whether they may stay there, saying that they are poor; and when they are received they from innate desire long for all they see. As soon as their character is detected they are driven out and fined; and sometimes they are miserably racked in various ways in accordance with the nature of the deceitful simulation which they have contracted, some being racked in the whole body, some in the feet, some in the loins, some in the breast, some in the head, and some only in the region of the mouth. They are knocked backward and forward in a way that is indescribable; there are violent collisions of the parts, thus pullings asunder, so that they believe themselves to be torn into small bits; and resistance is induced, to increase the pain. Such punishments of discerption take place with great variety, and at intervals are repeated again and again, until the sufferers are penetrated with fear and horror at false statements made with an intention to deceive. Each punishing takes away something. The discerptors said that they are so delighted to punish that they are not willing to desist, even should it go on to eternity.

There are troops of spirits who wander about and whom other spirits greatly dread. They apply themselves to the lower part of the back, and inflict torture by rapid movements to and fro which no one can prevent, and which are attended with sound, and they direct the constrictive and expansive movement upward in the form of a cone with its point at the top; and whoever is introduced within this cone, especially toward the top of it, is miserably racked in every particle of his limbs. It is deceitful pretenders who are introduced into it and so punished.

I awoke in the night from my sleep, and heard spirits about me who desired to ambush me in my sleep, yet presently dozing I had a sad dream. But having awaked, punishing spirits were suddenly present - at which I wondered - and miserably punished the spirits who had ambushed me in my sleep. They induced on them as it were bodies - visible ones - and bodily senses, and thus tortured them by violent collisions of the parts to and fro, with pains induced by resistance. The punishers would have killed them if they could, so that they used the most extreme violence. Those guilty were for the most part sirens (concerning whom see Arcana Coelestia 831). The punishment lasted a long time, and extended around me to many troops, and to my astonishment all those who had ambushed me were found, though they wanted to hide themselves. Being sirens, they tried with many arts to elude the penalty, but could not. Now they sought to withdraw into interior nature, now to induce the belief that they were others, now to transfer the punishment to others by a transference of ideas, now they counterfeited infants who would thus be tortured, now good spirits, now angels, besides making use of many other artifices, but all in vain. I was surprised that they should be so grievously punished, but perceived that the crime is enormous from the necessity of man's being able to sleep in safety, without which the human race would perish; so that it is of necessity that there should be so great a penalty. I perceived that the same takes place around other men whom they attempt to assail insidiously in their sleep, although the men know nothing about it. For one to whom it is not given to speak with spirits and to be with them by inner sense, can hear nothing of the kind, still less see it, when yet the same things happen with all. The Lord guards man with most especial care during his sleep.

There are certain deceitful spirits who while they lived in the body practiced their wiles in secret, and some of them in order to deceive have by pernicious arts feigned being as it were angels. In the other life these learn to withdraw themselves into a finer or more interior realm of nature [in subtiliorem naturam], and to snatch themselves away from the eyes of others, and in this way they suppose themselves to be safe from every penalty. But these, just like others, undergo the penalty of discerption in accordance with the nature and the wickedness of their deceit, and in addition to this they are glued together, and when this happens the more they desire to loose themselves-that is, to tear themselves away from one another-the more tightly they are fastened. This penalty is attended with a more intense torture because it answers to their more hidden deceptions.

Some persons from habit, and some from contempt, make use in familiar conversation of the things contained in Holy Scripture as an aid or formula for joking and ridicule, thinking thus to give point thereto. But such things of Scripture when thus thought and spoken add themselves to their corporeal and filthy ideas, and in the other life bring upon them much harm; for they return together with the profane things. These persons also undergo the punishment of discerption, until they become disused to such things.

There is also a penalty of discerption in respect to the thoughts, so that the interior thoughts fight with the exterior, which is attended with interior torment.

Among punishments a frequent one consists in the throwing over the sufferers of a veil, and is as follows. By means of phantasies that are impressed on them the sufferers seem to themselves to be under a veil that is stretched out to a great distance. It is like a closely clinging cloud that increases in density in proportion to the phantasy, and under which, incited by the desire to burst out of it, they run hither and thither at various rates of speed, until they are wearied out. This usually lasts for the space of an hour, more or less, and is attended with different degrees of torment in proportion to the degree of the desire for extrication. The veil is for those who although they see the truth, yet under the influence of the love of self are unwilling to acknowledge it, and feel constant indignation that the truth should be so. When under the veil some feel such anxiety and terror that they despair of the possibility of their deliverance, as I was informed by one who had himself been delivered from it.

There is an additional kind of veil in which the sufferers are wrapped up as it were in a cloth, so that they seem to themselves to be bound in hand, in foot, and in body, and there is injected into them a burning desire to unwrap themselves. As the sufferer has been wrapped round only once, he supposes that he will easily be unwrapped, but when he begins to unwrap himself the veil increases in length, and the unwrapping goes on without end, until he despairs.

These things relate to the hells and to penalties. Infernal torments are not the stings of conscience, as some suppose, for those who are in hell have had no conscience, and therefore cannot suffer torment of conscience. Those who have had conscience are among the happy.

It is to be observed that in the other life no one undergoes any punishment and torture on account of his hereditary evil, but only on account of the actual evils which he himself has committed.

When the evil are being punished, angels are always present who moderate the punishment and alleviate the pains of the sufferers, but cannot take them away. For there is such an equilibrium of all things in the other life that evil punishes itself, and unless it could be taken away by means of punishment, those in whom it exists could not but be kept in some hell to eternity, for they would otherwise infest the societies of the good, and offer violence to the order instituted by the Lord, wherein lies the safety of the universe.

Certain spirits had brought with them from the world the idea that they must not speak with the devil, but flee from him. But they were instructed that it would do no harm at all to those whom the Lord protects, even if they should be encompassed by all hell, both within and without. This it has been given me to know by much and by marvelous experience, so that at length I came to have no fear of even the worst of the infernal crew, to hinder my speaking with them; and this was granted in order that I might become acquainted with their character. To those who have wondered that I spoke with them, I have been permitted to say not only that this would do me no harm, but also that the devils in the other life are such as have been men, and who when they lived in the world passed their life in hatred, revenge, and adultery, some of them being then preeminently esteemed; nay, that among them are some I had known in the bodily life; and that the devil means nothing else than such a crew of hell. And furthermore, that men, while they live in the body, have with them at least two spirits from hell, as well as two angels from heaven; and that these infernal spirits rule with the evil, but with the good have been subjugated and are compelled to serve. Thus it is false to suppose that there has been a devil from the beginning of creation, other than such as were once men. When they heard these things they were amazed, and confessed that they had held a totally different opinion in regard to the devil and the diabolical crew.

In so great a kingdom, where all the souls of men from the first creation flock together, from this earth alone nearly a million coming every week, and each person among them all having his own individual genius and nature; and where there is a communication of all the ideas of everyone; and where notwithstanding all this, all things both in general and in particular must be reduced into order, and this continually; it cannot be but that numberless things exist there which have never entered into the idea of man. And as in relation to hell, as well as in relation to heaven, scarcely anyone has conceived more than one single obscure idea, it cannot be but that these things will appear strange and wonderful, especially from the fact that men suppose spirits to have no sense of feeling, although the truth is that they feel more exquisitely than do men, and what is more have induced on them by evil spirits, by artifices unknown in this world, a sense of feeling almost like that of the body, but much more gross.

* An age (saeculum) in the Word is ten years. (See Arcana Coelestia 433.) 

(Arcana Coelestia 947-969)

Learning about Heaven and Hell (Pt 4-a)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The hells of
THE AVARICIOUS, THE FILTHY JERUSALEM, AND THE ROBBERS IN A DESERT
ALSO
THE EXCREMENTITIOUS HELLS OF THOSE WHO HAVE LIVED IN MERE PLEASURES

The avaricious are of all men the most sordid, and think the least about the life after death, the soul, and the internal man. They do not even know what heaven is, because of all men they least elevate their thoughts, but sink them and immerse them wholly in corporeal and earthly things. Wherefore when they come into the other life they do not know for a long time that they are spirits, but suppose that they are still altogether in the body. The ideas of their thought which from their avarice have become as it were corporeal and earthly, are turned into direful phantasies. It seems incredible, yet is true, that in the other life the sordidly avaricious seem to themselves to be busy in cellars where their money is, and to be infested there by mice; yet however they may be infested they do not withdraw until they are wearied out, and so at last they work their way out of these tombs.

What sordid phantasies the ideas of thought of those who have been sordidly avaricious are turned into, is evident from their hell, which is deep under foot. A vapor exhales from it like that from hogs whose bristles are being scraped off in a scalding trough. There are the homes of the avaricious. Those who come thither at first appear black, but by the scraping off of their hair, as is done with hogs, they seem to themselves to become white. So they then appear to themselves, but still there remains therefrom a mark by which they are known wherever they go. A certain black spirit who had not yet been brought to his own hell, because he had to make a longer stay in the world of spirits, being let down thither (although he had not been so avaricious as the rest, and yet had in his lifetime wickedly panted for the wealth of others), on his arrival the avaricious there fled away, saying that he was a robber, because he was black, and would kill them. For the avaricious flee from such spirits, being especially fearful of losing their lives. At length, having found out that he was not such a robber, they told him that if he wished to become white he merely had to have the hair taken off, like the swine-which were in full view - and then he would be white. But as he did not desire this, he was taken up among spirits.

In this hell are for the most part Jews who have been sordidly avaricious, whose presence too when they come to other spirits is perceived as the stench of mice. In regard to the Jews something may be said about their cities and the robbers in the desert, to show how miserable is their state after death, especially that of those who have been sordidly avaricious and have despised others in comparison with themselves in consequence of their inborn arrogance in thinking themselves to be the only chosen people. In consequence of having conceived and confirmed in themselves, during their life in the body, the phantasy that they shall go to Jerusalem, and the Holy Land, to possess it (not being disposed to understand that by the New Jerusalem is meant the Lord's kingdom in the heavens and on earth), there appears to them, when they come into the other world, a city on the left of Gehenna, a little in front, to which they flock in crowds. This city, however, being miry and fetid, is called the filthy Jerusalem; and here they run about the streets, over the ankles in dirt and mud, pouring out complaints and lamentations. They see these cities - indeed I have sometimes seen them myself - and the streets therein, with all their defilements, represented as in open day. There once appeared to me a certain spirit of a dusky hue coming from this filthy Jerusalem, the gate seeming as it were to be opened. He was encompassed about with wandering stars, especially on his left side; wandering stars around a spirit signifying in the spiritual world falsities, but it is different when the stars are not wandering. He approached, and applied himself to the upper part of my left ear, which he seemed to touch with his mouth, in order to speak with me; but he did not speak in a sonorous tone of voice like others, but within himself, nevertheless in such a manner that I could hear and understand. He said that he was a Jewish Rabbi, adding that he had been in that miry city for a long time, and that the streets thereof were nothing but mud and dirt. He said also there was nothing to eat in it but dirt, and on my asking why he who was a spirit desired to eat, he replied that he did eat, and that when he desired to eat, nothing was offered him but mud, which grieved him exceedingly. He inquired what he must do, having in vain tried to meet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I related to him some particulars respecting them, informing him it was in vain to seek for them, and that even if they were found, they could not possibly afford him any assistance. After adverting to matters of deeper import, I said that no one ought to be sought after but the Lord alone, who is the Messiah whom they had despised on earth; and that He rules the universal heaven and the universal earth, and that help comes from Him alone. He then asked anxiously and repeatedly where the Lord was. I replied that He is to be found everywhere, and that He hears and knows all men. But at that instant other Jewish spirits drew him away.

There is also another city on the right of Gehenna, or between Gehenna and the Lake, where the better sort of the Jews seem to themselves to dwell. But this city is changed to them according to their phantasies, sometimes being turned into villages, at others into a lake, and again into a city; and its inhabitants are much afraid of robbers, but so long as they remain in the city they are secure. Between the two cities there is a kind of triangular space, dark, where are robbers, who are Jews, but of the worst sort, who cruelly torture whomsoever they meet. The Jews out of fear call these robbers the Lord, and the desert in which they reside they call the Land. As a security against the robbers, at the entrance into the city, on the right, there is a good spirit stationed, in the extreme corner, who receives all comers, and before whom, as they arrive, they bow themselves toward the earth. They are admitted under his feet, this being the ceremony of admittance into this city.

A certain spirit approaching me suddenly; I demanded whence he came? He replied that he was making his escape from the robbers, whom he feared, because they kill, slaughter, burn, and boil men, inquiring where he might be safe. I asked whence and from what country he came? In his terror he dared not give me any other answer than that it was the Lord's Land, for they call that desert the Land, and the robbers the Lord. Afterwards the robbers presented themselves. They were very black, and spoke in a deep tone of voice like giants, and, strange to say, when they come they induce a sense of dread and horror. I asked them who they were? They said they were in quest of plunder. I inquired what they meant to do with their plunder, and whether they did not know that they were spirits, and therefore could neither seize upon nor amass plunder, and that such notions are the phantasies of the evil? They replied, that they were in the desert in quest of booty, and that they torture whomsoever they meet. At last they acknowledged, while they were with me, that they were spirits, but still could not be brought to believe that they were not still living in the body. Those who thus wander about are Jews, who threaten to kill, slaughter, burn, and boil whomsoever they meet, even though they are Jews, and friends. Their disposition was thus made known, although in the world they dare not divulge it.

Not far from the filthy Jerusalem there is still another city which is called the Judgment of Gehenna, where those dwell who claim heaven as due to their own righteousness, and condemn others who do not live according to their phantasies. Between this city and Gehenna there appears as if there were a rather handsome bridge, of a pale or gray color; where there is a black spirit, whom they fear, and who prevents their passing over, for on the other side of the bridge appears Gehenna.

Those who in the life of the body have made mere pleasures their end and aim, loving merely to indulge their natural propensities, and to live in luxury and festivity, caring only for themselves and the world, without any regard to things Divine, and who are devoid of faith and charity, are after death first introduced into a life similar to that which they had in the world. There is a place in front toward the left, at a considerable depth, where all is pleasure, sports, dancing, feasting, and chatting together. Hither such spirits are conveyed, and then they know no otherwise than that they are still in the world. After a short time however the scene is changed, and then they are carried down to a hell beneath the buttocks which is merely excrementitious; for in the other life such exclusively corporeal pleasure is turned into what is excrementitious. I have seen them there carrying dung and bemoaning their lot.

Women who from low and mean condition have become rich, and in their pride have given themselves up to pleasures and a life of delicacy and ease, reclining on couches like queens, sitting at tables and banquets, and caring for nothing else, when they come into the other life have wretched quarrels with one another - they beat and tear each other, they drag each other by the hair, and become like furies.

It is otherwise with those who have been born into the pleasures and enjoyments of life, and who have been educated in such things from childhood, such as queens, and others of noble family, and also those of wealthy parentage. These, though they have lived in luxury, splendor, and elegance, provided they have lived at the same time in faith in the Lord and charity toward the neighbor, are among the happy in the other life. For to deprive oneself of the enjoyments of life, of power, and of riches, and to think thus to merit heaven by wretchedness, is a false course. But to esteem pleasures and power and riches as nothing in comparison with the Lord, and the life of the world as nothing in comparison with heavenly life, this is what is meant in the Word by renouncing these things.

I have spoken with spirits concerning the fact that possibly few will believe in the existence of so many and such wonderful things in the other life, in consequence of the absence of any but a very general and obscure conception, (amounting to none at all), of the life after death, and in which men have confirmed themselves by the consideration that they do not see a soul or spirit with their eyes. Even the learned, although they say there is a soul or spirit, so cleave to artificial words and terms - which rather obscure or even extinguish the understanding of things than assist it - and so devote themselves to self and the world, and but rarely to the general welfare and to heaven, that they believe still less than do sensuous men. The spirits to whom I spoke marveled that men should be of such a character, seeing that they are well aware of the existence in nature itself, and in each of its kingdoms, of many wonderful and varied things about which they are ignorant, as for example those in the internal human ear, concerning which a book might be filled with things amazing and unheard of, and in the existence of which everyone has faith. But if anything is said about the spiritual world, from which come forth all things in the kingdoms of nature both in general and in particular, scarcely anyone gives credence to it, on account, as before said, of the preconceived and confirmed opinion that because it is not seen it is nothing.

(Arcana Coelestia 938-946)

[A second part to this article will follow.]

Learning About Heaven and Hell (Pt 3)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The hells of those who have passed their lives in
ADULTERIES AND LASCIVIOUSNESS
Also concerning the hells of
THE DECEITFUL, AND OF SORCERESSES

Beneath the heel of the right foot* is a hell inhabited by those who have delighted in cruelty and at the same time in adulteries, and have felt in them the greatest delight of their lives. It is remarkable that those who have been cruel in the life of the body have been also, more than others, adulterers. Such are those who are in this hell, where they practice unspeakable methods of cruelty.

Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.

(Prov. 27:22)

And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem.

(2 Sam. 12:31)

Moreover there [were] axes of iron, concerning which [it is spoken] in the same place, 2 Sam. 12:31. By the axes of iron are understood instruments, which similar infernal [spirits] also in the same place make use of through phantasy. The axes are like the broad [ones] employed by executioners, and they do not amputate or kill man, but open him in the belly, and draw out his intestines, and take them out with the broad axe of iron, and roll them about, and so draw them out until every intestine has been extracted.

(Spiritual Diary 2639)

By their phantasies they make themselves vessels as for braying, like those used for braying herbs, and pestles, wherewith they bray and torture whomsoever they can; and also as it were broad axes, like those of executioners; and augers, with which they do cruel violence to one another; not to mention other direful cruelties.

Some of the Jews are there who in former times so cruelly treated the Gentiles. And at this day that hell is increasing, especially from those who come from the so-called Christian world and have had all the delight of their life in adulteries, who also are for the most part cruel. Sometimes their delight is turned into the stench of human excrement, which exhales excessively when that hell is opened. I perceived it in the world of spirits, and at the time almost fell into a swoon from the effect of it. This noisome, excrementitious smell by turns fills the hell, and by turns ceases; for it is their delight from adulteries which is turned into such offensiveness. In process of time, when they have passed through a given period in such things, they are left alone and sit in torment, becoming like unsightly skeletons, but still living.

In the plane of the soles of the feet, at a considerable distance in front, there is a hell which is called Gehenna, where are shameless women who have placed all their delight in adulteries, and have regarded adulteries as not only permissible but honorable, and who under various pretenses of honorableness have allured the guileless and innocent to such things. A kind of fiery glow appears there, such as overcasts the sky from a great conflagration; and it is attended with fiery heat, as it was given me to feel by the warmth from it on my face; and there is a stench exhaled therefrom, as from burning bones and hair. Sometimes this hell is changed into direful serpents, which bite them; and then they long for death, but cannot die. Certain women released therefrom came to me and said there was a fiery heat there; but that when they are allowed to draw near to any society of good spirits the heat is changed to intense cold; and then burning heat and cold alternate with them, from one extreme to the other, by which they are miserably tormented. But yet they have their intervals during which they are in the heat of their fiery lust. But, as was said, their states vary.

There were some, of both sexes, from the so-called Christian world, who in their life of the body had believed adulteries to be not only lawful but even holy, and so held collective marriages, as they impiously call them, under a show of sanctity. I saw that they were sent into Gehenna; but when they came there a change took place; the fieriness of Gehenna, which is ruddy, at their coming became whiter; and it was perceived that they could not agree together. This execrable troop was therefore separated and driven away into a region behind (into another world, it was said), where they would be immersed in stagnant pools, and from there would be conveyed into a new Gehenna appointed for them. There was heard in Gehenna a kind of hissing that cannot be described; but the hiss or buzz of Gehenna was grosser than that of those who had defiled holiness by their adulteries.

Those who ensnare by pretended regard for conjugial love and love for children, so deporting themselves that the husband shall have no suspicion but that his guests are chaste, guileless, and friendly, and under such and various other pretenses the more safely commit adultery, are in a hell under the buttocks, in the filthiest excrement; and are vastated until they become as bones, because they rank with the deceitful. Such do not even know what conscience is. I have talked with them, and they were surprised that anyone should have conscience and should say that adulteries are contrary to conscience. They were told that it is as impossible for such conscienceless adulterers to come into heaven as it is for fishes to rise into the air, or birds into the ether, because if they but approach they have a feeling of suffocation, and their delight is turned into a noisome stench; and that they cannot but be thrust down into hell, and become at last as of bone, with little life, because they have acquired to themselves a life of such a character that when they lose it, very little of truly human life remains.

They who are possessed with the lust of defloration, and who find their greatest delight in virginities and the theft of them, without any purpose of marriage and offspring, and who when they have robbed virginity of its flower, afterwards forsake, loathe, and prostitute their victims, suffer the most grievous punishment in the other life, because such a life is contrary to order - natural, spiritual, and celestial; and because it is not only contrary to conjugial love, which is held in heaven to be most holy, but is also contrary to innocence, which they violate and kill by enticing the innocent, who might otherwise be imbued with conjugial love, into a meretricious life; for it is the first flower of love which introduces virgins into chaste conjugial love, and conjoins the minds of a married pair. And because the holiness of heaven is founded in conjugial love and in innocence, and such men are therefore interior murderers, they seem to themselves to be sitting upon a furious horse, which tosses them up so that they are thrown from the horse, to the peril of their life as it seems - such terror seizes them. Afterwards they appear to themselves to be under the belly of the furious horse, and presently seem to themselves to go through the hinder part of the horse into his belly; and then suddenly it appears to them as if they were in the belly of a filthy harlot, which harlot is changed into a great dragon, and there they remain wrapped in torment. This punishment returns many times during hundreds and thousands of years, until they are imbued with a horror of such desires. Respecting their offspring I have been told that they are worse than other children, because they derive from the father something of a like heredity; and therefore children are rarely born from such intercourse, and those that are born do not remain long in this life.

They who in the life of the body think lasciviously, and give a lascivious turn to whatever others say, even to holy things, and this even in adult and old age when nothing of natural lasciviousness incites, do not desist or think and speak differently in the other life; and as there their thoughts are communicated, and sometimes come forth into obscene representations before other spirits, they give offense. Their punishment is, that in the presence of the spirits whom they have offended they are thrown prostrate and rapidly rolled over and over like a roller from left to right, and then transversely in another position, and so in another-naked before all, or half naked, according to the nature of their lasciviousness, and at the same time they are inspired with shame. Then they are whirled about by the head and feet, horizontally, as upon an axis. Resistance is induced, and at the same time pain; for there are two forces acting, one whirling around, the other backward, so that the punishment is attended with the pain of being torn asunder. After undergoing these penalties, an opportunity is afforded the miserable sufferer of withdrawing himself from the sight of other spirits, and a sense of shame is instilled into him. Yet there are those who try him to see whether he still persists in such things; but so long as he is in a state of shame and distress he is on his guard. Thus he seems to himself to be hidden, although they know where he is. This punishment appeared in front, at some distance.

There are also boys, youths, and young men who from the madness and hot desire of their age have conceived abominable principles: as that wives, especially those that are young and beautiful, ought not to be for a husband, but for themselves and their like, the husband remaining only head of the household and educator of the children. These are distinguished in the other life by the boyish sound of their speech. They are behind at some height there. Those of them who have confirmed themselves in such principles, and in actual life conformable thereto, are grievously punished in the other life, by having their joints put out of place and back again, or twisted one way and the other, by spirits who can by their art induce upon them the phantasy of being in the body, and at the same time make them feel bodily pain. By these violent alternations, together with their struggles in resistance, they are so rent that they seem to themselves as if dismembered and torn to bits, with frightful pain; and this time after time, until being struck with horror at such principles of life they cease to think in that way.

They who beguile men by subtle deceit, wearing a pleasant face and manner of speech, but concealing envenomed guile within, and thus captivating men for the purpose of ruining them, are in a hell more dreadful than the hells of others, even more dreadful than the hell of murderers. They seem to themselves to live among serpents; and the more pernicious their deceit has been, the more dreadful and venomous and the more numerous the serpents appear which surround and torment them. They know not but that they are serpents; they feel similar pains and similar torments. Few perhaps will believe this, but yet it is true. These are they who practice deceit with premeditation, and feel therein the delight of their life. The punishments of the deceitful are various, each according to the nature of the deceit. In general such persons are not tolerated in societies, but are expelled; for whatever a spirit thinks, they who are near instantly know and perceive; thus they perceive whether there is anything of deceit, and what sort of deceit. Therefore, being at length expelled from societies, they sit in solitude; and they then appear with a broad face, the breadth equaling that of four or five faces of others, and with a broad fleshy cap turning white, sitting as images of death, in torment. There are others who are deceitful by nature, thus not so much from premeditation, and not clandestinely under a feigned countenance. They are known at once, and their thought is plainly perceived. They even boast of it, as if they would appear shrewd. These have not such a hell. But, by the Divine mercy of the Lord, more will be said about the deceitful hereafter.

There are women who have lived in the indulgence of their natural inclinations, caring only for themselves and the world, and making the whole of life and the delight of life to consist in outward decorum, in consequence of which they have been highly esteemed in polite society. They have thus, by practice and habit, acquired the talent of insinuating themselves into the desires and pleasures of others, under the pretense of what is honorable, but with the purpose of gaining control over them. Their life therefore became one of dissimulation and deceit. Like others they frequented churches, but for no other end than that they might appear virtuous and pious; and moreover they were without conscience, and very prone to shameful acts and adulteries, so far as these could be concealed. Such women think in the same way in the other life, knowing not what conscience is, and ridiculing those who speak of it. They enter into the affections of others, whatever these may be, by simulating virtue, piety, pity, and innocence, which are their means of deceiving; but whenever outward restraints are removed, they rush into things most wicked and obscene.

These are the women who become enchantresses or sorceresses in the other life, some of whom are those called Sirens; and they there become expert in arts unknown in the world. They are like sponges that imbibe nefarious artifices; and are of such talent that they quickly put them in practice. The arts unknown in this world which they learn in the other are these. They can speak as though they were in another place, so that their voice is heard there as from good spirits. They can as it were be with many at the same time, thus persuading others that they are as if present everywhere. They can speak as several persons at the same time, and in several places at the same time. They can turn aside what flows in from good spirits, even what flows in from angelic spirits, and in diverse ways pervert it instantly in favor of themselves. They can put on the likeness of another, by the ideas of him which they conceive and fashion. They can inspire anyone with an affection for themselves, by insinuating themselves into the very state of another's affection. They can withdraw suddenly out of sight, and escape unseen. They can represent before the eyes of spirits a white flame about the head, which is an angelic sign, and this before many. They can in diverse ways feign innocence, even by representing infants whom they kiss. They also excite others, whom they hate, to kill them (for they know they cannot die), and then divulge it and accuse them of murder.

They have called up out of my memory whatever of evil I have thought and done, and this most skillfully. While I was asleep they have talked with others, just as if from me, so that the spirits were persuaded of it, thus of things false and obscene. And many other arts they have. Their nature is so persuasive that no room is left therein for any doubt; therefore their ideas are not communicated like those of other spirits. And their eyes are like those ascribed to serpents, seeing and paying attention every way at once. These sorceresses or sirens are grievously punished, some in Gehenna, some in a kind of court among snakes; some by wrenchings and various collisions, attended with the greatest pain and torture. In course of time they are separated from all society and become like skeletons from head to foot.

(Arcana Coelestia 824-831)

* The Swedenborg speaks of places in the spiritual world as being situated in accordance with their correspondence to the human body. [Reviser.]

Learning About Heaven and Hell (Pt 2)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Concerning the hells of those who have passed their life in
HATREDS, REVENGES, AND CRUELTIES.

Such spirits as cherish deadly hatred, and hence breathe out vengeance and nothing less than death to another, knowing no rest till then, are kept in the deepest cadaverous hell, where there is a noisome stench as of carcasses; and, wonderful to say, such spirits are so delighted with the stench there that they prefer it to the most pleasing odors. Such is their dreadful nature, and their consequent phantasy. A like stench actually exhales from that hell. When the hell is opened (which occurs rarely, and then only for a short time), so great a stench pours forth from it that spirits cannot remain in the neighborhood. Certain genii, or rather furies, who were sent forth thence in order that I might know their quality, infected the sphere with such poisonous and pestilent breath that the spirits about me could not stay; and at the same time it so affected my stomach that I vomited. They manifested themselves under the appearance of a little child, of not uncomely face, with a concealed dagger, whom they sent to me, bearing a cup in his hand. From this it was given me to know that they had a mind to murder, either with the dagger or with poison, under a show of innocence. Yet they themselves had naked bodies, and were very black. But presently they were sent back into their cadaverous hell, and it was then given me to observe how they sank down. They went on to the left, in the plane of the left temple, and to a great distance, without descending, and afterwards sank down; first into what appeared as a fire, then into a fiery smoke as of a furnace, and then under that furnace, toward the front, where were many most gloomy caverns tending downward. On the way they were continually revolving and intending evils, and chiefly against the innocent, without cause. When they sank down through the fire they greatly lamented. That they may be well distinguished as to whence and what they are, when they are sent out they have a kind of ring to which are affixed points as of brass, which they press with the hands and twist about. This is a sign that they are of this nature, and are bound.

They who so delight in hatred and the consequent revenge that they are not content to kill the body only, but desire to destroy the soul, which yet the Lord has redeemed, are sent down through a very dark opening toward the lowest parts of the earth, to a depth proportionate to the degree of their hatred and vindictiveness; and there they are struck with grievous terror and horror, and at the same time are kept in the lust for revenge; and as this increases they are sent down to lower depths. Afterwards they are sent into a place beneath Gehenna, where great and dreadful thick-bellied serpents appear (so vividly that it is just as if they were real), by whose bites they are tormented, feeling them acutely. Such things are keenly felt by spirits, answering to their life just as things of the body do to the life of those who are in the body. Meanwhile they live in direful phantasies for ages, until they no longer know that they have been men. Their life, which they have derived from such hatreds and revenges, cannot otherwise be extinguished.

As there are innumerable genera of hatreds and revenges, and species still more innumerable, and one genus has not the same hell as another, and as it is therefore impossible to recount them singly in their order, I may refer to what have been seen.

One came to me who appeared to be a noble. (Those who appeared to me were seen as in clear daylight, and even more clearly, but by my internal sight; for of the Lord's Divine mercy it has been given me to be in company with spirits.) At his first approach he pretended by signs that he had much he wished to communicate to me, asking whether I was a Christian; to which I replied that I was. He said that he was too, and asked that he might be alone with me, to tell me something that others might not hear. But I answered that in the other life people cannot be alone, as men think they are on earth, and that many spirits were present. He now came nearer and approached stealthily behind me to the back of my head, and then I perceived that he was an assassin. While he was there I felt as it were a stab through the heart, and presently in the brain - such a blow as might easily be the death of a man. But as I was protected by the Lord, I feared nothing. What device he used I do not know. Thinking me dead, he told others that he had just come from a man whom he had killed in that way, and by a deadly stroke from behind, saying that he was so skillful in the art that a man would not know until he fell down dead, and it would not be doubted that he himself was innocent. It was given me to know from this that he had but lately departed from life, where he had committed such a deed. The punishment of such is dreadful. After they have suffered infernal torments for ages, they at length come to have a detestable and most monstrous face - such as is not a face, but a ghastly thing as of tow. Thus they put off everything human, and then everyone shudders at the sight of them, and so they wander about like wild beasts, in dark places.

There came one to me out of an infernal apartment at the left side and spoke with me. It was given me to perceive that he was of a villainous crew. What he had done in the world was disclosed in the following manner. He was sent down somewhat deep into the lower earth, in front, a little to the left, and there he began to dig a grave, as is done for the dead who are to be buried. From this arose a suspicion that in the life of the body he had perpetrated some deadly deed. Then there appeared a funeral bier covered with a black cloth. Presently one rising from the bier came to me, and in a devout manner related that he had died, and that he believed he had been killed by that man with poison, and that he had thought so at the hour of his death, but did not know whether it was more than a suspicion. When the infamous spirit heard this, he confessed that he had committed such a deed. After the confession, punishment followed. He was twice rolled about in the dark hole he had dug, and became as black as an Egyptian mummy, both face and body, and in that state was taken up on high and carried about before spirits and angels, and the cry was heard: What a devil! He also became cold, thus one of the cold infernals, and was sent down into hell.

There is a dreadful hell beneath the buttocks, where they seem to stab one another with knives, aiming the knives at one another's breasts like furies, but in the act of striking the knife is continually taken away from them. They are those who have held others in such hatred that they burned to kill them cruelly; and from this they had derived a nature so direful. This hell was opened to me (but only a little on account of their direful cruelties), so that I might see the nature of deadly hatred.

There is at the left, in a plane with the lower parts of the body, a kind of stagnant lake, large, and of greater length than breadth. About its bank in front there appear to those who are there monstrous serpents, such as inhabit stagnant waters, with pestilent breath. Farther away, on the left bank, appear those who eat human flesh, and devour one another, fastening with their teeth on one another's shoulders. Still farther away to the left appear great fishes, enormous whales, which swallow a man and vomit him out again. In the farthest distance, or on the opposite shore, appear very ugly faces, too monstrous to be described, chiefly those of old women, who run about as if frenzied. On the right bank are those who are trying to butcher each other with cruel instruments, which vary in accordance with the direful feelings of their hearts. In the middle of the lake it is everywhere black, as if stagnant. Sometimes I have been surprised to see spirits brought to this lake, but was informed by some who came from it and told me, that they were those who had cherished intestine hatred against the neighbor; and that their hatred burst forth as often as occasion offered, in which they perceived their greatest delight; and that nothing had pleased them more than to bring a neighbor to judgment and cause punishment to be inflicted on him, and, if the penalties of the law had not deterred them, to put him to death. Into such things (as described above) are the hatreds and cruelties of men turned after the life of the body. The phantasies to which their hatreds and cruelties give rise have to them the reality of life.

In the other life those who have practiced robbery and piracy love rank and fetid urine above all other liquids, and seem to themselves to dwell among such things, and among stagnant and stinking pools. A certain robber approached me, gnashing his teeth, the sound of which was as plainly heard as if it had proceeded from a man, which was strange, since they have no teeth. He confessed that he would rather live in urinous filth than by the clearest waters, and that the smell of urine was what he delighted in. He said he would rather stay and have his home in urinous vats than anywhere else.

There are those who outwardly present an honorable face and life, so that no one could suspect them of being other than honorable, studying in every way to appear so, for the sake of being raised to honors, and of acquiring wealth without the loss of reputation. They therefore do not act openly; but through others by deceitful artifices they deprive men of their goods, caring nothing if the families they despoil perish of hunger, and they would themselves be personal agents in this villainy, without any conscience, if they could escape public notice, so that they really are of the same character as if they perpetrated it by their own act. They are hidden robbers, and the kind of hatred peculiar to them is joined with scornful contempt for others, greed of gain, unmercifulness, and deceit. In the other life such men desire to be esteemed blameless, saying that they have done nothing wrong, because it was not detected. And to show themselves guiltless, they put off their garments and present themselves naked - in this way attesting their innocence. Yet while they are being examined their quality is thoroughly well perceived from every single word and every single idea of their thought, without their being aware of it. Such, in the other life, desire without any conscience to murder whatever companions they fall in with. They have also an axe with them, and a maul in their hand, and seem to have another spirit with them whom they strike, when on his back; but not to the shedding of blood, for they are afraid of death. And they cannot cast these weapons out of their hands although they strive to do so with all their might, in order to prevent the actual ferocity of their disposition from appearing before the eyes of spirits and angels. They are at a middle distance under the feet, toward the front.

There is a kind of hatred against the neighbor, which finds its delight in injuring and harassing everyone; and the more mischief they can do the more delighted they are. There are very many such from the lowest of the common people. And there are those not of the common people who have a similar disposition, but outwardly are of better manners, from having been brought up in good society, and also from fear of legal penalties. After death, the upper part of the body of these spirits appears naked, and their hair disheveled. They annoy one another by rushing forward and placing the palms of their hands on each other's shoulders, and they then leap over their heads, and soon come back and make a severe attack with their fists. Those of whom it was said that they have better manners act in a similar way, but first exchange greetings, then go round behind their neighbor's back, and so attack with the fist; but when they see each other face to face they make a salutation, and again go round behind his back and strike him with the fist. In this way they keep up appearances. These appear at some distance toward the left side, at a middle height.

Whatever a man has done in the life of the body successively returns in the other life, and so does all that he has even thought. When his enmities, hatreds, and deceits return, the persons against whom he has indulged hatred and has clandestinely plotted are made present to him, and this in a moment. Such is the case in the other life; but concerning this presence, of the Lord's Divine mercy hereafter. The thoughts a man has harbored against others make their appearance openly, for there is a perception of all thoughts. Hence come lamentable states, for there concealed hatreds break out openly. With the evil all their evil deeds and thoughts thus return, to the life; but it is not so with the good. With these all their good states of friendship and love return, attended with the highest delight and happiness.

(Arcana Coelestia 814-823)

Learning About Heaven and Hell (Pt 1)

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

As with regard to heaven, so with regard to hell, man has only a very general idea, which is so obscure that it is almost none at all. It is such as they who have not been beyond their huts in the woods may have of the earth. They know nothing of its empires and kingdoms, still less of its forms of government, of its societies, or of the life in the societies. Until they know these things they can have but the most general notion of the earth, so general as to be almost none. The case is the same in regard to people's ideas about heaven and hell, when yet in each of them there are things innumerable and indefinitely more numerous than in any earthly world. How numberless they are may be evident from this alone: that just as no one ever has the same heaven, so no one has the same hell as another, and that all souls whatever who have lived in the world since the first creation come there and are gathered together.

As love to the Lord and toward the neighbor, together with the joy and happiness thence derived constitute heaven, so hatred against the Lord and the neighbor, together with the consequent punishment and torment, constitute hell. There are innumerable genera of hatreds, and still more innumerable species; and the hells are just as innumerable.

As heaven from the Lord, through mutual love, constitutes as it were one man, and one soul, and thus has regard to one end, which is the conservation and salvation of all to eternity, so, on the other hand, hell, from man's Own, through the love of self and of the world, that is, through hatred, constitutes one devil and one mind [animus], and thus also has regard to one end, which is the destruction and damnation of all to eternity. That such is their endeavor has been perceived thousands and thousands of times, so that unless the Lord preserved all every instant, they would perish.

But the form and the order imposed by the Lord on the hells is such that all are held bound and tied up by their cupidities and phantasies, in which their very life consists; and this life, being a life of death, is turned into dreadful torments, so severe that they cannot be described. For the greatest delight of their life consists in being able to punish, torture, and torment one another, and this by arts unknown in the world, whereby they know how to induce exquisite suffering, just as if they were in the body, and at the same time dreadful and horrid phantasies, with terrors and horrors and many such torments. The diabolical crew take so great a pleasure in this that if they could increase and extend the pains and torments to infinity, they would not even then be satisfied, but would burn yet again to infinity; but the Lord takes away their endeavors, and alleviates the torments.

Such is the equilibrium of all things in the other life in both general and particular that evil punishes itself, so that in evil there is the punishment of evil. It is the same with falsity, which returns upon him who is in the falsity. Hence everyone brings punishment and torment upon himself, and rushes at the same time among the diabolical crew who inflict such torment. The Lord never sends anyone to hell, but would lead all away from hell, and still less does He lead into torment. But as the evil spirit rushes into it himself, the Lord turns all the punishment and torment to good, and to some use. No penalty is ever possible unless the Lord has in view some end of use; for the Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of ends and uses. But the uses which the infernals can perform are the lowest uses; and when they are engaged in them they are not in so much torment, but on the cessation of the use they are sent back into hell.

There are with every man at least two evil spirits and two angels.

Through the evil spirits the man has communication with hell; and through the angels, with heaven. Without communication with both no man can live a moment. Thus every man is in some society of infernals, although he is unaware of it. But their torments are not communicated to him, because he is in a state of preparation for eternal life. The society in which a man has been is sometimes shown him in the other life; for he returns to it, and thereby into the life that he had in the world; and from thence he either tends toward hell, or is raised up toward heaven. Thus a man who does not live in the good of charity, and does not suffer himself to be led by the Lord, is one of the infernals, and after death also becomes a devil.

Besides the hells there are also vastations, concerning which there is much in the Word.

For in consequence of actual sins a man takes with him into the other life innumerable evils and falsities, which he accumulates and joins to himself. It is so even with those who have lived uprightly. Before these can be taken up into heaven, their evils and falsities must be dissipated, and this dissipation is called Vastation. There are many kinds of vastations, and longer and shorter periods of vastation. Some are taken up into heaven in a comparatively short time, and some immediately after death.

That I might witness the torment of those who are in hell, and the vastation of those who are in the lower earth, I have at different times been let down thither. To be let down into hell is not to be carried from one place to another, but to be let into some infernal society, the man remaining in the same place. But I may here relate only this experience: —

I plainly perceived that a kind of column surrounded me, and this column was sensibly increased, and it was intimated to me that this was the "wall of brass" spoken of in the Word.

For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. ... And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. (Jer. 1:18; 15:20)

The column was formed of angelic spirits in order that I might safely descend to the unhappy. When I was there I heard piteous lamentations, such as, O God! O God! take pity on us! take pity on us! and this for a long time. I was permitted to speak to those wretched ones, and this for a considerable time. They complained especially of evil spirits in that they desired and burned for nothing else than to torment them. They were in despair, saying that they believed their torment would be eternal; but I was permitted to comfort them.

The hells being as we have stated so numerous, in order to give some regular account of them, they shall be treated of as follows —

I. Concerning the hells of those who have lived a life of hatred, revenge, and cruelty.

II. Concerning the hells of those who have lived in adulteries and lasciviousnesses; and concerning the hells of the deceitful, and of sorceresses.

III. Concerning the hells of the avaricious; and the filthy Jerusalem there, and the robbers in the wilderness; also concerning the excrementitious hells of those who have lived in mere pleasures.

IV. Afterwards concerning other hells which are distinct from the above.

V. Finally concerning those who are in vastation.

The description of these will in the continuing series.

(from Arcana Coelestia 692-700)