at it is, they are taken first to paradisal scenes that transcend
every conception of the imagination. They then think that they have
come into the heavenly paradise; but they are taught that this is not
true heavenly happiness; and they are permitted to realize such
interior states of joy as are perceptible to their inmost. They are
then brought into a state of peace even to their inmost, when they
confess that nothing of it is in the least expressible or
conceivable. Finally they are brought into a state of innocence even
to their inmost sense. Thus they are permitted to learn what true
spiritual and heavenly good is.

413. But that I might learn the nature of heaven and heavenly joy I
have frequently and for a long time been permitted by the Lord to
perceive the delights of heavenly joys; but while I have been enabled
to know by living experience what they are I am not at all able to
describe them. Nevertheless, that some idea of them may be formed,
something shall be said about them. Heavenly joy is an affection of
innumerable delights and joys, which together present something
general, and in this general, that is, this general affection, are
harmonies of innumerable affections that come to perception
obscurely, and not distinctly, because the perception is most
general. Nevertheless I was permitted to perceive that there are
innumerable things in it, in such order as cannot be at all
described, those innumerable things being such as flow from the order
of heaven. The order in the particulars of the affection even to the
least, is such that these particulars are presented and perceived
only as a most general whole, in accordance with the capacity of him
who is the subject. In a word, each general affection contains
infinite affections arranged in a most orderly form, with nothing
therein that is not alive, and that does not affect all of them from
the inmosts; for heavenly joys go forth from inmosts. I perceived
also that the joy and ecstasy came as from the heart, diffusing most
softly through all the inmost fibers, and from these into the bundles
of fibers, with such an inmost sense of delight that the fiber seemed
to be nothing but joy and ecstasy, and everything perceptive and
sensitive therefrom seemed in like manner to be alive with happiness.
Compared with these joys the joy of bodily pleasures is like a gross
and pungent dust compared with a pure and most gentle aura. I have
noticed that when I wished to