NTS:
FROM THINGS HEARD AND SEEN.

127. I was led by the Lord by means of angels to a certain earth
in the starry heaven, where it was given me to gaze upon the earth
itself, yet not to speak with the inhabitants of it, but with spirits
who had come from it. All the inhabitants or men of every earth, on
the termination of their life in the world, become spirits, and remain
near their own earth. From them, however, information is obtained
concerning their earth and the state of its inhabitants; for men,
when they quit the body, carry with them all their former life and all
their memory[tt]. Being led to earths in the universe does not mean
being led and translated thither as to the body, but as to the spirit;
and the spirit is led through variations of the state of the
inner life, which appear to it as progressions through spaces[ss].
Approaches, also, are effected according to the agreements or
likenesses of the states of life; for agreement or likeness of life
conjoins, and disagreement and unlikeness disjoin. From this it may
appear how translation as to the spirit is effected, and how it is
made to approach distant regions, while the man, nevertheless, remains
in his own place. But to lead a spirit outside of his own globe
through variations of the state of his interiors, and to cause the
variations to proceed successively until a state is reached which
agrees or coincides with the state of those to whom he is being led,
is in the power of the Lord alone; for there is needed a continual
direction and foresight from first to last, both on the journey
thither, and on the return journey, especially when this is to be
effected with a man who is still as to the body in the world of
nature, and thereby in space. That this has actually been effected,
those who are in corporeal sensual things, and who think from them,
cannot be induced to believe. The reason is that the corporeal sensual
[faculties] cannot conceive of progressions apart from spaces. But,
nevertheless, those who think from the Sensual of their spirit, that
has in some degree been removed or withdrawn from the Sensual of the
body, thus, who think interiorly in themselves, may be induced to
believe and comprehend it, since in the idea of interior thought there
is neither space nor time, but instead of them there are those things
from which spaces and times proceed. Those things, therefore, that
follow, concerning the earths in the starry heaven, are for the u