and can you think at all? Not to mention several other
considerations of a like kind." On hearing these words the angels
replied, "You speak in this manner because you are merely sensual. All
in the hells have the ideas of their thoughts immersed in the bodily
senses, neither are they able to elevate their minds above them;
therefore we excuse you. The life of evil and the consequent belief of
what is false have closed the interiors of your minds, so that you are
incapable of any elevation above the things of sense, except in a state
removed from evils of life, and from false principles of faith: for a
satan, as well as an angel, can understand truth when he hears it; but
he does not retain it, because evil obliterates truth and induces what
is false: but we perceive that you are now in a state of removal from
evil, and thus that you can understand the truth which we speak; attend
therefore to what we shall say:" and they proceeded thus: "You have been
in the natural world, and have departed thence, and are now in the
spiritual world. Have you known anything till now concerning a life
after death? Have you not till now denied such a life, and degraded
yourselves to the beasts? Have you known any thing heretofore about
heaven and hell, or the light and heat of this world? or of this
circumstance, that you are no longer within the sphere of nature, but
above it; since this world and all things belonging to it are spiritual,
and spiritual things are above natural, so that not the least of nature
can flow into this world? But, in consequence of believing nature to be
a God or a goddess, you believe also the light and heat of this world to
be the light and heat of the natural world, when yet it is not at all
so; for natural light here is darkness, and natural heat is cold. Have
you known anything about the sun of this world from which our light and
heat proceed? Have you known that this sun is pure love, and the sun of
the natural world pure fire; and the sun of the world, which is pure
fire, is that from which nature exists and subsists; and that the sun of
heaven, which is pure love, is that from which life itself, which is
love with wisdom exists and subsists; and thus that nature, which you
make a god or a goddess, is absolutely dead? You can, under the care of
a proper guard, ascend with us into heaven; and we also, under similar
protection, can descend with you into hell; and in heaven you will see
magnificent and splend