stupendous things there, and describe the same, lest possibly it might
hereafter be said, Who has come to us from heaven, and told us of its
existence, and of the things that are there? But I know that those
who hitherto have at heart denied heaven and hell, and the life after
death, will still persist in confirming themselves against them, and
in denying them; for it is easier to make a raven white than to make
those believe who have once at heart rejected faith; the reason is,
that they always think about such matters from a negative, and not
from an affirmative, standpoint. Nevertheless, let those facts that
have already been stated, and that yet remain to be stated, concerning
angels and spirits, be for those few who are in faith. In order that
others also may be led to some degree of acknowledgment, it has been
granted me to relate such things as delight and allure the man who is
desirous of acquiring knowledge: of this character are the things that
shall now be related concerning the earths in the starry heaven.

125. He who is not acquainted with the arcana of heaven, cannot
believe that a man can see earths that are so far distant, and give
any account of them from sensuous experience. But let him know that
the spaces and distances, and therefore the progressions, which exist
in the natural world, in their origin and first cause are changes
of the state of the interiors, and that with angels and spirits they
appear according to these changes[ss]; and that through changes of
state they may be apparently translated from one place to another, and
from one earth to another, even to earths which are at the end of
the universe: so likewise may man as to his spirit, his body still
remaining in its own place. This has been the case with me, since, by
the Lord's Divine mercy, it has been given to me to speak with spirits
as a spirit, and at the same time with men as a man. That a man, as to
his spirit, can be translated in this manner, is inconceivable to
the sensual man, since he is in space and in time, and measures his
progressions according to them.

[Footnote ss: Motions, progressions, and changes of place, in the
other life, are changes of the state of the interiors of life, and
nevertheless it really appears to spirits and angels as if they
actually existed, nos. 1273-1277, 1377, 3356, 5606, 10734.]

126. That there are many systems, may appear to every one from the
fact that so many stars appear in the univers