been informed that the spirits and
angels with other men do not in the least see the things in the world,
but only perceive the thoughts and affections of those with whom they
are. From all this it may appear, that man was so created that, while
living amongst men in the world, he might at the same time live in
heaven amongst angels, and contrariwise, so that heaven and the world
might be together with man, and act as a one, and that men might know
what passes in heaven, and angels what passes in the world; and
that when men depart this life, they might pass thus from the Lord's
kingdom on earth into His kingdom in the heavens, not as into another,
but as into the same kingdom, in which they had been during their life
in the body. But as man has become so corporeal, he has closed heaven
against himself.

136. Lastly, I conversed with spirits who were from that earth
concerning various things on our Earth, especially concerning the fact
that sciences are cultivated here, which are not cultivated elsewhere,
such as astronomy, geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, medicine,
optics, and natural philosophy; and likewise arts, which are unknown
elsewhere, as the arts of ship-building, of smelting metals, of
writing on paper, and likewise of publishing by printing, and thus of
communicating with others on the Earth, and thus also of preserving
what is communicated for the use of posterity for thousands of years;
and that this has been done also with the Word which is from the
Lord, and that on this account revelation is for ever permanent on our
Earth.

137. At last I was shown the hell of those who are from that earth.
Those who appeared from there inspired great terror. I dare not
describe their monstrous faces. Sorceresses also appeared there, who
practise nefarious arts. They appeared clad in green, and struck me
with horror.

THE SECOND EARTH IN THE STARRY HEAVEN, AND ITS SPIRITS AND
INHABITANTS.

138. I was afterwards led by the Lord to an earth in the universe
which was at a much greater distance from our Earth than the first one
that has just been treated of. That it was at a much greater distance,
was plain from this circumstance, that I was two days in being led
thither as to my spirit. This earth was to the left, whereas the
former was to the right. As remoteness in the spiritual world does
not, as already observed, arise from distance of place, but from
difference of state, the long-continuance of