1. I. THE WORLDS IN SPACE

By the Lord's Divine mercy I have had my interior faculties, which belong to my spirit, opened, so that I have been enabled to talk with spirits and angels, not only those in the vicinity of our earth, but also with those near other worlds. Since therefore I was desirous of knowing whether there were other inhabited worlds, and what they and their inhabitants were like, I was allowed by the Lord to talk and mix with spirits and angels from other worlds. With some this lasted a day, with others a week, with yet others for months. I was informed by them about the worlds they came from and in the vicinity of which they were, about the life, behaviour and religious practices of their inhabitants, and other matters worth relating about them. Since I was allowed to gain my knowledge in this fashion, I can describe them from what I have heard and seen.

[2] It needs to be known that all spirits and angels are from the human race; ¹ they are near their own world, ² and know what happens there; and they can inform someone whose interior faculties are open sufficiently to be able to talk and mix with them. A human being is in essence a spirit, ³ and associates with spirits at the interior level. ⁴ Consequently anyone whose interior faculties are opened by the Lord can talk with them, exactly as a man can with another man. ⁵ I have been permitted to do this daily for the last twelve years.

Fußnoten:

3633. To themselves all spirits and angels look like men and women, having the same kind of faces and bodies as men and women do, together with organs and limbs. The reason for this is that their inmost being endeavours to produce that form, even as the primitive cell of the human being, which originates in the soul of the parent, strives in the ovum and womb to form the complete human being, though this first cell does not possess the form of a body but another most perfect form known only to the Lord. And because in a similar way the inmost being with every spirit or angel endeavours and strives to produce such a form, all in the spiritual world consequently look like men and women. What is more, the whole of heaven is such that every one is so to speak the focal point of all, for he is the focal point of influxes coming through the heavenly form from all. Consequently the image of heaven is reproduced in everyone, making him a likeness of heaven and so a human being; for the character of the general whole determines that of any part of the general whole, since the parts must be like their general whole if they are to belong to it.