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.

फुटनोट:

7802. It is common on that planet for spirits to talk to inhabitants and instruct them, and also to chastise them if they have been behaving badly. Since this is a subject about which their angels have told me many things I would like to mention them in order. The reason why spirits there talk to people is that they concentrate much of their thought on heaven and life after death, and in comparison with this give little thought to life in the world. They know that they will be alive after death, living in a state of happiness that depends on the condition into which their internal man was brought in the world. Talking to spirits and angels was also common on our planet in ancient times, and for the same reason, that their thought was concentrated on heaven and little on the world. But in course of time that live contact with heaven was cut off, as people ceased to be internal and became external, that is, as man began to concentrate his thought on the world and little on heaven, and especially when he ceased to believe any longer in the existence of heaven or hell, or in the presence within himself of a person and spirit that lives after death. For the belief at the present day is that the body lives independently, not that it receives life from its spirit. Therefore unless people today were allowed to believe that they will rise again in their bodies they would have no belief at all in resurrection.

322. Let people beware of falsely assuming that spirits do not possess far keener sensory powers than they did in the life of the body. From thousands of experiences I know that the reverse is true. But if, because of their presuppositions about the spirit, they are unwilling to believe it, let them find out for themselves when they enter the next life, where their own experience will force them to believe it. Not only do spirits have the gift of sight, since they are living in light; good spirits, angelic spirits, and angels also live in a light so bright that the light of this world at midday is scarcely comparable to it. The light in which they live and by which they see will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on. Spirits also have a sense of hearing so keen that the sense of hearing in their physical body cannot be reckoned its equal. For several years now, with scarcely any break, they have been holding conversations with me. But their speech also will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on. They have the sense of smell, which also will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on. They have a very delicate sense of touch, which in hell brings about pain and torment. For all sensations are related to the sense of touch; indeed they are just different forms and variations of that sense.

[2] They have desires and affections, with which those they had in the life of the body cannot be compared. More, in the Lord's Divine mercy, will be said about these later on. They are far more penetrating and discriminating in their thinking than they were during their lifetime. One idea of their thinking embodies more than a thousand ideas did during their lifetime. In what they say to one another they are so direct and to the point, so clear-cut and discriminating, that if man were to catch only a fraction of it he would be dumbfounded. To sum up, they have lost absolutely nothing; they are as men, yet more perfect, but without material flesh and bones and the imperfections that go with these. They acknowledge and perceive that even during their lifetime it was the spirit that was active in sensation, and that although it presented itself within the body, it still did not belong to the body. When therefore the body has been laid aside, sensations are far more excellent and perfect. Life consists in sensation, for no life is possible without sensation, and as is the sensation so is the life, a point which anyone is capable of knowing.