The Writings offer a tremendous amount of material on angels. The book "Heaven and Hell" offers detailed discussions as it describes heaven; "Conjugial Love" has much to say about marriage and romantic love in heaven; "Divine Love and Wisdom" offers insight into how angels in their nature reflect the nature of the Lord. So we'll offer some basics here and recommend those books to those who want more detail.

(References: Divine Love and Wisdom 231; Divine Providence 60-67)

Basically, the Writings say that if people in this life open themselves to the Lord, follow the Lord's teachings and let the Lord change their selfish desires into generous loves, they will go to heaven as angels after they die. If they don't, and instead embrace their selfishness, they will go to hell as evil spirits. The Writings also say that this is the only source of angels and evil spirits - they were all once people. There is no separately created race of angels, no fallen angel Lucifer who is now the Devil; that belief is based solely on a few lines of misinterpreted scripture.

This makes sense if you look at it logically. If the Lord could create beings that would live in love and harmony with him with no possibility of evil, why would He have bothered with us? Why not just make more of them? The fact is, such beings would not have any choice in their actions, making them no better than animals. And ultimately, if they were purely good then they would really just be extensions of the Lord, so in loving them He would be loving Himself. The reverse is true of the idea of Satan or "the" Devil. The Lord creates us from love so that he can love us, bring us to heaven and make us happy. For Satan to exist, the Lord would have had to create him, and it would be contrary to His essence to create something that was not intended for heaven, for joy, and for union with the Lord.

So angels were once people, who got to be angels by embracing the idea of being good and followed the Lord's teachings as best they could. The Writings make it clear these people can come from anywhere, from any religious background. Some churches may have doctrine that is closer to the truth than others, but the point of any religion is for people to desire to be good and try to be good using the tools they have.

When those people die, they go first to a place called the "world of spirits." There everyone who has recently died can learn about the Lord and spiritual life and prepare for heaven. There also, people's inner affections start showing on the surface; those who are ultimately evil start losing the ability to cover it up, and the love starts shining through for those who are ultimately good. As this continues and as people learn more, they naturally start congregating with others who have similar loves. This way evil people eventually take themselves to hell, where they can be with others who share their evil. Good people, on the other hand, can be prepared for heaven.

Two important things have to happen for us to truly enter fully into heaven. First, the Lord will push aside our remaining evil desires, so they cannot hurt us or tempt us anymore; angels are in a marvelous state of peace, with no active evil to trouble them. Second, we will each be led by the Lord to the perfect married partner, the one whose soul matches ours, the one we can love blissfully to eternity. All angels are married, because the marriage of a man and a woman represents the marriage of love and wisdom in the Lord, and also the marriage of the desire for good and understanding of truth in each of us. Because of this, we can only fully receive and return the Lord's love as married partners, and heaven is suffused with the sphere of marriage and the love of marriage.

The angelic couples will find their way to communities of other angels whose loves match their own, people with whom they can share the deepest friendships imaginable. They will have houses which reflect the character of their loves, and will be given work to do that springs from their loves and fills them with joy. Beyond that, their lives are much as life might be in this world, though free of sickness and aging and boredom and conflict. They have bodies that are human in form - no wings! - but a beauty in face and form that reflects the good loves they have inside. They eat and drink and laugh and sleep and have parties and games; all filled with the delight of mutual love.

The Writings tell us the work angels do is varied far beyond what we can imagine, though they only describe a few aspects. Among other things, angels care for people in this life, passing on to them true ideas and desires for good from the Lord. They also teach those in the World of Spirits, greet those who have just died, raise those who died as children, keep order in hell and do many other things.

We would finally note that there are three degrees of angelic life, based on the loves people embraced in this life. The first, lowest heaven, called the "natural heaven," is filled by those who are in the love of service. Angels there love to do what's right because they know it is right. The second, middle heaven, called the spiritual heaven, is filled by those who are in the love of the neighbor. Angels there love to engage their minds with spiritual questions to gain an ever-deeper understanding of how to be loving to one another. The third, highest heaven, known as celestial, is filled with those who are in love of the Lord Himself. From that love they have such innocence that they look like children, and they instantly perceive what is true, in all its variety, from the light of that love.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 818; Arcana Coelestia 228-233, 454, 1802, 2551, 2572 [3-4], 5470, 6872 [2-3], 8747, 9503 [1-3], 9814 [2], 10604 [2-4]; Conjugial Love 44 [6-10], 52; Divine Love and Wisdom 19, 63, 71, 115, 116, 202, Divine Love and Wisdom 321, 322, 334; Heaven and Hell 75, 133, 266, 267, 304, 311, 415)

304. We have been so created that we have a connection and a union with the Lord, while with angels we have only an association. The reason we have only an association, not a union, with angels is that we are from creation like angels in respect to the deeper levels of our minds. We have a similar purposefulness and a similar capacity to understand. This is why we become angels after death if we have lived according to the divine pattern, and why we then, like the angels, have wisdom. So when we talk about our union with heaven, we mean our union with the Lord and our association with angels, since heaven is not heaven because of anything that really belongs to the angels but because of the divine nature of the Lord. (On the fact that the Lord's divine nature makes heaven, see 7-22 [7-12] above.)

[2] Over and above what angels have, though, there is the fact that we are not just in a spiritual world by virtue of our inner natures but are at the same time in a natural world by virtue of our outward natures. These outward things that are in the natural world are all the contents of our natural or outer memory and the thinking and imaging we do on that basis. In general, this includes our insights and information together with their delights and charm to the extent that they have a worldly flavor, and all the pleasures that derive from our physical senses. Then too, there are those senses themselves and our words and actions. All these are ultimate things in which the Lord's divine inflow comes to rest, since it does not stop in the middle but goes on to its very limit.

We may gather from this that the ultimate form of the divine pattern is in us, and since it is the ultimate form, it is the basis and foundation.

[3] Since the Lord's divine inflow does not stop in the middle but goes on to its very limit, as just stated, and since the intermediate region it crosses is the angelic heaven and the limit is in us, and since nothing disconnected can exist, it follows that there is such a connection and union of heaven with the human race that neither can endure without the other. If the human race were cut off from heaven, it would be like a chain with a link removed, and heaven without the human race would be like a house without a foundation. ¹

Footnotes:

8977. 'If he comes in his body' means truth without delight. This is clear from the meaning of 'body' as truth by itself, thus truth without its delight; for 'body' is used here to mean a slave by himself without a woman, that is, without delight, since a woman linked to a slave is delight joined to truth, as will become evident from what follows below. The situation with this arcanum is that members of the external Church, who were represented by 'Hebrew slaves', are those who learn truth not because of any delight in it, only because it is the truth that is taught by the Church and is the means by which, they believe, they can be saved. This belief is what drives them to learn and know it. These are the ones who are meant in the internal sense by slaves who 'come in their body and go out in their body'. With them no more than the strengthening of truth is accomplished. In the next life such people are at the entrance to heaven and not actually in heaven; they are called skin spirits because they correspond in the Grand Man to the skin, 5553-5559.

[2] But those imbued with truth to which delight has been joined are the ones who are meant here in the internal sense by slaves who come with a woman; for 'woman' means good when 'man' means truth. Here however delight is meant, since this exists in place of good in a member of the external Church. The good which such a person possesses does not spring from a spiritual origin but from a natural origin, for it savours of a delight to do the truth in life and to teach it for the sake of gain or important position, consequently for a selfish reason. This is why the word 'delight' is used and not 'good'. To outward appearance it does indeed seem like good; but because it is natural good, that is, has a worldly origin, not a heavenly one, it is called delight.

[3] Good that springs from a spiritual origin however is meant in the internal sense by the woman whom a master gives to his slave. But it cannot be joined [to truth]; and that was why it was stipulated that when the slave went out the woman was to be the master's, as also were her sons and daughters. For spiritual good is good not for the sake of gain or important positions but for the sake of the Church and the spiritual welfare of the neighbour. Such good cannot be joined to those confined to the outward things of the Church, since it is the genuine good of charity, springing out of love and affection. Those confined to the outward things of the Church cannot have any affection for the truths of faith without putting themselves first and the Church second. Though such people can indeed act in accordance with truths, thus can do good, they do not act from affection but out of obedience. These are the ones who are meant in the internal sense by those who wish to remain slaves forever.

[4] These are the arcana which the internal sense contains in these regulations regarding slaves, which can be grasped only by those imbued with the good of charity, and not at all by those imbued with the truth of faith without that good. The reason why is that those imbued with the good of charity are in the light of heaven, and from that light see things that exist in the light of the world. But those imbued with the truth of faith and not with the good of charity are in the light of the world, from which light things that exist in the light of heaven cannot be seen; for the light of heaven shines above, that is, on an inward level, whereas the light of the world shines below or on an outward level. Things on a lower or more external level can be seen from a higher or more internal one, but not the reverse; for heaven can flow into the world, but not the world into heaven, 3721, 5119, 5259, 5779, 6322.