1. I. THE LAST JUDGMENT HAS BEEN COMPLETED

My earlier work on THE LAST JUDGMENT dealt with the following subjects:

The day of the Last Judgment does not mean the destruction of the world (The Last Judgment 1-5).

The reproduction of the human race will never cease (6-13).

Heaven and Hell are from the human race (14-22).

All people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell (23-27).

The Last Judgment is to be where all are together, and so in the spiritual world, not on earth (28-32).

The Last Judgment takes place when a church comes to an end; and this happens when there is no faith because there is no charity (33-39).

All the predictions made in the Book of Revelation are today fulfilled (40-44).

The Last Judgment has taken place (45-52).

On Babylon and its destruction (53-64);

on the former heaven and its abolition (65-72);

on the future state of the world and the church (73-74).

15. A further reason why people in the church hold such views is that they believe that no one can go to heaven or to hell before the time of the Last Judgment. On this subject they have come to believe that everything visible will then be destroyed and be replaced by new things; that each soul will then return to its proper body, and on joining up the person will resume a personal life. This belief carries with it the other one about angels being created from the beginning. For it is impossible to believe that heaven and hell are from the human race, if it is thought that people go there only at the end of the world.

[2] But I have been allowed, so as to convince people that this is untrue, to associate with angels and to talk with those in hell, and this for many years now, sometimes from morning till evening without a break, and so to learn about heaven and hell. This has been allowed in order to prevent people in the church from persisting in their mistaken belief about resurrection on the day of Judgment, about the state of the soul meanwhile, as well as about angels and the Devil. This being a belief in what is false, brings with it darkness, and plunges into doubt those who use their own intelligence to think about these subjects, so that they end up denying them. For they say to themselves, 'How can the vastness of the sky with all its many constellations, along with the sun and the moon, be destroyed and scattered? How can the stars then fall out of the sky upon the earth, when they are bigger than the earth? And how can bodies which have been eaten by worms, or rotted away and scattered to the four winds, be reconstructed to join their souls? Where do souls live meanwhile, and what are they like if they lack the power of sensation they had in the body?' They add many similar arguments which, being incomprehensible, pass belief, and in many cases destroy belief in personal everlasting life, heaven and hell, and consequently all the rest of the church's beliefs.

[3] The destruction of faith is plain from people who say: 'Who has come to us from heaven and told us that it exists? What about hell? Is there such a place? What about people being tortured in fire for ever? What is the day of Judgment? Have not people been waiting for it for ages, and in vain?' And a great deal more, which leads to a denial of everything. So to prevent those who think like this - and most of those do who have a reputation as educated and learned men as the result of their worldly wisdom - going on upsetting and leading astray those who have a simple belief and affection, throwing the darkness of hell over God, heaven, everlasting life and the other beliefs dependent on these, the Lord has laid open the interiors of my spirit. I have thus been permitted to speak after their death with all the people whom I had known in bodily life. In some cases this has been for days, in others for months, with others for a year, as well as with so many others that a hundred thousand would be an underestimate. Many of these were in the heavens and many in the hells. I have also spoken with some only two days after they died, and told them that their funerals and burial-services were being arranged. In reply they said they were happy to cast off what had served them for a body and its functions in the world, and they wanted me to say that they were not dead, but were living as human beings just as much as they were before, having only passed from one world into another. They said they were unaware of having suffered any loss, since they still had a body and bodily sense-perceptions as before, as well as an intellect and a will as before, so that their thoughts and affections, their sense-perceptions, pleasures and desires were all similar to those they had had in the world.

[4] Most of the recently dead on seeing that they were living as human beings as before were filled with unexpected joy at being alive, saying that they had never believed it would be so. Everyone's state after death is at first like that he experienced in the world; but this gradually changes into heaven or hell. They were very surprised at their previous ignorance and blindness about how they would live after death; and the more so in the case of church members, who ought above all others in the whole world to be enlightened on these subjects. ¹

[5] It was then that they first saw the reason for their ignorance and blindness. It was that external matters, worldly and bodily concerns, had so taken up and filled their minds, that they could not be lifted into the light of heaven, so as to view religious matters beyond the level of the church's teaching. When bodily and worldly concerns are as popular as they are to-day, utter darkness pervades the mind of anyone who wants to think about heavenly matters beyond the scope of the faith taught by his church.

Footnotes:

6626. Let me recount some marvels. The Lord alone is Man, and it is owing to Him that angels, spirits, and inhabitants of the world are called men. By His own flowing into heaven He causes the whole of heaven to represent and resemble one human being; and through an influx both by way of heaven and directly from Himself into each individual there He causes all to be seen as men, and angels to be seen in a form more beautiful and dazzling than anyone can possibly describe. He does the same for people on earth by flowing into their spirits. Indeed with an angel, spirit, or man who leads a life of charity towards the neighbour and love to the Lord the smallest aspects of all that belong to his thought resemble a human being, for the reason that that charity and that love originate in the Lord, and whatever originates in the Lord resembles a human being. Those qualities are also what constitute a human being. But the contrary applies in hell, because those who are there are fired by the opposites of charity and heavenly love. They do, it is true, look like human beings when seen in their own inferior light, but in the superior light of heaven they look like horrible monsters, in some of whom scarcely anything of the human form is recognizable. The reason for this is that the inflow of the Lord by way of heaven is not accepted but is turned away, or smothered, or perverted, which therefore causes them to be seen as such monsters. And the smallest aspects of their thought, that is, their ideas, similarly possess forms such as these; for what anyone is like as a whole, so he is in part, since the whole and the part are the same in type and nature. The form in which those people are seen is also the form of the hell in which they exist. For every hell has its own form, which in the light of heaven resembles a monster; and when one sees any of those who are from it one recognizes from their form which hell they are from. I have seen them in the gates that lie open into the world of spirits, where they looked like many different kinds of monsters. Regarding the gates of hell, that they lie open into the world of spirits, see 5852.