66. There are three ascending levels in the physical world and three ascending levels in the spiritual world. All animals are life-receivers, the more perfect ones receiving the life of the three levels of the physical world, the less perfect receiving the life of two levels of that world, and the least perfect the life of one level. Only we humans are receptive of the life not only of the three levels of the physical world but also of the three levels of the spiritual world. This is why we, unlike animals, can be lifted up above the physical world. We can think analytically and rationally about civil and moral issues within the material world and also about spiritual and heavenly issues that transcend the material world. We can even be lifted up into wisdom to the point that we see God. I will discuss in their proper place, though, the six levels by which the functions of all created things rise up all the way to God, their Creator.

This brief summary enables us to see that there is a ladder of all created things to that First who alone is life and that the functions of all things are the actual vessels of life, and so too, therefore, are the forms of those functions.

498. This first state of man after death continues with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year; but seldom with anyone beyond a year; for a shorter or longer time with each one differently in accordance with the agreement or disagreement of his interiors with his exteriors. For with everyone the exteriors and interiors must make one and correspond. In the spiritual world no one is permitted to think and will in one way and speak and act in another. Everyone there will be an image of his own affection or his own love, and therefore such as he is interiorly, such he will be exteriorly; and for this reason a spirit's exteriors are first disclosed and reduced to order that they may serve the interiors as a corresponding plane.