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.

Footnotes:

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.

9438. PLANETS OUT IN SPACE, AND THE INHABITANTS, SPIRITS, AND ANGELS BELONGING TO THEM

Those who are in heaven are able to talk and mix not only with angels and spirits who come from planets within our solar system but also with others who come from planets in the universe outside it, yet not merely with the spirits and angels from those planets but also with the actual inhabitants there whose interiors have been opened, so that they can hear spirits and angels from heaven who speak to them. Anyone during his lifetime in the world can in like manner hear them once the Lord has permitted him to talk to spirits and angels. For as to his interiors the person is a spirit or angel, the body which he carries around in the world being merely that which is of service to him in the functions he performs in this natural or earthly sphere, which is the lowest.

[2] But no one is permitted to talk to spirits and angels as a spirit or angel unless his character is such that he can have fellowship with them in faith and love; and he cannot have that fellowship unless the faith is faith in the Lord and the love is love directed to the Lord. For a person is joined to [the Lord] through faith in Him, thus through truths that belong to religious teachings, and through love to Him; and when he has been joined to Him he is kept safe from attack by evil spirits from hell. No others can possibly have their interiors opened, since they do not abide in the Lord. Here is the reason why few are permitted at the present day to talk to and mix with angels. A clear sign of this may be seen in the fact that at the present day there is scarcely any belief in the existence of spirits and angels, let alone a belief that they are present with every individual person, and that through those present with him a person is linked to heaven, and through heaven to the Lord. Still less do people believe that when a person dies as to the body, he is alive as a spirit, and indeed in human form as before.