416. The immensity of the Lord's heaven may also be gathered simply from the fact that all children, whether born within or outside the church, are adopted by the Lord and become angels, and their number amounts to a quarter or a fifth of the whole human race.

It may be seen above (329-345) that every child - wherever born, whether within the church or outside it, whether of devout or irreverent parents - is accepted by the Lord at death. Every child is raised in heaven, is taught and is permeated with affections for what is good according to the divine design and thereby with firsthand knowledge of things true, and is then perfected in intelligence and wisdom, so to speak, and admitted into heaven to become an angel. You can gather what a vast multitude of heaven's angels has come from this source alone from the beginning of creation to the present day.

968. Some have brought with them from the world the idea that they must not talk to the devil but flee from him. They have been informed however that nothing at all could harm people whom the Lord is protecting, not even if the whole of hell were surrounding them, both from without and from within. This I have been given to know from many amazing experiences. Such were those experiences that in the end I had no fear at all, not even of the worst of the hellish crew, to deter me from talking to them. I have also been granted such experiences so that I might get to know what the members of that crew are like. To people who have marvelled that I have spoken to them I have been allowed to say further that not only would this do me no harm but also that devils in the next life have previously been men who went through life in the world hating, getting revenge, and committing adultery. I have said that some of them at the time were highly respected people, and indeed that some of them are people whom I had known during their lifetime. I have also been allowed to say that 'devil' means nothing else than such a crew in hell, and in addition that people while living in the world have present with them at least two spirits from hell, as well as two angels from heaven, and that these hellish spirits though ruling among the wicked have among the good been overpowered and made subservient. Thus it is wrong to think of some devil existing since the beginning of creation other than those who have previously been men. When people have heard all this they have been dumbfounded and have confessed that they have held an altogether different opinion concerning the devil and his crew.