1. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, we find the Lord talking to his disciples about the close of the age, the last time of the church. ¹ At the end of his prophecies concerning the sequence of states of its love and faith ² he says:

Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Human-born One will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will lament. And they will see the Human-born One coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a trumpet and a loud voice, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the heavens all the way to the other end. (Matthew 24:29-31)

When people understand these words according to their literal meaning, they can only believe that all these things are going to happen just as this meaning describes them, at that end of time called the Last Judgment. This does not mean only that the sun and moon will be darkened and that the stars will fall from heaven, that the sign of the Lord will appear in heaven, and that he will be seen in the clouds with angels blowing trumpets. It also includes matters prophesied elsewhere, statements that the whole visible world is going to be destroyed and that afterward a new heaven and a new earth will come into being.

Many people in the church these days are of this opinion. However, people who believe such things are not aware of the hidden depths that lie within the details of the Word. There is in fact spiritual meaning in these details, for they intend not only the outward and earthly events that we find on the literal level but spiritual and heavenly events as well. This holds true not just for the meaning of phrases but even for each word. ³

The Word is in fact written in pure correspondences ⁴ so that there may be deeper meaning in the details. Questions about the nature of this meaning can be resolved by all the things I have set forth about it in Secrets of Heaven. A selection of these may be found also in my explanation of the white horse in the Book of Revelation. It is in this deeper sense that we are to understand what the Lord said in the passage just cited about coming in the clouds of heaven. The sun that will be darkened means the Lord in respect to love, ⁵ the moon means the Lord in respect to faith. ⁶ The stars mean insights into what is good and true, or into love and faith. ⁷ The sign of the Human-born One in heaven means the appearing of divine truth. The wailing tribes of earth mean all the elements of what is true and good, or of faith and love. ⁸ The Lord's coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory means his presence in the Word, and revelation. ⁹ The clouds refer to the literal meaning of the Word ¹⁰ and the glory to the Word's inner meaning. ¹¹ The angels with a trumpet and a loud voice mean heaven, which is where divine truth comes from. ¹²

This enables us to see what these words of the Lord mean. They mean that at the end of the church, when there is no longer any love and therefore no longer any faith, the Lord will open the Word by disclosing its deeper meaning and will reveal the heavenly contents hidden within it. The particular hidden contents to be disclosed in the pages that follow have to do with heaven and hell and with our own life after death.

Church people these days know practically nothing about heaven and hell or their life after death, even though there are descriptions of everything available to them in the Word. In fact, many who have been born in the church deny all this. In their hearts they are asking who has ever come back to tell us about it.

To prevent this negative attitude - especially prevalent among people who have acquired a great deal of worldly wisdom - from infecting and corrupting people of simple heart and simple faith, it has been granted me to be with angels and to talk with them person to person. I have also been enabled to see what is in heaven and in hell, a process that has been going on for thirteen years. Now I am being allowed therefore to describe what I have heard and seen, in the hopes of shedding light where there is ignorance, and of dispelling skepticism.

The reason this kind of direct revelation is taking place today is that this is what the Coming of the Lord means.

Mga talababa:

1408. The events described here and in what follows took place in history as they are recorded, yet the historical events as described are representative, and every word carries a spiritual meaning. This is so in all of the historical parts of the Word, not only in the Books of Moses but also in those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, all of which books contain nothing else than historical narratives. But although they are historical narratives in the sense of the letter, in the internal sense there are arcana of heaven lying hidden there. These arcana cannot possibly be seen as long as the mind keeps its eye fixed on the historical details, nor are they disclosed until the mind removes itself from the sense of the letter. The Word of the Lord is like a body that has a living soul within it. The things that belong to the soul are not apparent as long as the mind is fixed on those of the body, so much so that it scarcely believes it possesses a soul, even less that it will be alive after death. But as soon as the mind departs from bodily things, those belonging to the soul and to life show themselves; and in this lies the reason not only why bodily things must die before a person can be born anew or be regenerated, but also why the body must die so that he can enter heaven and behold heavenly things.

[2] The same applies to the Word of the Lord Its bodily parts are the things that constitute the sense of the letter, and when the mind is fixed on these the internal things are not seen at all. But once the bodily parts so to speak have died, the internal for the first time are brought to view. All the same, the things constituting the sense of the letter are like the things present with man in his body, namely the facts belonging to the memory which come in through the senses and which are general vessels containing interior or internal things. From this one may recognize that the vessels are one thing and the essential elements within the vessels another. The vessels are natural, and the essential elements within the vessels are spiritual and celestial. In the same way the historical narratives of the Word, as with each individual expression in the Word, are general, natural, indeed material vessels that have spiritual and celestial things within them. These things never come into sight except through the internal sense.

[3] This may become clear to anyone simply from the fact that many matters in the Word have been stated according to appearances, indeed according to the illusions of the senses, such as that the Lord is angry, punishes, curses, slays, and many other such statements, when in fact the internal sense contains the reverse, namely that the Lord is never angry or punishes, still less curses or slays. All the same, no harm at all is done to people who in simplicity of heart believe the Word as they find it in the letter so long as they are leading charitable lives, the reason being that the Word teaches nothing other than this - that everyone ought to live in charity with his neighbour and to love the Lord above all things. People doing this are in possession of the internal things, and thus with them the illusions acquired from the sense of the letter are easily dispersed.

1983. Evil spirits have a strong and burning desire to molest and attack man when he is asleep, but at that time man is especially protected by the Lord, for love does not sleep. Spirits who molest are punished piteously. I have heard their punishments more often than I can repeat. These involve being torn apart, as described in 829, 957, 959, which is carried out below the heel of the left foot, lasting sometimes for hours on end. Sirens, who inwardly are witches, are those who especially lie in wait in the night, and then try to worm their way into a person's inward thoughts and affections. But as often as they try to do so they are foiled by angels from the Lord and at length are deterred by means of very drastic punishments. 'These sirens have also spoken to others in the night, when they have impersonated me so perfectly and imitated my speaking so accurately that no one could tell the difference, and in so doing have poured in filthy thoughts and suggested ideas that were false.

[2] I was once sleeping very soundly, in an altogether sweet repose. When I awoke certain good spirits began to accuse me of having molested them, so violently, they said, that they thought they had been in hell; they put the blame on me. I answered them that I knew nothing whatever about the matter, but that I had been fast asleep and therefore could not possibly have been the one to molest them. At this they were dumbfounded and at length realized that those sirens had been up to their tricks. Something similar was also demonstrated to me after that so that I might know what that band of sirens is like.

[3] These sirens are mainly females, who during their lifetime have studied how to attract male companions to themselves by interior devices - by worming their way in through external allurements, by captivating the baser mental instincts in all sorts of ways, by penetrating into each one's affections and delights, but with an evil motive, namely that of manipulating. Their nature is such in the next life therefore that they seem to be able of themselves to do anything. They take in from others and think up for themselves different devices which they absorb with ease like sponges soaking up water, filthy or clean alike. They accordingly soak up and practice what is profane as well as what is holy with the intent, as stated, of manipulating. I have been allowed to perceive how foul they are inwardly, polluted by adultery and hatred. I have also been given to perceive how overpowering their sphere is. These sirens force their own interior thought and feelings into a state of persuasion, so that these may go hand in glove with their exterior thought and feelings towards the things they intend. In this way sirens compel and lead spirits to think as they themselves do.

[4] No reasonings are in evidence among them, and yet they employ a whole mass of reasonings that are breathed into people's evil affections by applying themselves to those persons' natural instincts. In this way they gain entry into the baser parts of the minds of others whom they lead on and by persuasion either overwhelm or captivate. There is nothing they study more than how to destroy conscience, and when they have destroyed it gain possession of people interiorly and even obsess them, though the individual is not conscious of it. Nowadays external obsession is not allowed as it once was in former times, but internal possession by spirits such as these does take place. People who are devoid of conscience are obsessed in this way. The interior aspects of their thought are insane in a very similar way, but those aspects are concealed by and covered with an outward propriety and presence of honesty displayed for the sake of personal position, wealth, and reputation. This they can even recognize for themselves if they pay any attention to what they think.