35. To these points I will add the following memorable occurrence.

At one point I was struck with amazement at the vast number of people who attribute creation - everything under the sun and everything beyond it as well - to nature. No matter what they see, they say with heartfelt conviction, "Surely this is nature's doing."

I have asked them why they say nature is responsible for everything, and why not God, especially since they repeatedly use the common expression, "God created nature," and therefore could as easily say that God, rather than nature, is responsible for what they see. Beneath their breath, in an almost inaudible voice, they reply, "What God is there except nature?"

Their conviction that the universe was created by nature - an insanity that seems like wisdom to them - makes them all feel so glorious that they look down on all who acknowledge that the universe was created by God. They picture these faithful people as ants that crawl on the ground and tread a well-worn path. Some they picture as butterflies that flit around in the air. "Dreams" - that is what they call the dogmas of the faithful, who see what they themselves do not see. "Who has seen God?" they say; "Who has not seen nature?"

[2] While I stood amazed at the vast number of such people, an angel appeared at my side and said, "What are you thinking about?"

I replied, "I'm thinking about the vast number of people who believe that nature exists from itself - that nature itself created the universe."

"All hell is made up of such people, the angel told me. There they are called satans and devils. The satans are those who have come to deny the existence of God because they have convinced themselves to believe in nature. The devils are those whose acknowledgment of God has been driven from their hearts because they have spent their lives committing crimes. I will take you to lecture halls in the southwest where there are people like this who are not yet in hell. "

The angel took me by the hand and led me there. I saw humble buildings that contained the lecture halls. In the middle I saw a building that looked like the main hall for the rest. It was built out of stones as black as tar that had been covered with little glasslike disks made to look as though they were sparkling with gold and silver, much like what we call selenite or mica; shiny seashells had also been worked in here and there.

[3] We went up to the building and knocked. Soon a man opened the door, saying, "Welcome!" Then he hurried over to a table and picked up four books [he had written]. He said, "These books contain wisdom that has now been hailed by a host of nations. This book here, this wisdom, has been hailed by many people in France; this one, by many people in Germany; this one, by some people in the Netherlands; and this one, by some people in Britain. " He added, "If you'd like to see it, I'll make these four books shine before your eyes!" Then he poured forth on all sides the glory of his own reputation, and soon the books seemed to gleam with light; but the light immediately disappeared before our eyes.

Then the angel and I asked what he was writing now. He replied that he was currently extracting matters of inmost wisdom from their hidden treasuries, in summary namely: (1) whether nature comes from life or life comes from nature; (2) whether the center comes from the expanse or the expanse from the center; and (3) a discussion of the center of the expanse and of life.

[4] After he said this, he sat back down on a chair at the table. We meanwhile wandered around his lecture hall, which was very spacious. Because no sunlight penetrated the building, only a light like that of a moonlit night, he had a candle on his table. To my amazement I saw the candle move around the building, illuminating it, although because the wick had not been trimmed it did not shed much light. As he was writing, we saw images of various kinds flying from the table toward the walls. In that light like a moonlit night, they looked like gorgeous indigo birds. In the light of day when we opened the door, though, they looked like the webbed-winged creatures that come out in the evening. They were in fact things basically true becoming false through his argumentation as he ingeniously chained them together.

[5] After seeing those visions we went over to the table and asked him what he was writing now. He said, "I'm on point one: whether nature comes from life or life comes from nature. " He said that he could argue this point either way and make it true; but because of some deeply hidden fear, he dared argue only that nature comes from and originates in life. He did not dare say that life comes from and originates in nature. We asked him in a kindly way what his deeply hidden fear was. He said he feared the possibility that clergy would call him a nature-worshiper, meaning an atheist, and that lay people would call him a man whose reason was not sound, since both lay people and clergy either believe on the basis of blind faith or adopt the perspective of those who argue for faith.

[6] At that point, feeling rather indignant because of our passion for the truth, we spoke to him and said, "Friend, you are seriously wrong. Your wisdom (which is really a genius for writing) has led you astray, and your glorious reputation has seduced you into arguing what you don't believe. Surely you are aware that the human mind can be raised above things on the sensory level - things taken into our thoughts from our bodily senses - and that when the mind is raised up, it sees above it things that relate to life, but below it things that relate to nature. What else is life but love and wisdom? What else is nature but a vessel to receive love and wisdom, through which they achieve results and accomplish useful things? Life and nature can become one only if life is the primary force and nature is its agent. Can light be one with the eye, or sound with the ear? Where do our sensations of light and sound come from if not from life? Where do the forms of our organs of sensation come from if not from nature? What else is the human body but an organ of life? Surely, all the things in the body have been formed into organs to carry out what love wants and what the intellect thinks. Aren't the organs of the body derived from nature? Aren't love and thought derived from life? Aren't they completely different from each other?

"Lift the focus of your genius just a little higher and you'll see that being moved and thinking come from life. Being moved has to do with love, and thinking has to do with wisdom. Both have to do with life, because love and wisdom are life, as we stated before.

"If you raise your intellectual faculty even a little higher, you will see that love and wisdom do not exist unless they have a source somewhere. Their source is love itself and wisdom itself, and therefore life itself. These are the God from whom nature comes. "

[7] Next we spoke with him about point two: whether the center comes from the expanse or the expanse from the center. The angel and I asked him why he was discussing this. He replied that his purpose was to arrive at a conclusion about the center and the expanse of nature and of life - about the origin, then, of one and the other.

When we asked what his position was, his answer was similar to the one he had given before: he could argue it either way, but because he feared losing his reputation he argued that the expanse comes from or originates in the center. "I know, though," he added, "that before the sun existed there was something. That something was throughout the expanse. Of its own accord it flowed together into some order, namely, the center. "

[8] Again indignant because of our passion for the truth, we spoke to him and said, "Friend, you are insane!"

When he heard this he pushed his chair away from the table and looked at us nervously. Then he gave us his attention again, but with a smile on his face.

"What is more insane," we continued, "than saying that the center comes from the expanse? When you say 'center,' we take you to mean the sun. When you say 'expanse,' we take you to mean the universe. You seem to be saying that the universe came into existence without the sun. Doesn't the sun make nature? Doesn't it make all the features of nature that depend solely on heat and light emanating from the sun through the atmospheres? Where were those things before [there was a sun]? (But we'll say where they came from in a moment.) Surely the atmospheres, and everything else on the earth, are like outer surfaces that have the sun as their center. What were all those things before the sun took shape? Could they have continued to exist for one moment? What would all those things do without the sun? Could they have come into being? Continuing to exist is the same as perpetually coming into being. Since the continued existence of all things in nature depends on the sun, it follows that their original coming into being also depended on the sun. Everyone sees this and acknowledges it from personal observation.

[9] As something subsequent comes into existence from something prior, so it also continues to exist from that something prior. If the outer surface came first and the center came later, something prior would be dependent on something subsequent for its continued existence. But that is against the laws of the divine design. How can things that come later produce things that come first? How can outer things produce inner things? How can denser things produce purer things? How then can the superficial things that make up the expanse produce the center? This is against the laws of nature, as anyone can see. We have presented these arguments from rational analysis in order to convince you that the expanse comes into existence from the center, and not the reverse, although anyone who thinks well sees this without these arguments.

"You said that the expanse of its own accord flowed together into the center. Was it just by accident, then, that it fell into such a miraculous and astounding design that one thing exists for the next, and they all exist for the sake of humankind and our eternal life? Is nature capable of drawing on some love and using some wisdom to find a purpose, make means available, and accomplish results so that things may come into existence in their own design? Can nature turn people into angels, make a heaven out of them, and provide that this heavens inhabitants will live to eternity? Give enough thought to these questions and you will let go of your idea that nature created nature. "

[10] After that we asked him what his past and current thinking was about point three: on the center and the expanse of nature and of life. We asked whether he believed that the center and the expanse of life was the same as the center and the expanse of nature. He said that he was now stuck. He had thought before that the inner energy in nature was life, that the love and the wisdom that essentially constituted human life came from nature, and that the sun's fire produced our life through the heat and light conveyed to us by the atmospheres. But now, from these points about human life after death, he was becoming uncertain. The uncertainty was causing his mind to go up one moment and down the next. When his mind was up, he was acknowledging a Center about which he had previously known nothing. When his mind was down, he was looking at the center that he had previously thought to be the only center. He was seeing that life comes from the Center about which he had previously known nothing, that only nature comes from the center that he had previously thought to be everything, and that both centers have expanses around them.

[11] We said that these realizations were good, provided he tried in addition to see the center and expanse of nature as coming from the center and expanse of life, and not the other way around. We explained to him that above the angelic heaven there is a sun that is pure love. It looks as fiery as the earths sun. From the heat that radiates from that sun, angels and people have volition and love; from its light they have understanding and wisdom. Things derived from that sun are called spiritual. Things derived from earths sun are containers or vessels of life; they are called physical.

We told him that the expanse around the center of life is called the spiritual world. That expanse has continued existence because of its sun. The expanse around the center of nature is called the physical world. It has continued existence because of its sun. Now, because units of space and time do not apply to love and wisdom, but states apply instead, it follows that the expanse around the sun of the angelic heaven is not physically extended. It is nonetheless present in the physical extension around the physical sun and is present with living entities in nature according to how receptive they are; they are receptive according to their forms and their states.

[12] Then he asked, "Where does the fire in the earths or nature's sun come from?"

"It comes from the sun of the angelic heaven," we replied, "which is not fire; it is divine love most closely emanating from God, who is within it. "

He was stunned by this, so we proved it as follows: "Love in its essence is spiritual fire. This is why fire in the Word's spiritual sense means love. This is why priests pray in church for heavenly fire to fill their hearts - they mean love. In the tabernacle among the Israelites, the fire on the altar and the fire of the lampstand represented divine love. The heat in blood, which is vital to us and to many animals as well, comes solely from the love that makes up our life. This is why we catch fire, up, and become inflamed when our love becomes impassioned or bursts into anger and blazing rage. From the fact that spiritual heat, which is love, produces physical heat in us even to the point that our faces and limbs become hot and inflamed, it stands to reason that the fire of the physical sun came into being from no other source than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is divine love.

[13] "To sum up: As we just said, the center is the origin of the expanse, and not the reverse. The center of life, which is the sun of the angelic heaven, is divine love most closely radiating from God, who is within that sun. The expanse around that center, called the spiritual world, is from that sun. The earths sun is also from that sun, and the expanse called the physical world is from the earths sun. From all these points it is clear that the universe was created by God. "

After that we went away, and he came with us beyond the entrance to his lecture hall, speaking to us about heaven and hell and God's guidance with a new keenness of mind.