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.

561. But what are remnants? Not only the goods and truths which one has learned from the Word of the Lord from early childhood onwards and so had imprinted in his memory, but also all resulting states, such as states of innocence from early childhood; states of love towards parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, and friends; states of charity towards the neighbour, and also of compassion on the poor and needy; in short, all states involving good and truth. These states, together with the goods and truths that have been imprinted in the memory, are called remnants, which the Lord preserves with a person and stores away in his internal man, though the person himself is not at all directly conscious of this. Here they are separated completely from the things that are the person's own, that is, evils and falsities. The Lord so preserves all of those states with the individual that not even the least of them perishes. I have been given to know this from the fact that every one of man's states from his infancy right through to extreme old age not only carries over into the next life but also reappears. Indeed those states are exactly the same as when he lived in the world. Thus not only are goods and truths in the memory carried over, but also all states of innocence and charity. And when states of evil and falsity, or wickedness and false notions, recur - for every single one of these as well, down to the smallest detail, is carried over and reappears - they are at that time moderated by the Lord through those states of innocence and charity. From all this it becomes clear that if a person possessed no remnants, he would inevitably be subject to eternal condemnation. See what has appeared already in 468.