513. The teaching is done by angels from a number of communities, mainly ones in the northern and southern regions, because these angelic communities are focused on intelligence and wisdom based on firsthand knowledge of what is good and true. The teaching sites are in the north; and there are different ones, differentiated and arranged according to the genera and species of heavenly virtues so that everyone can be taught there in a manner suited to his or her character and receptivity. The sites are spread out over a large area there.
Good spirits who need to be taught are taken there by the Lord after their time in the world of spirits has been fulfilled. This does not apply to everyone, though, since people who have been taught in the world have already been prepared for heaven by the Lord and are taken up into heaven by a different route. For some, this happens immediately after death. For others, it happens after a short stay with good spirits for the removal of the cruder elements of their thoughts and affections (acquired because of concerns for rank and wealth in the world), and their consequent purification. Some people are shattered first, which happens in sites under the soles of the feet called the lower earth, where they suffer harsh treatment. These are people who have convinced themselves of false principles but still have lived good lives. False convictions cling hard, and until they are dispelled, truths cannot be seen and therefore cannot be accepted. These shattering experiences and the different ways they happen have been treated in Secrets of Heaven, though, and some references to that work are appended in the note. 1
Notes de bas de page:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Shattering experiences do happen in the other life - that is, some people who arrive there from the world are shattered there: Arcana Coelestia 698, 7122, 7474, 9763. Upright people are shattered as regards false elements, and evil people as to true ones: 7474, 7541-7542. Shattering experiences happen to upright people so that they can shed the earthly and worldly preoccupations they acquired while they were living in the world: 7186, 9763; and so that evil and false things may be removed, providing room for the inflow of good and true things out of heaven from the Lord, and providing the ability to accept them: 7122, 9331 [9330?]. We cannot be raised into heaven before things like this are removed because they get in the way and do not agree with heavenly values: 6928, 7122, 7136 [7186?], 7541-7542, 9763. This is how people who are to be raised into heaven are prepared: 4728, 7090. It is dangerous for people to enter heaven before they have been prepared: 537-538. On the state of enlightenment and the joy of people who are emerging from shattering experiences and being raised into heaven, and on how they are accepted there: 2699, 2701, 2704. The area where shattering experiences take place is called "the lower earth": 4728, 7090. A description of this area under the soles of the feet, surrounded by hells: 4940-4951, 7090; from experience: 699. The particular hells that attack and shatter more than the others: 7317, 7502, 7545. People who attack and shatter upright souls later fear and flee and avoid them: 7768. These attacks and shattering experiences take different forms depending on the stubbornness of the evil and false elements and the manner and mode in which they persist: 1106-1113. Some people undergo shattering experiences willingly: 1107. Some people are shattered by fears: 4942; some by being assailed by evil things they had done in the world and false things they had thought in the world, which gives rise to anxiety and pangs of conscience: 1106. Some are shattered by spiritual imprisonment, which is ignorance and deprivation of truth yoked to a longing to know what is true: 1109, 2694; some by dreams [reading somnium; the first edition has somnum, "sleep"], some by a state halfway between waking and sleep, with a description: 1108. People who have claimed credit for their deeds seem to be chopping wood: 1110. And so on, with a wide range of variety: 699.
