4804. There are very many communities in the next life which are called friendship-communities. They consist of those who during their lifetime preferred the delight of association with others to any other delight and who loved those with whom they associated, without any interest at all in whether these were good or evil people, provided they gave them delight. Thus they were not ones who befriended what was good and true. Those who have been like this during their lifetime remain the same in the next life; they attach themselves to one another solely because of their delight of association with others. Many such communities have been present with me, though kept at a distance, visible for the most part overhead, slightly to the right. I was made aware of their presence by a dull and sluggish feeling, and by a loss of my own feeling of delight; for the presence of communities such as these leads to this. Indeed when they arrive on the scene they remove others' feeling of delight, and what is remarkable they make it their own. For they turn away the spirits present with others and direct them towards themselves, thereby transferring another's delight to themselves. And because such communities are for this reason dangerous and harmful to those governed by good, the Lord therefore holds them back to prevent them going near heavenly communities. From this I was enabled to know how much harm friendship does to someone's spiritual life if he pays attention to the person but not to what is good. Anyone can indeed befriend another; but most of all he ought to befriend what is good.

4439. About societies of friendship

High overhead there are societies, which should be called societies of friendship, who live amicably among themselves, thus in the pleasure of friendship, not in the pleasure and blessedness of mutual love. They have with them an almost flaming light, and very many pleasures that they enjoy, together with other delights. They had been with me, or above me, two or three times, when it was granted me to learn the source of their pleasure. Wherever they come, they divert the enjoyments of others toward themselves, and those whom they deprive of them are then in darkness, and in misery. They said that they were unaware of this, but it was proven to them to be the case. They likewise took away my delight, and I was then plunged into darkness and gloom, which increased in proportion as their pleasure increased. I spoke with them, and reproached them.

[2] I was informed that this was the nature of the pleasure of friendship when it is not the pleasure of mutual love. This shows the state of those in the other life who love their companions above all others, but only for the sake of pleasure, and still more what those immersed in self-love are like, who deprive all others of their pleasure, diverting it to themselves - for which reason they are separated, and when they come toward an angelic society, they sink down like a heap of earth, or a weight.