115. 1. Redemption was actually a matter of gaining control of the hells, restructuring the heavens, and by so doing preparing for a new spiritual church. I can say with absolute certainty that these three actions are redemption, because the Lord is bringing about redemption again today. This new redemption began in the year 1757 along with a Last Judgment that happened at that time. The redemption has continued from then until now. The reason is that today is the Second Coming of the Lord. A new church is being instituted that could not have been instituted unless first the hells were brought under control and the heavens were restructured.

Because I have been allowed to see it all I could describe how the hells were brought under control and how the new heaven was built and put into the divine design, but that would be the subject of a whole work. In a little work published in London in 1758 I did lay out how the Last Judgment was carried out.

Gaining control over the hells, restructuring the heavens, and establishing a new church was redemption because without those actions no human being could have been saved. In fact, they follow in a sequence. The hells had to be controlled first before a new angelic heaven could be formed, and that heaven had to be formed before the new church on earth could be instituted, because people in the world are so closely connected to angels from heaven and spirits from hell that at the level of the inner mind they are one. This point will be taken up in the last chapter of this book, which specifically covers the close of the age, the Coming of the Lord, and the New Church [753-791].

447. A bond of love like this is damaging after death, as we can see from the state of heaven, the state of hell, and the state of our spirit in relation to both.

The state of heaven is that it has been divided into countless communities according to all the different feelings of love for what is good. Hell on the other hand has been divided according to all the different feelings of love for what is evil.

After we die and become spirits, we are immediately attached to the community that shares our dominant love, based on the way we lived in the world. This community is in heaven if love for God or for our neighbor was primary among all the things we love. We are assigned to a community of hell if love for ourselves or for the world was primary among all the things we love.

After we have entered the spiritual world - which happens as a result of our dying and our physical body being laid to rest in the grave - we next spend a while being prepared for the community to which we have been assigned. This preparation is a matter of our rejecting things we love that do not agree with our primary love. During this same period of time, people are separated from each other - friends are separated, followers are separated from their leaders, parents are separated from their offspring, and siblings are separated from each other. Then we all become deeply attached to people similar to ourselves with whom we are going to live a life that is both shared and is truly our own to eternity.

During the first part of this preparation people meet and talk in a friendly way as they had in the world. Little by little, however, they are separated from each other. It happens without their realizing it.