493. Our first state after death is like our state in this world, since we are then similarly involved in outward concerns. We have similar faces, voices, and character; we lead similar moral and civil lives. This is why it still seems to us as though we were in this world unless we notice things that are out of the ordinary and remember that angels told us we were spirits when we were awakened (450). So the one life carries on into the other, and death is only a passage.

31. It is because the Divine essence itself is love and wisdom that everything in the universe has some relation to good and truth; for everything that springs from love is called good, and everything that springs from wisdom is called truth. But more on this subject below.