457. When we first enter the world of spirits (which happens shortly after the reawakening just described), our spirit has a similar face and tone of voice as it did in the world. This is because at that point we are in the state of our external concerns, with our deeper concerns not yet uncovered. This is our initial state after decease. Later, though, our face changes and becomes quite different. It comes to look like the ruling affection in which the deeper reaches of our minds were engaged in the world, the kind of affection characteristic of the spirit within our body, because the face of our spirit is very different from the face of our body. We get our physical face from our parents and our spiritual face from our affection, which it images. Our spirit takes on this face after our physical life is over, when the outer coverings have been removed. This is our third state.

I have seen some newcomers from the world and have recognized them by their faces and voices; but when I saw them later, I did not recognize them. People who were engaged in good affections had lovely faces, while people who were engaged in evil affections had ugly ones. Seen in its own right, our spirit is nothing but our affections, whose outward form is our face.

The reason our faces change is that in the other life no one is allowed to pretend to affections they do not really have, so we cannot put on a face that is contrary to the love we are engaged in. We are all refined down to a state in which we say what we think and manifest in expression and act what we intend. This is why our faces all become forms and images of our affections; and this is why all the people who have known each other in the world still recognize each other in the world of spirits, but not in heaven or hell, as already noted (427). ¹

Footnotes:

32. I should like to add to this chapter a secret of heaven which was mentioned in HEAVEN AND HELL, but not before this described. Each person is after death attached to a community, and this happens as soon as he reaches the spiritual world (see 427-497). But while he is in his first state he is unaware of this, for he is then still occupied with his external concerns and has not yet become aware of his internal ones. While he is in this state, he wanders here and there, wherever the desires of his character take him. But he is still really where his love is, that is to say, in the community of those who share his love.

[2] While a spirit is in such a state, he is to be seen in many different places, apparently present in each in bodily form; but this is no more than an appearance. As soon therefore as he is brought by the Lord into his dominant love, he vanishes at once from the eyes of others, and finds himself in the community to which he is attached. This is a special feature of the spiritual world and surprises those who are unaware of the reason. This then is why, as soon as spirits are collected together and separated from others, they are also judged, and each immediately finds his own place, the good in heaven and in company with their own people there, the wicked in hell and in company with their own people there.

[3] This is another proof that the Last Judgment can only take place in the spiritual world, both because each person there is a likeness of the way he has lived, and because he is associated with those who share a similar way of life, so he is with his own people. The case is different in the natural world; there the good and the wicked can be together without one knowing what the other is like, nor are they mutually separated depending upon the love that governs their lives. Nor indeed can anyone with a natural body be in heaven or in hell. So to reach either destination he must shed his natural body, and after this be judged in his spiritual body. This is why, as was said before, it is the spiritual, not the natural man who is judged.