207. I'll add to these remarks two stories. This is the first:

At a later time I looked toward the city of Athens, mentioned in earlier stories, and I heard an unusual clamor coming from it.

There was an element of laughter in it and in the laughter an element of indignation, and in the indignation an element of grief.

Yet that did not make the noises dissonant, but consonant, because one sound was not at the same time as another. They came one after another. In the spiritual world you distinctly notice varieties and mixtures of feelings in sound.

I asked from a distance, "What's the matter?"

They said, "A messenger came from the place where arrivals from the Christian world first show up, saying that he heard from three of them there that in the world they came from, they and others believed that the blessings and happiness after death would be total rest from labors, and that the blessings would be rest from management, duties, and jobs, because these are labors.

"Our messenger has now brought the three here, and they stand waiting outside the gate, so a clamor went up. And on consideration they decided not to bring them into the Palladium on Parnassus as before, but into the great auditorium there, so they can break the news they have from the Christian world.

Some people were appointed to introduce them properly."

I was in spirit, and distances for spirits are according to their feelings. I felt like seeing and hearing them, so I found myself present there, and I saw them introduced and heard them speaking.

The elders or wiser ones were seated at the sides of the auditorium, and the rest were in the middle. A raised platform was in front of them. To this the younger men brought the three newcomers, with the messenger, with due ceremony, through the center of the auditorium. And once it quieted down one of the elders there greeted them and asked, "What is new from Earth?"

They said, "Much is new, but please name a subject."

The elder said, "What is new from Earth about our world and heaven?"

They answered, "When we new spirits came into this world we heard that here and in heaven there's management, administration, duties, business, studies in all disciplines, and wonderful craftsmen.

And yet we thought that after passing over, or being carried across, from the natural world into this spiritual one we would come into eternal rest from work. And what are duties but work?"

To this the elder said, "By 'eternal rest from work' did you understand eternal leisure, where you would continually sit and lie down, gathering delights in your breast and drinking in pleasures with your mouth?"

To this the three newcomers laughed politely and said that they had supposed something like that.

The answer to that was, "What do pleasures and delights and the happiness from them have to do with inactivity? Idleness collapses your mind - it doesn't open your mind up. In other words, it makes a person dead, not alive. Picture someone sitting in complete idleness, hands hanging down, eyes downcast or staring, and picture him surrounded with pleasures at the time.

Wouldn't his head and body both get drowsy, and wouldn't the lively smile on his face droop? And with every fiber relaxed, wouldn't he nod and sway until he fell on the ground? What loosens and tones up all the parts of your body like a focused mind? And where does mental focus come from unless it comes from management and jobs, when they are done from delight?

"So I'll tell you the news from heaven. There's management, administration, higher and lower courts there, and there are also trades and employment."

When the three newcomers heard that there are higher and lower courts in heaven, they said, "Why is that? Isn't everyone in heaven inspired and led by God? Don't they know what's just and right from that? What do the courts do?"

The elder man answered, "In this world we are taught and learn about what is good and true and also what is just and fair, the same as in the natural world. We don't learn this directly from God, but indirectly through others. And every angel, like every person, thinks truth and does good as if by himself. It is mixed and impure according to the angel's condition.

"And also some angels are plain and some are wise, and the wise ones have to judge, when the plain ones, in their simplicity and ignorance, are undecided about what is just, or wander away from it.

"But since you have just come into this world, if you feel like it, follow me into our city, and we'll show you everything."

They left the auditorium, and some of the elders also went with them.

First they went to the great Library, which was divided into smaller libraries according to fields of knowledge. When they saw so many books, the three newcomers were astonished and said, "Are there books in this world, too? Where do you get parchment and paper? Where do you get pens and ink?"

The elders answered this. "We notice that in the former world you thought that this world was empty because it is spiritual.

You thought so because you cherished a notion of spirit without matter, and without matter it seemed like nothing to you, thus like a vacuum, when instead everything is complete here. Everything here is substantial and not material. Material things come from substantial things. We who are here are spiritual people, because we are substantial, not material. This is why all the things in the natural world are here in their perfection - even books and literature and many other things."

When the three newcomers heard the things called "substantial," they thought it must be so, both because they saw the written books and because they heard the statement that substance is the source of matter.

To further assure them about these things they were taken to where the scribes lived who were making copies of books by the city's wise men. They inspected the writing and were surprised that it was so neat and refined.

After this they were led to museums, schools, and colleges, and to where those people's literary contests were. Some were called games of the Heliconians, others games of the Parnassians, others games of the Athenians, and others games of the Virgins of the Spring. They said that these last were called this because virgins stand for affections having to do with knowing things, and a person has intelligence according to his affection for knowing things. The games called this were spiritual exercises and trials of skill.

Later they were led around in the city to rulers, administrators, and their officers, and by them to wonderful structures that were made in a spiritual way by tradesmen.

After they saw these things the elder spoke with them again about the eternal rest from work that the blessed and happy enter after death, and he said, "Eternal rest is not idleness, because from idleness the mind, and from the mind the whole body, gets weariness, numbness, lethargy, and sleepiness, and these are death, not life, and still less are they the eternal life that angels of heaven live. So eternal rest is rest that dispels those things and makes the person live, and this must be something that lifts your mind. So it is some study and work that excites, enlivens, and pleases your mind.

This happens in pursuit of some usefulness that you work for, on, and at. For this reason the entire heaven as the Lord sees it is one continuous activity, and every angel is an angel according to participation.

The joy of usefulness carries him the way a following current does a ship, and it puts him in eternal peace and the rest that peace brings. This is what eternal rest from work means.

"The fact that an angel is alive according to how eagerly he applies his mind because he is occupied shows clearly in the fact that everyone has married love with its strength, potency, and joy, according to how he applies himself to his real calling."

Then the three newcomers were convinced that eternal rest is not idleness but the joy of some work that is useful. Some young women came with needlepoint and sewing, their handwork, and gave it to the newcomers. And the young women sang a song with an angelic tune as the new spirits went away. The song expressed the feeling of doing useful things, and its pleasures.

182. I add two stories to this. Here is the first:

Some weeks later [see no. 151b] I heard a voice from the sky saying "Come on! There is another meeting on Parnassus! We'll show you the way!"

I went, and when I came close I saw someone on Helicon, announcing and advertising the meeting with a trumpet. And as before, I saw people going up from the city of Athens and its outskirts, with three newcomers from Earth among them. The three were Christians - one a priest, another a politician, and the third a philosopher. On the way, these three entertained the others with much talk, mainly about ancient philosophers, whom they named.

"Will we see them?" they asked.

The others said, "You will, and be introduced if you want to, because they are friendly."

They asked about Demosthenes, Diogenes, and Epicurus.

"Demosthenes is not here, but with Plato," they were told.

"Diogenes lives with his students at the foot of Helicon, because he considers worldly matters to be nothing and sets his mind on heavenly things only. Epicurus lives at the border in the west and does not come in to us, because we distinguish between good inclinations and bad, and we say good inclinations are the same thing as wisdom and bad ones are against wisdom."

When they had climbed the hill Parnassus, some attendants brought water from a fountain there in crystal tumblers and said, "This is water from the fountain that the ancient people fabled was broken open by the hoof of Pegasus and was later dedicated to the nine virgins. But to them the winged horse Pegasus meant the comprehension of truth, which wisdom comes from. The hoofs on his feet stood for experiences that lead to worldly comprehension, and the nine virgins stood for all kinds of things one is acquainted with and knows.

"Today these are called myths, but they were correspondences, which was the way the earliest people spoke."

The people accompanying the three newcomers told them, "Don't be surprised. The attendants are taught to talk about this, and for us, drinking water from the fountain stands for being taught about truths, and about varieties of good through truths, and in this way being wise."

After this they went into the Palladium and with them the three newcomers from earth - the priest, the politician, and the philosopher.

Then the laureates who sat at the tables asked, "What's the news from Earth?"

They answered, "This is new. Someone is claiming that he talks with angels and has sight that opens into the spiritual world just the way it opens onto the natural world, and he brings a lot of news from there. Some of the things are that a person lives on as a person after death, just the way he lived before in the world, that he sees, hears, and speaks just as before in the world, that he is clothed and well groomed just as before in the world, that he gets hungry and thirsty, eats and drinks as before in the world, that he enjoys the pleasure of marriage as before in the world, that he sleeps and wakes as before in the world, that there is land there and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, gardens and parks. Also that there are palaces and homes and cities and towns, just as in the natural world. And that there are writings and books, and jobs and businesses. And also precious stones, gold, and silver. In a word, he says that each and every thing that exists on earth is there, and the things in heaven are infinitely more perfect. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world comes from a spiritual source, and therefore is spiritual, because it comes from the sun there, which is pure love.

"And he says that everything in the natural world is from a natural source and therefore is natural and material, because it is from the sun there, which is pure fire. In a word, a person is fully human after death. In fact, more fully human than before in the world. For before, in the world, he was in a material body but in this world he is in a spiritual body."

When all this was said, the ancient sages asked, "What do they think about these things on earth?"

The three said, "We know that they are true because we are here and we have looked into them all and put them to the proof.

So we'll tell what people on earth say and think about these things."

Then the priest spoke. "People of our order called them visions when they first heard it, then fictions. Afterwards they said the man was seeing ghosts. Finally they were at a loss and said, 'Believe it if you want to. We have always taught that a person will not have a body after death until the day of the Last Judgment.'"

They asked him, "Aren't there any intelligent people among them, who can show them and convince them of the truth - that a person lives on as a person after death?"

The priest said, "There are some who show them, but they don't convince them. The ones who do point it out say, 'It is against sane reason to believe that a person does not live on as a person until the Last Judgment Day and is a soul without a body in the meantime. What is a soul, and where is it meanwhile? Is it a breath? Or some kind of wind flitting in the air? Or a being hidden in the middle of the earth? Where is its limbo? Have the souls of Adam and Eve, and everyone since them, been flying around in the universe for six thousand years now, or sixty centuries? Or are they kept closed up in the middle of the earth, waiting for the Last Judgment? What could be more anxious and pitiful than such a wait? You might compare their luck to the luck of people bound with chains and hobbled in prison, mightn't you? If this is the fate of a person after death, wouldn't it be better to be born a donkey than a man? Isn't it against reason to believe that a soul can have its body put back on? Isn't the body eaten up by worms, rats, and fish? Can a skeleton of bones burnt by the sun or collapsed into dust be put into this body again? How can these ghastly and putrid things be brought together and united with souls?'

"But when they hear arguments like that they don't answer them with any rational thought. They stick fast to their faith, saying, 'We hold reason under obedience to faith.'

"About gathering everyone from graves on the day of the Last Judgment they say, 'This is a matter of Omnipotence.' And when they speak of Omnipotence and faith, reason is banished.

And I can tell you that then sound reason is like nothing, and to some it is like an apparition. In fact, they can say to sound reason,

'You're insane!'"

When the wise Greeks heard all this, they said, "Paradoxes as contradictory as those demolish themselves, don't they! Yet sound reason can't demolish them in the world these days! What can be more paradoxical to believe than what they say about the Last Judgment - that then the universe will perish, and that the stars will fall out of heaven onto the earth, which is smaller than the stars! And that then the bodies of people, whether corpses or mummies of people eaten away, or turned to dust, will be united with their souls! When we were in the world we believed in the immortality of people's souls from reasoning by the evidence that reason afforded us. We also assigned the blessed a place that we called the Elysian Fields. We thought that the blessed were human images or likenesses, but rarefied because they were spiritual."

After saying these things, they turned to the second newcomer, who had been a politician in the world. He admitted that he had not believed in life after death, and he had thought that the news he heard about it was fiction and was made up. "Thinking about it I said, 'How can souls be bodies? Doesn't all of the man lie dead in the grave? Aren't his eyes there? How can he see?

Aren't his ears there? How can he hear? Where does he get a mouth to speak with? If something of a person lived after death, could it be anything but some kind of ghost? How can a ghost eat and drink, and how can it enjoy the delight of marriage? Where does it get clothes, a home, a bed, and so forth? And ghosts, which are images in the air, seem to exist and yet they do not.' In the world I thought things like that about the life of people after death. And now that I see all and have touched everything with my own hands I'm persuaded by these very senses that I am a human just as in the world, to the point that I can't tell but what I'm living the way I lived - with the difference that I have sounder reason. Sometimes I'm ashamed of what I used to think."

The philosopher told similar things about himself, but with the difference that he classed the news he had heard about life after death with the opinions and hypotheses that he had gathered from the ancients and the moderns.

The wise men were astonished when they heard these things.

The ones of the Socratic school said that from this news from earth they could tell that the inner minds of people had been gradually closed up, and that now in the world faith in falsity shines like truth, and clever nonsense like wisdom.

And they said, "Since our times the light of wisdom has worked its way down from deep in the brain to the mouth, under the nose, where wisdom seems to be the glitter of language to you, so that mouthed words seem like wisdom."

One of the students there, when he heard this, said, "How stupid the minds of people on earth are today. If only the disciples of Heraclitus and Democritus were here, who laugh at everything and weep at everything. We'd hear great laughing and great weeping."

After the meeting ended they gave the three newcomers from earth souvenirs of their district - small copper plates with some hieroglyphics engraved on them - which they went away with.