The Planets in the Universe

The Earthlike Bodies Called Planets in Our Solar System and in Deep Space, Their Inhabitants, and the Spirits and Angels There, Drawn from Things Heard and Seen

1. By the Lord’s ¹ divine mercy the deeper levels within me, which belong to my spirit, have been opened, enabling me to talk with spirits and angels ² -not only those near our world, but also those close to other planets. Because I have had a longing to know whether there are other worlds, what they are like, and what their inhabitants are like, the Lord has granted me opportunities to talk and interact with spirits and angels from other planets. With some of them I spent all day, with others a full week, and with still others months on end. I learned from them about the planets they came from and are close to now, about the life, customs, and worship of the inhabitants of those planets, and various other noteworthy details about them. Since it has been granted to me to know such things in this way, I am in a position to offer descriptions based on things I myself have heard and seen. ³

[2] It is important to know that all spirits and angels are human ⁴ and that they remain close to their planet of origin. ⁵ They know what is happening on that planet; and any people whose deeper levels have been opened to the point where they can talk and interact with spirits and angels can learn such things from those spirits and angels. After all, in our essence we too are spirits; ⁶ and in our deeper levels we are already among other spirits. ⁷ So anyone whose deeper levels have been opened by the Lord can talk with spirits and angels the way people talk with each other. ⁸ For twelve years now, this has been granted to me daily. ⁹

Footnotes:

6054. As regards the soul, which - it is said - goes on living after death, it is nothing else than the actual person living in the body. That is, the soul is the person's inner self acting in the world by means of the body and imparting life to the body. When his inner self is released from the body the person is called a spirit and then appears in a completely human form. Yet he cannot be seen at all by the eyes of the body, only by those of the spirit, to which he has the same appearance as Someone in the world. He has the senses - touch, smell, hearing, and sight - which are far keener than when he was in the world. He has appetites, longings, desires, affections, and loves that are like those he had in the world yet far superior. He also engages in thought as he did in the world, but in a more perfect way, and he holds conversations with others. In short his life there is as it was in the world, so much so that if he does not stop to reflect on the fact that he is in the next life, he knows no other than that he is in the world, as I have frequently heard spirits say. For life after death is a continuation of life in the world. This then is a person's soul which is alive after death.

[2] But in order that people may not lose all idea of what the word 'soul' means because of the guessing and speculation about what the soul may be, it is better to speak of a person's spirit or, if you prefer, his inner self. For his spirit, seen there, appears just like a person possessing all the members and organs that a person has; indeed it is the actual person In a body. The truth of this may also be recognized from the angels seen by people and described in the Word; all appeared in human form. Every angel in heaven possesses the human form, for the Lord, who was seen so many times after His resurrection as a person, has that form. The reason why an angel as well as a person's spirit is human in outward form is that the whole of heaven receives from the Lord the disposition to combine into a human form, which is why the whole of heaven has been called the Grand Man. (The subject of the Grand Man and the correspondence with it of all the parts of a human being have been dealt with at the ends of many chapters.) Also because the Lord lives within each inhabitant of heaven, and through what flows in from the Lord the whole of heaven exerts an influence on each inhabitant, every angel is an image of heaven, that is, he possesses a form most perfectly human. So too does a person after death.

[3] However many the spirits I have seen, thousands upon thousands, they have all looked to me exactly like men and women. Some have declared that they are people just as they were in the world, and have added that during their lifetime they had not believed anything of the sort. Many have felt sad that the human race lives in such ignorance regarding their state after death and that they think about the soul in such a senseless and futile way, and that most of those who have thought more seriously about the soul have visualized it as something like a thin column of air, which has inevitably led to the crazy error that the soul is dissipated after death.

9438. PLANETS OUT IN SPACE, AND THE INHABITANTS, SPIRITS, AND ANGELS BELONGING TO THEM

Those who are in heaven are able to talk and mix not only with angels and spirits who come from planets within our solar system but also with others who come from planets in the universe outside it, yet not merely with the spirits and angels from those planets but also with the actual inhabitants there whose interiors have been opened, so that they can hear spirits and angels from heaven who speak to them. Anyone during his lifetime in the world can in like manner hear them once the Lord has permitted him to talk to spirits and angels. For as to his interiors the person is a spirit or angel, the body which he carries around in the world being merely that which is of service to him in the functions he performs in this natural or earthly sphere, which is the lowest.

[2] But no one is permitted to talk to spirits and angels as a spirit or angel unless his character is such that he can have fellowship with them in faith and love; and he cannot have that fellowship unless the faith is faith in the Lord and the love is love directed to the Lord. For a person is joined to [the Lord] through faith in Him, thus through truths that belong to religious teachings, and through love to Him; and when he has been joined to Him he is kept safe from attack by evil spirits from hell. No others can possibly have their interiors opened, since they do not abide in the Lord. Here is the reason why few are permitted at the present day to talk to and mix with angels. A clear sign of this may be seen in the fact that at the present day there is scarcely any belief in the existence of spirits and angels, let alone a belief that they are present with every individual person, and that through those present with him a person is linked to heaven, and through heaven to the Lord. Still less do people believe that when a person dies as to the body, he is alive as a spirit, and indeed in human form as before.