1881. Spirits become very upset and in fact outraged when you tell them that people do not believe spirits can see, hear, or touch anything. They told me that people ought to know that life does not exist without sensation, and the sharper the senses, the more vibrant the life. The objects of their senses, the spirits said, are as superior as their ability to sense them. The representative things that the Lord gives them are real, because they are the source of everything that exists in the world of nature (§1632). Their senses are much better and more impressive than ours! This is how their indignation expressed itself.

1631. Some people have been rich during bodily life and lived in stately mansions, identifying their heaven with these advantages and cheating others out of their possessions by various ruses, without conscience and without compassion. When they come into the other life, they are first introduced into exactly the same kind of life they had lived in the world (as noted before [§943].) Sometimes they are even allowed at this point to live in mansions, just as they had in the world, since at first everyone in the other life is welcomed as a guest and a newcomer. In order to avoid exposing the inner depths and life goals of these people as yet, angels show them every favor and kindness, on behalf of the Lord. But the scene changes. The mansions gradually fade and turn into huts, which degenerate further and further until they finally disappear. Then the owners wander around like beggars and ask to be taken in, but because they are what they are, society rejects them. In the end they come to resemble excrement, and a cloud smelling like [rotten] teeth wafts from them.