6210. On some occasions I have happened to be deep in thought about worldly matters and the kinds of things that concern most people - possessions, the acquisition of riches, pleasures, and the like. At these times I noticed that I was slipping back into sensory-mindedness, and that to the extent that my thought was immersed in those worldly interests I was more removed from companionship with the angels. This also proved to me that people who are deeply engrossed in such concerns cannot have any real contact with them in the next life. For when such thoughts occupy the whole mind they bear its lower part downwards, like weights pulling it down. When such worldly interests are a person's final concern they remove him from heaven, to which he cannot be raised except by means of the good of love and faith. This has been made additionally clear to me by the following experience. I was once taken through the dwelling-places of heaven, at which time my ideas were spiritual ones. Then I suddenly slipped into thinking about worldly matters, and all those spiritual ideas were scattered and became as nothing.
