9606. 'On the edge of the one curtain at the end in the joining-place' means of one sphere to the other, that is to say, the joining together of the two. This is clear from the meaning of 'the edge of the curtain at the end in the joining-place' as the place where one ends and the other begins, thus the boundary where the two come together. The reason why a sphere is what is meant is that in heaven spheres come together; for there are spheres that go out from each angelic community in heaven, and from each angel in a community. These spheres from each one emanate from the life of their affections for truth and good; and they spread a long way out. This explains why the character of spirits and angels is recognizable when they are a long way off. Those spheres are what bind angels and angelic communities together and they are also what split them apart; for similar spheres, that is, similar affections for truth and good, come together, and dissimilar ones move apart. But see what has been shown already about those spheres in 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504-1520, 1695, 2401, 2489, 4464, 5179, 6206 (end), 6598-6613, 7454, 8630, 8794, 8797, 9490-9492, 9498, 9534. Whether you say the angels and angelic communities, or the truth and good, from which the spheres emanate it amounts to the same thing, for the spheres are emanations from affections for truth and good, by virtue of which the angels are angels from the Lord. It should be recognized that to the extent that these spheres originate in the Lord they come together, but to the extent that they originate in the self of an angel they move apart. From this it is evident that the Lord alone brings them together.

1504. ¹ PERCEPTIONS AND SPHERES IN THE NEXT LIFE - continued

It has been stated already that in the next life the character of another is recognized as soon as he starts to approach, even though he does not say anything. From this one may see that man's interiors are engaged in a kind of undiscerned activity, and that from this the nature of the spirit is perceived. That this is so has become clear to me from the fact that the sphere emanating from this activity not only spreads itself a long way out but also that sometimes, when the Lord permits, it becomes in various ways perceptible to the senses.

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