Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 343
are cast down into hell; some remain only a few weeks, some
several years, but not more than thirty. These differences in the
time they remain depend on the correspondence or lack of
correspondence of man’s interiors with his exteriors. How man
is led in that world from one state into another and prepared
shall now be told.
427. As soon as men after death enter the world of spirits the
Lord clearly discriminates between them; and the evil are at
once attached to the infernal society in which they were, as to
their ruling love while in the world; and the good are at once
attached to the heavenly society in which they were as to their
love, charity and faith while in the world. But although they
are thus divided, all that have been friends and acquaintances
in the life of the body, especially wives and husbands, and also
brothers and sisters, meet and converse together whenever they
so desire. I have seen a father talking with six sons, whom he
recognized, and have seen many others with their relatives and
friends; but having from their life in the world diverse
dispositions, after a short time they separate. But those who
have passed from the world of spirits into heaven or into hell,
unless they have a like disposition from a like love, no longer
see or know each other. The reason that they see each other in
the world of spirits, but not in heaven or in hell, is that those
who are in the world of spirits are brought into one state after
another, like those they experienced in the life of the body; but
afterwards all are brought into a permanent state in accord
with their ruling love, and in that state one recognizes another
only by similarity of love; for then similarity joins and
dissimilarity disjoins (see above, n. 41–50).
428. As the world of spirits is an intermediate state between
heaven and hell with man, so it is an intermediate place with
the hells below and the heavens above. All the hells are shut
toward that world, being open only through holes and clefts
like those in rocks and through wide openings that are so
guarded that no one can come out except by permission, which
is granted in cases of urgent necessity (of which hereafter).