Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 358
47
Man after Death
Is in a Complete Human Form
453. It has already been shown in several previous chapters
that the form of the spirit of man is the human form, that is,
that the spirit is a man even in form, especially where it is
shown that every angel has a complete human form (n.
73–77); that in respect to his interiors every man is a spirit (n.
432–444); and that the angels in heaven are from the human
race (n. 311–317).
[2] This can be seen still more clearly from the fact that it is
by virtue of his spirit, and not by virtue of his body that man is
a man, and that the bodily form is added to the spirit in
accordance with the spirit’s form, and not the reverse, for it is
in accordance with its own form that the spirit is clothed with
a body. Consequently the spirit of man acts into every part of
the body, even the minutest, insomuch that if any part is not
actuated by the spirit, or the spirit is not active in it, it does not
live. Anyone can see that this is true from this fact alone, that
thought and will actuate all things and each thing of the body
with such entire command that everything concurs, and
anything that does not concur is not a part of the body, but is
cast out as something without life; and thought and will
belong, not to the body, but to the spirit of man.
[3] A spirit that has been loosed from the body or the spirit
in another man, is not visible in the human form to man,
because the body’s organ of sight, or its eye, so far as it sees in
the world, is a material organ, and what is material can see only