Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 437
they turned to the life of their love they rejected them, and
even spoke against them. Others were unwilling to hear them,
and at once rejected them. Others wished to have the life of
love that they had contracted from the world taken away from
them, and to have the angelic life, or the life of heaven, infused
in its place. This, too, was permitted to be done; but as soon as
the life of their love was taken away they lay as if dead, with
their powers gone. By these and other experiments the simple
good were taught that no one’s life can by any means be
changed after death; and that an evil life can in no way be
converted into a good life, or an infernal life into an angelic
life, for every spirit from head to heel is such as his love is, and
therefore such as his life is; and to convert his life into its
opposite is to destroy the spirit completely. The angels declare
that it would be easier to change a night owl into a dove, or a
horned owl into a bird of paradise, than to change an infernal
spirit into an angel of heaven. That man after death continues
to be such as his life had been in the world can be seen above
in its own chapter (n. 470–484). From all this it is evident that
no one can be received into heaven from mercy apart from
means.