Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 42
that is outside of him. This makes clear how greatly misled is
he who believes that to come into heaven is simply to be taken
up among angels, without regard to what one’s interior life
may be, thus that heaven is granted to each one by mercy apart
from means; 51
when, in fact, unless heaven is within one,
nothing of the heaven that is outside can flow in and be
received. There are many spirits who have this idea. Because of
this belief they have been taken up into heaven; but when they
came there, because their interior life was contrary to the
angelic life, their intellectual faculties began to be blinded until
they became like fools; and they began to be tortured in their
voluntary faculties until they became like madmen. In a word,
if those that have lived wickedly come into heaven they gasp
for breath and writhe about, like fishes out of water in the air,
or like animals in ether in an air pump when the air has been
exhausted. From this it can be seen that heaven is not outside
of a man, but within him. 52
55. As everyone receives the heaven that is outside of him in
accordance with the quality of the heaven that is within him,
so in like manner does everyone receive the Lord, since it is the
Divine of the Lord that makes heaven. And for this reason
when the Lord becomes manifestly present in any society his
appearance there is in accord with the quality of the good in
which the society is, thus not the same in one society as in
another. This diversity is not in the Lord; it is in the angels
who behold him from their own good, and thus in accordance
with their good. And they are affected by his appearance in
51. Heaven is not granted from mercy apart from means, but in
accordance with the life; yet everything of the life by which man is led to
heaven by the Lord belongs to mercy; this is what is meant by mercy (n.
5057, 10659). If heaven were granted from mercy apart from means it would
be granted to all (n. 2401).
About some evil spirits cast down from heaven who believed that heaven
was granted to everyone from mercy apart from means (n. 4226).
52. Heaven is in man (n. 3884).