Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its Wonders - Swedenborg ...

Hell
after death when their spirits would come into their own
and display their own nature.
The kind of malice that surfaces then defies all belief.
There are thousands of things that burst forth from the
evil itself then, including some that are beyond the words
of any language to describe. I have been allowed to learn
and even to observe what they are like by many expe -
riences because the Lord has granted me to be in the spir -
itual world as to my spirit while I was in the natural world
as to my body. This I can testify: their malice is so great
that scarcely a thousandth part of it can be described. Fur -
ther, if the Lord did not protect us we would never be able
to escape from hell; for with each of us there are both
spirits from hell and angels from heaven. Further, the Lord
cannot protect us unless we acknowledge the Divine and
live faithful, thoughtful lives. Otherwise, we are turning
away from the Lord and toward hellish spirits and are
therefore in spirit absorbing the same kind of malice. Still,
the Lord is constantly leading us away from the evils that
we assimilate and attract by associating with these spirits,
leading us if not by the inner restraints of conscience
(which we do not accept if we deny the Divine), then by
the outer restraints already listed, the fears of the laws and
their penalties, of the loss of money and the forfeiture of
rank and reputation. People like this can be led away from
evils through the delights of their love and the fear of
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