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

AFTERLIFE
There were people who had taken bribes and made
money from judicial decisions. They were similarly exam -
ined from their own memories, and everything was
recounted from their first taking office to the end. The
details of amount and value, of the time, and of their state
of mind and intention, all consigned to their remem -
brance together, were brought to view, a hundred or more
instances. In some cases, remarkably enough, the very
diaries in which they had recorded these deeds were
opened and read to them, page by page.
There were men who had lured virgins to dishonor and
violated their chastity. They were summoned to a similar
judgment, and the details were drawn out of their memory
and listed. The actual faces of the virgins and other
women were presented as though they were there in per -
son, along with the places, the words, and the thoughts. It
was done as instantaneously as when some thing is actu -
ally being witnessed firsthand. Sometimes these presenta -
tions lasted for hours.
There was one man who thought nothing of slandering
others. I heard his slanders recounted in sequence as well
as his blasphemies, along with the actual words, the peo -
ple they were about, and the people they were addressed
to. All these were presented together as lifelike as could be
even though he had very carefully kept them hidden from
his victims while he was living in the world.
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