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

AFTERLIFE
from distortions of religion or befouled their spiritual life
with impurities drawn from rank and wealth in the world.
Most people who have died as adults are taught by
angels of the outmost heaven because these angels are
better adapted to them than are angels of the more inward
heavens. These latter focus on a deeper wisdom that the
deceased cannot yet accept.
Muslims, though, are taught by angels who once
adhered to that religion but have turned to Christianity.
Other non-Christians too are taught by their own angels.
All the teaching there is from doctrine drawn from the
Word, and not from the Word apart from doctrine. Chris -
tians are taught on the basis of a heavenly doctrine that is
in complete agreement with the inner meaning of the
Word. The others, like the Muslims and non-Christians,
are taught on the basis of doctrines suited to their grasp.
These differ from heavenly doctrine only in that spiritual
life is taught through a moral life in accord with the good
tenets of their own religion, which was the basis of their
life in the world.
Teaching in the heavens differs from teaching on earth
in that [there] information is not consigned to memory
but to life, since spirits’ memory is in their life. They actu -
ally accept and absorb whatever agrees with their life and
do not accept, much less absorb, what does not agree. This
is because spirits are affections, and therefore have a
human form that resembles their affections.
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