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

AFTERLIFE
thoughtfulness that can be led only in the world, so they
could not associate with angels. The life of angels is
cheerful and blessed. It consists of worthwhile activities
that are deeds of thoughtfulness. Particularly, people who
have led a life withdrawn from worldly concerns are
aflame with a sense of their own worth and constantly
crave heaven. They think of heavenly joy as their reward,
with no knowledge whatever of what heavenly joy actu -
ally is. When they are with angels and are let into that
joy—which has no sense of merit and consists of activities
and public duties and in bliss at the good that is accom -
plished through them—they are as bewildered as though
they were seeing something totally alien to their faith.
Since they are not open to these joys, they move off and
associate with people who have led the same kind of life
in the world.
There are other people who have lived outwardly devo -
tional lives, constantly in churches and at prayer there.
They have mortified their souls while constantly thinking
about themselves, how they are worthier and more
estimable than others and will be regarded as saints after
their death. They are not in heaven in the other life
because they have done all this with themselves first in
mind. Since they have polluted divine truths by the selflove
they immersed them in, some of them are so deranged
that they think they are gods. So they are with similar
people in hell. Some of them are ingenious and crafty and
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