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

AFTERLIFE
they may never have seen each other before. This hap -
pens because the only relationships and kinships and
friendships in the other life are spiritual ones, and are
therefore matters of love and faith.
I have often been allowed to see this when I was in the
spirit and therefore out of body and in the company of
angels. Then some of them looked to me as though I had
known them from infancy, while others seemed totally
unfamiliar. The ones who looked as though I had known
them from infancy were the ones who were in a state like
that of my own spirit, while the unfamiliar ones were in
dissimilar states.
All the individuals who make up a particular angelic
community have a general facial resemblance, but differ
in detail. I could grasp this general similarity and partic -
ular difference to some extent on the basis of similar situa -
tions in this world. We know that every race has a general
simi larity about the face and eyes that enables us to recog -
nize it and distinguish it from other races, and that the
same is even more true from one family to another. This
holds true much more perfectly in the heavens, because
there all the deeper feelings are visible and shine forth
from the face, the face there being their outward and
graphic form. It is not possible in heaven to have a face
that differs from our feelings.
I have also been shown how this general similarity is
var ied in detail in the individuals of a single community.
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