Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/257

XVIII ] is another state. He fears "death." In a diary entry Swedenborg describes a discussion he had with spirits "of a middle character" on this subject. He told them (in the best Upsala University style) that "the better kind of spirits live a more interior life than souls recently deceased; the angels of the exterior heaven after having laid down the former life lead a still more interior life; and the angels of the interior heaven when they have laid down the former exterior life lead a still more interior life, of which the exterior angels can have no conception, but all the superior angels can." 17

The middle-character spirits tried to deny this, and Swedenborg could understand their attitude, for, he said in effect, if they were to lose the life they had at the time and come prematurely into another more advanced state, "they would not know what life it was." When he then asked them in plain language if they did not wish to become angels, they said yes they did want to become angels, but they did not want to lose their life. "When I replied that they would then receive a better life, they could not understand it."

"Heaven" consists of innumerable varieties of selflessness, as "hell" consists of the opposite. There is no personal "Devil." No schematic presentation of Swedenborg's ideas, however, is fair to him. What charms and astonishes the reader is the wealth of vivid detail "from experience" with which the stark generalities bloom. These are in all his books, though most frequent in the diaries, but none can be rightly appreciated unless his fundamental conceptions are studied with whatever light one can bring to them.

There is first of all that unit of the "new structural relationships" in the other world—the "society." This is the outcome of the great law Swedenborg sees as reigning throughout creation: like ultimately attracts like. Through its force evil punishes itself and goodness is truly its own reward. In "heaven" "those who are in spiritual relationships know each other at first sight, exactly as if they had been kinsfolk and relatives on earth. They are like intimates, although they have never seen each other before." 18 Elsewhere Swedenborg speaks of coming into his own society, where he observed that they were like acquaintances and friends of long standing. Man, he says, "after death receives many companions, friends and