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STATES AFTER DEATH

HE third state of a man after death is a state of instruction. This is a state in the experience of those who enter heaven and become angels.

Instruction in heaven differs from instruction on earth, in that knowledge is not committed to memory, but to life; for the memory of spirits is in their life, inasmuch as they receive and become imbued with everything that agrees with their life, and they do not receive, still less do they become imbued with, anything that disagrees with it; for spirits are affections, and are in a human form like their affections. Being such, they have inspired in them continually an affection for truth for the sake of the uses of life; for the Lord provides that every one may love the uses which suit his genius, a love that is exalted, too, by the hope of becoming an angel With every one, therefore, the affection of truth is united to the affection of use, so fully that they act as one. Thereby truth is planted in service, so much so that the truths which angelic spirits learn, are truths of use. Thus are they instructed and prepared for heaven. —Heaven and Hell, nn. 512, 517