Page:The Other Life.djvu/145

 by spirits approaching one after another, to travel in appearance from place to place, from society to society, from heaven to heaven.

This organic law of the spirit renders credible the statement that Swedenborg was granted a survey of all parts of the spiritual world while still living in his natural body. His soul did not leave his body. His natural senses became quiescent; his natural mode of thought became dormant. His spiritual perceptions were opened; he entered into the sphere or states of the spirits or angels who approached him; and he saw around him the scenery or events which represented outwardly their spiritual lives. By having different spirits successively adjoined to him, his apparent external surroundings were successively changed, and he thus obtained that vast accumulation of spiritual experiences which will instruct and delight the coming generations of men.

To illustrate most forcibly this great law, that spiritual scenery, with all its objects, times and spaces, rises spontaneously about the unmoving spirit in correspondence with his successive changes of affection and thought; and also to show how the natural and spiritual worlds are connected; the spirit of Swedenborg, still resident in his natural