Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/39

 After the spiritual angels have given the use of light to the new spirit, they perform for him all the kind offices which he can ever desire in that state, and instruct him concerning the things of another life, so far as he is able to comprehend them. But if he is not willing to receive instruction, then he wishes to be separated from their company. But still the angels do not leave him, but he dissociates himself from them; for the angels love every one, and desire nothing more than to perform kind offices, to instruct, and lead to heaven. In this consists their chief delight.

When the spirit thus dissociates himself, he is received by good spirits who also render him all kind offices while he continues with them. But if his life in the world had been such that he could not endure the society of the good, he then wishes to leave them also; and these changes continue until at length he associates himself with spirits who are in perfect agreement with his life in the world. With them he finds his life; and, strange to say, he then leads a similar life to what he had led in the world.

But this commencing state of man's life after death continues only a few days. How he is afterward led from one state to another, and at last either into heaven or hell, will be told in what follows. This, too, I have learned from much experience.

I have conversed with some on the third day after their decease, when the process above described was