[2] Consequently he who is skilled in anatomy and also in physics may know by investigation that as regards their bodily and material forms, the organs both of sense and of motion, together with all the viscera, correspond to various things that exist in the nature of the world; and thus that the whole body is an organ composed of the most secret things in the nature of the world, and in accordance with their secret forces of acting and their wonderful modes of flowing. For this reason man was called by the ancients a little world or microcosm.

[3] He who knows this may also know that whatever exists in the world and its nature does not come forth from itself, but from what is prior to itself; and that this prior cannot come forth from itself, but from something prior to itself; and so on even to the First, from whom the things that follow come forth in order. And as they come forth from this, they also subsist from it; for subsistence is a perpetual coming forth. Hence it follows that all things in nature both in general and in particular, down to its last things, have not only come forth from the First, but also subsist from the First; for unless they were perpetually coming forth, and unless there were a continuous nexus, from the First, and thus with the First, they would fall to pieces and perish in an instant.

[2] Some of them had believed that after death men would he like ghosts, in which opinion they had confirmed themselves from the specters of which they had heard, but In regard to which they had imagined that such a specter must be some gross principle of life, which first exhales from the body‘s life, but afterwards sinks back again into the corpse, and is thus extinguished. Some however had believed that they would not rise again until the time of the last judgment when the world would be destroyed, and they would then rise again with the body, which, though fallen into dust, would then be gathered together, and they would thus rise again with their bones and flesh. And as that last judgment or destruction of the world had been waited for in vain for many centuries, they had fallen into the error that they would never rise again; never thinking of what they had learned from the Word, and from which they had also sometimes spoken, saying that when a man dies his soul is in the hand of God, among the happy or the unhappy according to the life which he had made habitual to himself; nor thinking of what the Lord said about the rich man and Lazarus. But they were instructed that the last judgment of everyone is when he dies; and that he then appears to himself endowed with a body as in the world, and enjoys as here every sense, only more pure and exquisite because bodily things no longer stand in the way, and the things of the light of the world no longer darken those of the light of heaven; thus that they are as it were in a purified body, and that In the other life one could not possibly carry about a body of bones and flesh such as he had in the world, because this would be to be again encompassed with the dust of the earth.

[3] I have spoken on this subject with some on the very day their bodies were being entombed, who saw through my eyes their own corpse, the bier, and the funeral ceremony; and they said that they reject that body, which had served them for uses in the world in which they had been, and that they are now living in a body which serves them for uses in the world in which they are now. They also desired me to tell these things to their relatives who were mourning; but it was given me to reply, that if I should do so they would scoff, because that which they could not see with their own eyes they would believe to be nothing, and would set down as delusive visions. For men cannot be brought to believe that just as they see one another with their eyes, so spirits see one another with theirs; and that a man can only see spirits with the eyes of his own spirit, and that he sees them when the Lord opens his internal sight, as was done to the prophets, who saw spirits and angels, and also many things in heaven; and there is room for doubt whether those now living would have believed these things if they had lived at that time.

[2] These paradisal regions are in the first heaven, in the very threshold to the interiors of that heaven, and are representatives which come down from a higher heaven, when the angels of that heaven are conversing with one another intellectually about the truths of faith; and this speech of the angels there is effected by means of spiritual and celestial ideas, which with them are verbal forms, and by a continuous series of representations of inexpressible beauty and pleasantness; and it is these beauties and pleasantnesses of their discourse which are represented as paradisal scenes in the lower heaven.

[3] This heaven is distinguished into many heavens, to which correspond the various things in the chambers of the eye. There is the heaven of paradisal gardens just described. There is a heaven where there are atmospheres of various colors, and where the whole air flashes as it were with gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, flowers in least forms, and innumerable other things. There is a rainbow heaven, where are the most beautiful rainbows, great and small, variegated with the most splendid colors. All these come forth by means of the light which is from the Lord, and which contains within it intelligence and wisdom, so that in every object there is something of the intelligence of truth and of the wisdom of good, which is thus shown representatively.

[2] Speaking with me from thence he said that he could never have believed it, and that if such things had been heard of In the world, they would have been regarded as marvels. He said further that he saw an immense abundance of flowers there which are never seen in the world, and of which it would be almost impossible there to form any idea; and that they all glow with an inconceivable brightness, because they are from the light of heaven. That the glow was from a spiritual origin, he was not yet able to perceive, that is, that they glowed because there was in each one of them something of the intelligence and wisdom which are of truth and good. He went on to say that men on earth would never believe this, because few believe there is any heaven and hell, and they who believe only know that in heaven there is joy, and few among them believe that there are such things as eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the mind has never conceived; and this although they know from the Word that amazing things were seen by the prophets, such as many things seen by John, as recorded in the Revelation, and yet these were nothing else than the representatives which are continually coming forth in heaven, and which appeared to John when his internal sight was opened.

[3] But these things are comparatively of little moment. They who are in the very intelligence and wisdom which are the source of these things, are in such a state of happiness that the things which have been related are to them of slight importance. Some spirits also who when in the paradisal regions said that these surpass every degree of happiness, were therefore carried up into a heaven more to the right, which sparkled with a still greater resplendence, and finally they were carried up into the heaven where there is also a perception of the blessedness of the intelligence and wisdom that exist in such things. And when they were there, they told me that what they had seen before was comparatively worthless. At last they were carried up into a heaven where on account of the bliss of interior affection, they could scarcely subsist, for the bliss penetrated to the very marrows, and these being as it were dissolved away with bliss, they began to fall into a holy swoon.