71. It is a common event in that world for spirits to talk with its inhabitants, teaching them, and chastising them if they have misbehaved. Since I was told a great deal about this by their angels, I should like to report these experiences in order. The reason why spirits talk with people there is that they spend a lot of time thinking about heaven and life after death, and are relatively little concerned about life in the world. They know they will go on living when they die, and that the happiness of their state then depends upon the state of their internal man, which was formed in the world. Talking with spirits and angels was also a common event in this world in ancient times for the same reason: they thought much about heaven and little about the world. But in course of time that direct communication with heaven was cut off, as man became external instead of internal, or, which is the same thing, he began to think much about the world and little about heaven. This was even more the case when he no longer believed in the existence of heaven and hell, or in his possession of a personal spirit to live on after death. For at the present time the body is believed to have a life of its own instead of one coming from its spirit. If people therefore did not now have a belief in resurrection with a body, they would have no belief in resurrection at all.