[2] They replied in turn. The first said: 'From earliest childhood until the end of my life in the world my notion of heaven was that it was the place of every kind of blessedness, bliss, delight, beauty and pleasure. I thought that if I were admitted, such an aura of happiness would lap me round that I should drink it in and fill my heart with it, like a bridegroom at a wedding, and when he enters the nuptial chamber with his bride. With this notion I went up to heaven and passed the first set of guards, and also the second. But when I reached the third set of guards, their officer spoke to me. "Who are you, friend?" he said. "Isn't this heaven?" I answered. "I have come up here to satisfy my earnest desire, so please let me in." And he did so. There I saw angels in white clothes, and they walked round me and looked at me, and I heard them whispering: "Here is a new arrival who is not wearing the clothes of heaven." On hearing this I thought: "This sounds to me like the man whom the Lord spoke of as having gone to a wedding without a wedding garment." So I said: "Give me clothes like yours." But they only laughed. Then someone hurried up with orders from the court: "Strip him naked, throw him out and throw his clothes after him." And in that way I was thrown out.'

[3] The second to speak said: 'My belief was like his, that if I was admitted to heaven, which is above my head, I should be surrounded by joys so that I could breathe them in for ever. I too was granted my wish. But when the angels saw me, they ran away, saying to one another: "What is this monstrous happening? How has a night bird come here?" In fact I felt I was changed from a human being, though no change took place. This was the result of breathing the atmosphere of heaven. Soon someone hurried up with orders from the court, that two servants should take me out and escort me back down the path I had followed up, until I reached home. When I was back at home I seemed to others and to myself like a human being again.'

[4] 'I,' said the third, 'had always had a notion of heaven as a place, not as based on love. So when I came into this world, I had a great longing for heaven; and when I saw people going up, I followed them. I was allowed in, but not for more than a few paces. But when I wanted to cheer myself with my notion of the joys and blessedness there, the light of heaven, which was white as snow, and is said to be in essence wisdom, filled my mind with bewilderment, so that darkness covered my eyes and I began to go mad. Then the heat of heaven, which was as strong as the whiteness of its light, and is said to be in essence love, made my heart pound, filled me with anxiety, and so racked me with internal pain that I threw myself on my back upon the ground. As I lay there, an attendant came from the court with orders that they were to carry me gently down to my own light and heat. On reaching these my spirits recovered and my heart became normal.'

[5] The fourth said that he too had thought of heaven as a place and not as based on love. 'As soon as I came into the spiritual world,' he said, 'I asked the wise men whether one was allowed to go up to heaven. They told me that everyone is allowed, but they must take care they are not thrown out. I laughed at this and went up, believing as did others that all in the whole world could receive the joys there to the full. But in fact when I got inside, I nearly died, and the pain which racked my head and body made me cast myself upon the ground, and I writhed like a snake put close to a fire, creeping towards a precipice, over which I threw myself. Afterwards I was picked up by the bystanders below and carried to an inn, where I returned to normal.'

[6] The other five too had remarkable stories to tell about how they went up to heaven. They compared the changes in their condition of life with those of fish, when they are lifted out of water into the air, or of birds in the upper air. They said that after such rough treatment they had no further desire to go to heaven, but only to live in the company of people similar to themselves, wherever they are. They were aware, they said, that in the world of spirits, where they then were, all are first prepared, the good for heaven, and the wicked for hell. When they have been prepared, they see roads opened up leading to communities of people like themselves, in whose company they will remain for ever. They take these roads with pleasure, because they are the ways their love takes them. All those from the first group assembled, on hearing this, admitted that they too had no other notion of heaven than as a place, where they had only to open their mouths to drink in for ever the joys around them.

[7] After this the angel with the trumpet said to them: 'You can now see that the joys of heaven and everlasting happiness are not places, but are the conditions of a person's life. The conditions of life in heaven arise from love and wisdom; and because it is service which holds together love and wisdom, the conditions of life in heaven are due to their combination in service. It is the same if one speaks of charity, faith and good deeds, since charity is love, faith is the truth which leads to wisdom, and good deeds are services. There are, moreover, in our spiritual world places just as there are in the natural world, otherwise we should have nowhere to live or any separate dwellings. But position is there not in space, but is an appearance of space depending on one's condition with respect to love and wisdom, that is, to charity and faith.

[8] 'Everyone who becomes an angel carries within himself his own heaven, since he has a love for his own heaven. For man is by creation a small-scale effigy, image and model of the great heaven. The human form is nothing else. Therefore each person comes into the community in heaven of which he is formed as a particular effigy. When therefore he comes into that community, he enters a form corresponding to himself, so passing from himself to himself in it, and from it to it in himself. He absorbs its life as if it were his own, and his own as if it were its. Each community there is as it were something shared, and the angels there are like similar parts combining to create the community. It now follows from this that those who are in the grip of evils and so of falsities have formed in themselves an effigy of hell; and this in heaven is tortured by the inflow and violence of one thing working upon its opposite. For hellish love is the opposite of heavenly love, so that the pleasures of those two loves clash with one another like enemies, and kill each other when they come to grips.'