Heaven and Hell (Harley) n. 465

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

465. A certain spirit was indignant because he was unable to remember many things that he knew in the life of the body, grieving over the lost pleasure which he had so much enjoyed, but he was told that he had lost nothing at all, that he knew each and everything that he had known, and that in the world where he now was no one was permitted to call forth such things from the memory, and that it is enough that he could now think and speak much better and more perfectly than before, and that his rational was not now immersed as before in gross, obscure, material and corporeal things, which are of no use in the kingdom into which he had now come; also that he now possessed everything conducive to the uses of eternal life, and that this is the only way of becoming blessed and happy. Therefore it is the part of ignorance to believe that in this kingdom intelligence perishes with the removal or quiescence of the material things in the memory; whereas the real fact is that, so far as the mind can be withdrawn from sensual things pertaining to the external man or the body, so far it is elevated to things spiritual and heavenly.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church