25. After his life in the world everyone lives for ever. This is evident from the fact that he is then no longer natural but spiritual; and a spiritual person once separated from the natural stays in the same state for ever, since a person's state cannot change after death. Moreover every person's spiritual side is linked with the Divine, since it can think about and also love the Divine, and be acted upon by all the influences coming from the Divine, much as the church teaches. The spiritual side can as a result be linked to the Divine by willing and thinking, the two faculties of the spiritual man which make up his life. Thus a link can be made with the Divine which can never die, for the Divine is present with him and links him to Itself. [2] Man has also been created so as mentally to be a model of heaven. The form of heaven derives from the Divine itself, as was shown in HEAVEN AND HELL (The Lord's Divine makes and forms heaven, HH 7-12, 78-86); man was created so as to be a model of heaven on the smallest scale (HH 57); heaven taken all together resembles a single human being (HH 59-66). Hence an angel has a perfect human form (HH 73-77). An angel is a human being in his spiritual aspect. [3] I have had a number of conversations with angels on this subject. They were extremely surprised that there are very many among those reputed intelligent in the Christian world, and believed to be intelligent by other people, who have totally rejected any idea that their life is not subject to death, but believe that the soul of a human being is dispersed after death like that of an animal. They fail to perceive the difference in the way human beings and animals live. Human beings have thoughts that can rise above themselves, and they can think about God, heaven, love, faith, spiritual and moral good, truths and such matters, thus rising to the Divine itself, and being linked to Him by all these means. Animals, however, cannot rise above their natural level so as to entertain such thoughts. As a result their spiritual side cannot be separated from their natural after death,# and live on by itself as a human being's can. That too is the reason why an animal's life* is dispersed together with its natural life. [4] The angels said that the reason why many so-called intelligent people in the Christian world do not believe their life is immortal is that at heart they deny the existence of the Divine and acknowledge Nature in His place. Those who think from such premises cannot imagine how they can live for ever by being linked with the Divine, and consequently that the condition of human beings is any different from that of animals; for when they banish the idea of the Divine from their thoughts, they also banish that of eternity. [5] They went on to say that every individual has a highest or most inward degree of life, something highest and inmost on which the Lord's Divinity primarily and most closely acts, and from which He controls the remaining interiors belonging to the spiritual and natural man and arranged in ordered sequence in them. They called this highest or most inward part the Lord's entrance into man and His truest abode with man. It is this highest or most inward part which gives man his humanity and sets him apart from dumb animals, which lack it. This is why men can, unlike animals, have their interiors, which belong to their minds and characters, raised by the Lord to Himself. Thus they can believe in Him, feel love for Him, and receive intelligence and wisdom and speak rationally.

[7] Because after death everyone lives for ever, no angel or spirit can think about death; in fact, they do not know what it is to die. Whenever therefore death is mentioned in the Word, the angels understand it as damnation, which is death in the spiritual sense, or the continuation of life and resurrection.## These remarks are intended as confirmation that all people who have ever been born from the beginning of creation, and have died, are alive, some in heaven and some in hell. # The spiritual world exercises an influence on the life of animals too, but this is generalised, not a specific one as in the case of human beings (AC 1633, 3646). The difference between human beings and animals is that human beings can be raised above their own level to the Lord, so as to think about and love the Divine, and thus be linked with the Lord, which confers everlasting life. Animals differ in not being able to be so raised up (AC 4525, 6323, 9231). ## When death is mentioned in the Word, it is understood in heaven as meaning the damnation of the wicked; this is spiritual death and also hell (AC 5407 6119, 9008). Those who possess different kinds of good and truth are called alive, those who possess different kinds of evil and falsity are called dead (AC 81, 290, 7494). When good people are dying, death is understood in heaven as resurrection and the continuation of life, since a person then rises again, continues his life and enters upon everlasting life (AC 3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6222). * [Perhaps we should read 'soul' for 'life' here.]