288. CONCERNING HEAVENLY JOY Today some of those who were about me, and spoke with me - both those who were known to me and those who were unknown - were taken up into the more interior heaven,* and from thence they told me by means of messengers, that their happiness was such that it could never be uttered by the mouth or perceived by the mind. It was also granted them from there to direct my hand as I was writing these things, so that the things related, and as it were, written, were theirs. But before they were taken up into the more interior heaven it seemed to me that a certain one who had not long since departed the life of the body, had to put off his outermost things, thus the natural which as yet adhered to him, and which can never be admitted into the more interior heaven. Those who are clothed with the natural can, however, by the mercy of God Messiah, live in the ultimate heaven and among the blessed, the state of whom may be seen related in various places above. Happiness does not consist in the same sort of representations as those which the eye sees, as in the more interior heaven, but of the kind the tongue can never utter, and which the mind in the body can never think. Thus Paul, who was caught up into the inmost or third heaven, had for the time being to be deprived both of the body and the natural mind, which is effected by the omnipotence of God Messiah. Some spirits supposed that they also were taken up thither, but because they had not put corporeal and natural things they were raised only towards the court of the more interior heaven, saying, that when they returned into their natural mind they would be unable to express the felicity, for the reason that the natural things of the mind, as it were, hide it from their eyes; because such natural things rule among spirits of the ultimate heaven no otherwise than as corporeal and sensual things are wont to rule in the life of the body. Certain spirits, moreover, who were unwilling to place credence in these things, were also now taken up towards the court of the more interior heaven, and they exclaimed aloud that they have never seen, nor can they imagine, anything more beautiful and lovely. 1747, Dec. 2. * This is referred to in the Index (s.v. Coelum) as "the Court of heaven".