6088. FOOD IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. They eat and drink there, just as in the natural world; but all food there is from a spiritual origin: wherefore, it is not obtained beforehand, but is given daily. When it is dinner-time, and also when it is supper-time, a table furnished with viands appears while the meal-time lasts, and disappears when they have dined, or supped. All spirits whatsoever, are supplied with food according to their employments - rulers sumptuously; with much pomp, the magnificence of which cannot be described; the rest less sumptuously according to their condition. Be it observed that everyone is provided with food according to the labors which he performs. He who has no employment, business and work, does not receive food, but begs. I have seen grandees thus begging, because they were unwilling to do any work; also, women of rank. - I have seen grandees who lived magnificently in the world, provided only with bread and milk; and, when they complained that there was nothing more, they were told that they do no work, and food is not given to the slothful and those who pass the time in idleness. By this means, they are reduced to the performance of some mean employment, in order to receive sustenance. - Moreover, they go to such as work, and by begging eat with them; but this does not last long. - Bread can be bought in the places where such ones are, but not every kind of food. The reason is, because certain ones wish to be paid for the labors which they do, and because, [if] they thus work, the wages can be spent in buying bread. - But there is no buying except with such as are good. - To those in such duties, bread comes gratuitously. Besides other like things. All in the hells are forced to work and those who do not work receive neither food, nor garments, nor bed. Thus are they driven into labors. The reason is, because idleness is the root of all wickedness; for, in idleness, the mind is spread out to various evils and falsities; but, in work, it is held to one thing. Food cannot be kept till the morrow: worms breed in it, as in the manna. This is signified in the Lord's prayer: "Give us daily bread," and also by the circumstance that nothing of the paschal lamb, nor of the sacrifices, was to be laid by till the morrow. Inasmuch as the food is from a spiritual origin, and so is in itself spiritual, and since spirits and angels are men, and are furnished with a spiritual body, therefore such spiritual nourishment is adequate for them. A spiritual being is, therefore, nourished in this spiritual manner, and a material man materially. As all things that appear in the spiritual world correspond to the affections, and to the thoughts of the understanding thence, their houses, garments, fields, gardens, paradises do so - all of which, likewise, are from a spiritual origin; and good affection, together with the thought of the understanding of truth, cannot exist in idleness, but is dispersed. Therefore, food does not exist otherwise than according to correspondences; and, moreover, the works of those who are in hell have correspondences with the heavens, but not the infernal spirits themselves; as was the case with the Israelitish and Jewish nation, who, although they were evil, yet their representative worship nevertheless corresponded - respecting which correspondence of those things, see in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem* no. [248] Their food was seen as manifestly as the like food in our world. The food is of every kind, and also of every variety of luxuriousness. There are also table decorations which cannot be described in natural language. * The full title of the work here referred to is, The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine. -TR.