§294 heaven’s union with us 157
b. All freedom is a matter of love and affection, because what we love, we do freely: 2870 , 3158 ,
8907 [ 8987 ], 8990 , 9585 , 9591. Freedom is a matter of love, which is its life: 2873. Nothing seems
to be ours unless it comes from our freedom: 2880. We need to have some freedom in order to be
reformed: 1937 , 1947 , 2876 , 2881 , 3145 , 3146 , 3158 , 4031 , 8700. Otherwise, the love for what is good
and true could not be sown in us and given to us as though it were ours: 2877 , 2879 , 2880 , 2888
[ 2883 ], 8700. Nothing that is forced upon us is united to us: 2875 , 8700. If we could be reformed
by force, then everyone would be reformed: 2881. The use of force in reformation is harmful:
4031. The state of some people who had been compelled: 8392.
they do not talk with us. Then they do not know that we are the source
of what they are thinking—and what they are saying to each other, since
they talk to each other just the way we do—but believe that these matters
are their own. They value and love whatever is their own, so these spirits
are constrained to love and value us, even though they do not know it.
This kind of union has become so familiar to me through years of
constant experience as to be commonplace.
The reason spirits who are in touch with hell are attached to us as 293
well is that we are born into all kinds of evil, so that our fi rst life is made
up of nothing else. Unless spirits of the same kind were associated with
us, then, we could not live or be led out of our evils and reformed. So we
are kept in our own life by evil spirits and restrained from it by good
spirits. Through the two kinds, we are kept in a balance; and since we are
in a balance we enjoy an appropriate measure of freedom and can be led
out of our evils and turned toward good. This good can be sown in us as
well, which could never happen except in our freedom; and the freedom
could not be granted us unless spirits from hell were acting on the one
side and spirits from heaven on the other, with us in the middle.
I have been shown that to the extent that we exist from our heredi-
tary nature and from ourselves, we could have no life at all if we were not
allowed to engage in evil. We would also have no life if we were not in
some freedom, and we cannot be compelled to good: anything compelled
does not become part of us. I have also been shown that anything good
that we accept in freedom is sown in our intentions and becomes virtu-
ally our own.b This is why we have a communication with hell and a
communication with heaven.
I also need to describe the nature of the communication of heaven 294
with good spirits, the nature of the communication of hell with evil spir-
its, and the nature of the consequent union of heaven and hell with us.
All the spirits who are in the world of spirits are in communication with