What the World of Spirits Is
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T
HE world of spirits is neither heaven nor hell but a place or state
between the two. It is where we fi rst arrive after death, being in duetime either raised into heaven or cast into hell from it depending on our
life in this world.
The world of spirits is a place halfway between heaven and hell, and 422
it is also our own halfway state after death. I have been shown that it is a
halfway place by seeing that the hells were underneath it and the heavens
above it, and that it is a halfway state by learning that as long as we are in
it, we are not yet in either heaven or hell.
A state of heaven for us is the union of what is good and true within
us, and a state of hell is a union of what is evil and false within us. When
the good in a spirit-person is united to the true, then that individual
arrives in heaven, because as already stated that union is heaven within
us. On the other hand, when the evil is united to the false within us, then
we arrive in hell, because that union is hell within us. The process of
union takes place in the world of spirits because then we are in a halfway
state. It amounts to the same thing whether you say the union of intellect
and will or the union of the true and the good.
First I need to say something about the union of intellect and will and 423
its resemblance to the union of the good and the true, because this union
does take place in the world of spirits. Each of us has an intellect and a
will, the intellect being open to truths and formed from them and the will
being open to things that are good and formed from them. So whatever
we understand and therefore think, we call true; and whatever we intend
and therefore think, we call good. We are capable of thinking from our
intellect and thus observing what is true and also what is good, but we still
do not think from our will unless we intend and do it. When we intend
it and do it intentionally, then it is in both our intellect and our will and
therefore in us. This is because the intellect alone is not what makes a per-
son, nor the will alone, but the intellect and the will together. This means
that anything that is in both intellect and will is in us and is therefore
attributed to us. Whatever is only in the intellect is associated with us but
is not in us. It is only a matter of our memory, an item of information in
our memory that we can think about when we are not in private but are
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