258 HEAVEN and HELL §453
a. In us all the elements of the divine design are gathered together, and by virtue of creation we
are the divine design in form: 4219 , 4220 [ 4222 ], 4223 , 4523 , 4524 , 5114 , 5368 [ 4839 ], 6013 , 6057 ,
6605 , 6626 , 9706 , 10156 , 10472. To the extent that we live according to the divine design, in the
other life we look like complete and lovely people: 4839 , 6605 , 6626.After Death, We Are in a Complete Human Form
453
THE fact that the form of a spirit-person is the human form or that
a spirit is a person as far as form is concerned follows from what
has been presented in a number of the earlier chapters, especially where
I explained that every angel is in a perfect human form (§§ 73 – 77 ), that
everyone is a spirit inwardly (§§ 432 – 444 ), and that the angels in heaven
are from the human race (§§ 311 – 317 ).
[ 2 ] This may be grasped even more clearly from the fact that we are
human because of our spirit, not because of our body, and because our
physical form is appended to the spirit in keeping with its form, not the
other way around, since a spirit is clothed with a body that suits its form.
As a result, the human spirit acts upon the individual parts of the body,
even the smallest ones, even to the point that any part that is not acti-
vated by the spirit, any part in which there is no spirit acting, is not alive.
Anyone may realize this by considering that thought and intent activate
absolutely everything in the body and are so completely in control that
nothing dissents, and that if anything does not consent it is not part of
the body. It is actually expelled as something with no life in it. Thought
and intent are attributes of our spirit, not of the body.
[ 3 ] The reason we cannot see the human form of spirits who have
left the body and spirits still within the people we meet is that our physi-
cal organ of sight, the eye, is material to the extent that it can see in this
world, and what is material sees only what is material. What is spiritual,
though, does see what is spiritual; so when the material eye is covered
over and loses its coordination with the spirit, then spirits are visible in
their own form, which is human. And it is a human form not only for
spirits who are in the spiritual world but also for spirits in people we
meet while they are still in their bodies.454 The reason the form of a spirit is a human one is that in regard to our
spirits we have been created in the form of heaven, since all the elements of
heaven and its design are summed up in the elements of the human mind.a