§456 after death we are human 261
c. Desecration is the mingling of the good and the evil and of the true and the false within us:
6348. The only people who can desecrate what is true and good, or the holy things of the Word
and the church, are people who have fi rst acknowledged them, all the more if they have lived by
them, and later fall away from their faith, deny them, and live for themselves and the world: 593 ,
1008 , 1010 , 1059 , 3398 , 3399 , 3898 , 4289 , 4601 , 10284 , 10287. If we fall back into prior evils after
heartfelt repentance, we commit desecration; and then our later state is worse than our former
one: 8394. People cannot desecrate holy things if they have not acknowledged them, and still less
if they have not even known about them: 1008 , 1010 , 1059 , 9188 , 10284. Non-Christians who are
outside the church and do not have the Word are incapable of desecration: 1327 , 1328 , 2051 , 2081.
This is why deeper truths were not disclosed to the Jews, because if they had been disclosed and
acknowledged, they would have desecrated them: 3398 , 3489 [ 3479 ], 6963. The fate of desecrators
in the other life is the worst of all because the good and truth they acknowledged is still there and
so is what is evil and false; and since these coexist, there is a wrenching of their very life: 571 , 582 ,
6348. So the Lord takes the greatest care to prevent desecration: 2426 , 10384.
just as human as ever, that they are seeing and hearing and talking, that
their bodies are still endowed with the sense of touch, and that nothing
at all has changed (see § 74 above). Once they get over their amazement,
though, then they are amazed that the church does not know anything
about this state of ours after death and therefore does not know any-
thing about heaven or hell, even though all the people who have lived in
this world are in the other life and are living people. Since they do keep
wondering why this has not been made plain to people on earth through
visions, inasmuch as it is essential to the faith of the church, they have
been told from heaven that such visions could happen whenever it pleased
the Lord—nothing could be easier. However, people would not believe
even if they were to see, because they have convinced themselves of the
opposing false notions. Further, it is dangerous to use visions to convince
people of anything if they are immersed in false opinions, because they
will believe at fi rst and then deny. In this way they will desecrate the truth
itself, since desecration is believing and then denying. People who des-
ecrate truths are forced down into the lowest and direst hell of all.c
[ 4 ] This is the danger meant by the Lord’s words “He has blinded
their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they would not see with their
eyes and understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them”
(John 12 : 40 ); and the fact that people immersed in false opinions still
would not believe is meant when it says, “Abraham said to the rich man
in hell, They have Moses and the prophets, let them heed them. But he
said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead were to come to
them, they would change. But Abraham said, If they do not heed Moses
and the prophets, then even if someone were raised from the dead, they
would not believe” (Luke 16 : 29 – 31 ).