§469 we leave only the body behind 273
and loving them because of a concern for bodily welfare is loving them
for the sake of oneself, one’s repute, prestige, or profi t. Consequently, to
the extent that we love these truths out of a concern for bodily welfare,
we do not become rational because we do not love them; we love our-
selves, and the truths serve us the way slaves serve their master. When
truths become slaves, they do not become part of us or open any level of
our life, not even the fi rst. Rather, they stay in our memory like informa-
tion in material form and unite with love for ourselves there, which is a
love focused on our physical welfare.
[ 3 ] We may gather from this how we become rational, namely, that
at the third level it is through a spiritual love of what is good and true in
regard to heaven and the church; at the second level it is through a love
of what is honest and upright; and on the fi rst level it is through a love of
what is fair and equitable. The latter two loves also become spiritual from
a spiritual love of what is good and true that fl ows into them and unites
itself to them and forms its own face in them, so to speak.
Spirits and angels have memory just as we do. What they hear and see 469
and think and intend and do stays with them; and through their memory
they are constantly developing their rational ability forever. This is why
spirits and angels are being perfected in intelligence and wisdom through
experiences of what is true and good just the way we are.
The fact that spirits and angels have memory has been shown me
by a great deal of experience as well. I have seen everything they had
thought and done, both in public and in private, called up from their
memory when they were with other spirits. I have also seen people who,
because of a simple goodness in themselves, had been focused on some
truth; and once they have been fi lled with insights, and with the intel-
ligence that develops from those insights, they are taken up into heaven.
It should be realized, though, that they are not steeped in insights
and a consequent intelligence beyond the level of the affection for what
is good and true that engaged them in the world. In fact, each spirit
and angel retains the amount and kind of affection she or he had in the
world, and this is afterward perfected by being fi lled in. This too goes on
forever, since everything is capable of infi nite variation and enrichment
by different means, so it can be multiplied and can bear fruit. There is no
end to any instance of goodness, since its source is the Infi nite.
The fact that spirits and angels are constantly being perfected in
intelligence and wisdom by means of insights into what is true and good
has been presented in the chapters on the wisdom of heaven’s angels