spondences of the qualities of his love and wisdom are found everywhere
in the physical world. In our world, called the spiritual world, there are
similar correspondences surrounding those who receive feelings and per-
ceptions from God. The difference is that in our world God creates
things of this kind in a moment to match the feelings of angels, while in
your world things like this were originally created in a similar way but
there was a provision for their perennial renewal from generation to gen-
eration; and so creation goes on.
[ 4 ] “The reason why there is instantaneous creation in our world
while in yours there is a creation that continues across generations is that
the atmospheres and soils in our world are spiritual while those in your
world are physical. Physical things were created to cover spiritual things
the way animal or human skin covers the body, inner and outer bark
cover tree trunks and branches, membranes and meninges cover brains,
sheaths cover nerves, coatings cover nerve fibers, and so on. For this rea-
son all things in your world have constancy and perennially return.”
Then the angel added, “Pass on what you have seen and heard here to
the inhabitants of your world. Until now they have been in total igno-
rance about the spiritual world. Yet without being notified of it no one
could even guess, let alone know, that in our world creation is still going
on and that when God first created the universe something very similar
to this happened in your world.”
[ 5 ] After that we talked about a number of different things, eventually
including hell. None of the things seen in heaven is seen in hell. Hell has
only their opposites, because the feelings of love there, which are yearnings
for evil, are opposite to the feelings of love the angels have. Around indi-
viduals in hell, and generally in the deserts there, there appear flying crea-
tures of the night such as bats, screech owls, and other owls. There are also
wolves, leopards, tigers, rats, and mice. There are poisonous snakes of all
kinds, as well as dragons and crocodiles. Where there is any vegetation,
brambles, stinging nettles, thorns, thistles, and certain poisonous plants
spring up. Alternately the vegetation disappears and you see only stones in
piles and swamps where frogs croak.
All the above are also correspondences, but correspondences to the
feelings of love in hell, which as I said before are yearnings for evil.
These things in hell are not created by God. Where things like this
exist in the physical world, they were not created by God either—all the
things that God created and creates were and are good. As hell came into
singke
(singke)
#1