178 HEAVEN and HELL §322
enchanted, especially at the fact that the individual names and the indi-
vidual words referred to deeper realities. He was quite astonished that
modern scholars take no pleasure in this pursuit. I could sense very
clearly that the deeper levels of his thought or mind were open. He said
that he could not remain present because he felt something too holy for
him to bear, it affected him so deeply.
[ 3 ] Finally, our conversation turned to the Lord—on his birth as a
person here, but one conceived from God; on his putting off the mater-
nal human nature and putting on a divine human nature; and on his
being the One who rules the universe. He said that he knew a great deal
about the Lord that he grasped in his own way, and that there was no
other way the human race could have been saved. All this time, some evil
Christians were showering us with libels of various kinds; but he paid no
attention to them. He said it was not surprising. It was because during
their physical lives they had soaked up notions on these subjects that
were not fi tting, and that until these were ousted they could not let in
notions that supported [the truth] the way people who were simply igno-
rant could.323 I have also been allowed to talk with some others who lived in early
days and were among the wiser ones of their times. They fi rst appeared
in front of me at some distance, and from there they could observe the
deeper levels of my thinking. This meant they could observe me very
completely, learning a whole series of thoughts from just one of my men-
tal concepts and fi lling it with delightful elements of wisdom and charm-
ing images. I could tell from this that they were among the wiser ones;
and I was told that they were from early times. At this point they came
nearer, and when I read them something from the Word, they were
totally enchanted. I could sense their very delight and pleasure, which
stemmed especially from the fact that every least detail of what they were
hearing from the Word was an image and indicator of heavenly and spir-
itual things. They said that in their own day, when they were living in
our world, their mode of thinking and speaking and even writing was
like this, and that this was the focus of their wisdom.324 As for today’s non-Christians, they are not that wise; but many of
them are simple-hearted. However, in the other life they do accept wis-
dom from others who have lived lives of thoughtfulness together. I may
offer a couple of examples.
When I read chapters 17 and 18 of Judges about Micah (whose idol,
household gods, and Levite were stolen by the Danites), there was one
non-Christian spirit who had revered an idol during his physical life. He