§479 our nature after death 281
d. A way, road, track, lane, or street means things that are true and that lead to something good,
as well as false things that lead to something evil: 627 , 2333 , 10422. To sweep a path is to prepare
to accept what is true: 3142. To make a path known, when it is said of the Lord, is to teach people
about the truths that lead to what is good: 10564.
someone else’s love, that individual looks complete, and we can see her or
his whole face, which is cheerful and lively. To the extent that we act and
talk against someone else’s dominant love, though, that individual’s face
begins to change, to dim, and to be hard to see. Eventually it disappears as
though it were not even there. I have often been amazed at this because this
kind of thing cannot happen in the world. However, I have been told that
the same thing happens to the spirit within us; when we turn our attention
away from other people, our spirit ceases to be perceived by theirs.
[ 5 ] I have also seen that our spirit is our dominant love from the fact
that every spirit seizes and claims whatever suits her or his love and rejects
and repels whatever does not suit it. Our love is like a spongy, porous
wood that absorbs whatever liquids prompt its growth, and repels others.
It is like animals of various kinds. They recognize their proper foods, seek
out the ones that suit their natures, and avoid the ones that disagree. Every
love actually wants to be nourished by what is appropriate to it—an evil
love by falsities and a good love by truths. I have occasionally been allowed
to see that some simple and good people wanted to teach evil people
things that were true and good. Faced with this teaching, though, the evil
people fl ed far away; and when they reached their own kind, they seized
on whatever falsities suited their love with great delight. I have also been
allowed to see good spirits talking with each other about truths, which
other good spirits in attendance listened to eagerly, while some evil ones
who were there paid no attention, as though they did not hear anything.
In the world of spirits you can see paths, some leading to heaven
and some leading to hell, each one leading to some specifi c community.
Good spirits travel only the paths that lead to heaven, and to the com-
munity engaged in doing the good that arises from their own particular
love. They do not see paths that lead anywhere else. On the other hand,
evil spirits travel only the paths that lead to hell and to the community
there that is engaged in the evil that arises from their own particular love.
They do not see paths that lead anywhere else; and if they do see them,
they still do not want to follow them.
Paths like this in the spiritual world are “real appearances” that cor-
respond to true and false [understandings]; so this is what “paths” in the
Word mean.d