How the Spiritual World is Like the Internet

Swedenborg and Life

How does the spiritual world work? Is there anything like it in the physical world? Join us as we discuss Swedenborg's accounts of his spiritual experiences and what he learned through them.

This is an audio-only version of video-based show, and the podcast may contain references to visuals from the original episode. Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdV8rxVHT2o

Donate here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ZADSY8EZ62QLU

Watch "Spirit Tunes" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFRRsxtWNUM

Divine Providence: http://www.swedenborg.com/product/divine-providence-nce/

True Christianity: http://www.swedenborg.com/product/true-christianity-1-nce/

Secrets of Heaven: http://www.swedenborg.com/product/secrets-heaven-1-nce/

Heaven and Hell: http://www.swedenborg.com/product/heaven-hell-nce/

“In the spiritual world, all union takes place by means of attentiveness. When anyone there is thinking about someone else because of a desire to talk with her or him, that other person is immediately present. They see each other face to face. The same thing happens when someone is thinking about someone else because of a loving affection, but in this case the result is a union, while in the former case it is only presence. This phenomenon is unique to the spiritual world. The reason is that everyone there is spiritual. It is different in the physical world, where all of us are material. In this physical world, the same thing is happening in the feelings and thoughts of our spirits, but since there is space in this world, while in the spiritual world there only seems to be space, the things that happen in the thoughts of our spirits come out in actions there.” Divine Providence 29

“Angels can recognize the nature of our unique essence on the basis of nothing more than a brief conversation with us. From hearing the tone of our voice angels sense what we love; and from hearing what we say, angels sense our level of understanding.” True Christianity 778

“Because individual thoughts contain so much, just a single word produced by thought reveals to angels what a spirit or a person is like. This too was confirmed by experience. When the mere word truth was spoken (which was done by a large number of spirits one after another), I could instantly hear whether the word was hard, rough, soft, childlike, treasured, innocent, full, empty, unsound, insincere, closed, or open, and to what extent. In short, the actual quality of the underlying thought was audible. And this was only at a general level. What about at the level of detail that angels perceive?” Secrets of Heaven 6623

“When we are being faced with our deeds after death, angels who have been given the task of examining look searchingly into the face and continue their examination through the whole body, beginning with the fingers first of one hand and then of the other and continuing through the whole. When I wondered why this was so, it was explained to me. The reason is that just as the details of our thought and intention are inscribed on our brains because that is where their beginnings are, so they are inscribed on the whole body as well, since all the elements of our thought and intention move out into the body from their beginnings and take definition there in their outmost forms...” Heaven and Hell 463

“Truth is the form of good, that is to say, when good is formed so as to be perceived intellectually.” Secrets of Heaven 3409

“We may gather how great angels' wisdom is from the fact that in heaven there is a communication that involves everyone. The intelligence and wisdom of one individual is shared with another: heaven is where everyone shares everything of value. This is because the very nature of heavenly love is to want what is one's own to belong to another; so no one in heaven regards his or her good as authentically good unless it is someone else's as well. This is also the basis of heaven's happiness. Angels are led into it by the Lord, whose divine love has this same quality. I have also been granted knowledge, by experience, of this kind of communication in the heavens. Once some simple people were taken up into heaven, and after they had arrived, they arrived also at an angelic wisdom. They understood things they could not grasp before and said things they could not express in their former state.” Heaven and Hell 268