Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 2479

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

2479. A certain newly arrived spirit was indignant that he did not remember many things which he knew in the life of the body, grieving on account of the delight which he had lost, and with which he had been very greatly pleased. But he was told that he had lost nothing at all, and that he knew everything he had known; but that in the other life it is not permitted to draw forth such things; and that it is sufficient that he is now able to think and speak much better and more perfectly, without immersing his rational as before in dense, obscure, material, and corporeal things which are of no use in the kingdom into which he has now come; and that the things which were in the kingdom of the world had been left behind; and that he now has whatever conduces to the use of eternal life; and that thus and not otherwise can he become blessed and happy; thus that it is a result of ignorance to believe that in the other life intelligence perishes with the disuse of the corporeal memory; when yet the case is that insofar as the mind can be withdrawn from sensuous or corporeal things, so far is it elevated to spiritual and heavenly things.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church