received permission to pass, came to that great interstice, they began
to cry out wildly that they were perishing, for they were like persons
struggling in the agony of death; wherefore they stopped on this side
of the chasm, and could not be conveyed any further; for the fiery
smoke which exhaled from the chasm attacked them, and tortured them in
this manner.

129. After I had been translated across that great chasm, I at length
reached a place where I stopped; and then some spirits appeared to me
above, and it was given me to speak with them. From their speech, and
from their peculiar manner of apperceiving things and explaining
them, I discerned clearly that they were from another earth; for they
differed altogether from the spirits of our solar system. They also
apperceived from my speech that I had come from a great distance.

130. After we had conversed for awhile on various subjects, I asked
them what God they worshipped. They said they worshipped some angel,
who appears to them as a Divine man, for he is resplendent with light;
and that he instructs them and enables them to apperceive what they
ought to do. They said further that they knew that the Most High God
is in the sun of the angelic heaven, and that He appears to their
angel and not to themselves; and that He is too great for them to dare
to adore Him. The angel whom they worshipped was an angelic society,
to which it has been given by the Lord to preside over them, and to
teach them the way of what is just and right; therefore they have
light from a certain flame, which appears like a little torch,
somewhat fiery and yellow. The reason of this originates in their not
adoring the Lord; therefore they do not receive light from the sun
of the angelic heaven, but from the angelic society; for an angelic
society, when permitted by the Lord, can exhibit such a light to