heaven of the Omnipotent God consists only of the spirits and angels
who come from one earth, when these are so few that, relatively to the
Omnipotence of God, they are scarcely anything, and this would be the
case even if there were myriads of systems with myriads of earths.
They said, moreover, that they knew of the existence of earths in the
universe exceeding in number some hundreds of thousands; and yet what
is this to the Divine, who is Infinite!

27. The spirits of Mercury, when they were with me while I was writing
and explaining the Word as to its internal sense, and who perceived
what I was writing, said that the things which I wrote were very
gross, and that almost all the expressions appeared as material. But
it was given to reply, that the men of our Earth nevertheless look
upon the things that have been written, as subtle and elevated, and
that many things they do not understand. I added, that very many on
this Earth do not know that it is the internal man that acts on the
external, and causes it to live, and that from the fallacies of the
senses they persuade themselves that the body has a life of its own,
and that in consequence the evil and unbelieving are in doubt as to a
life after death. Also, that that in man which is to live after death
they do not call the spirit but the soul; and that they dispute about
what the soul is and where its abode is, and believe that the material
body, although dispersed to all the winds, must be again conjoined to
it, in order that man may live as a man; besides many other things of
the same kind. When the spirits of Mercury heard these things, they
asked whether such men could become angels. To this it was given to
answer that those who have lived in the good of faith and charity
become angels, and that then they are no longer in external and
material things, but in internal and spiritual things; and that when
they come into this state, they are in a light superior to that in