# The Swedenborg Library Vol 2/Chapter 2

II.
HEAVEN AND HELL—WHENCE ARE THEY?
T is altogether unknown in the Christian world that heaven and hell are from the human race. For it is believed that angels were created from the beginning, and that this was the origin of heaven; and that the devil or satan was an angel of light; but because he became rebellious, was cast down with his crew; and that this was the origin of hell.
The angels wonder very much that such a belief should prevail in the Christian world; and still more that nothing whatever is known about heaven, when yet it is a primary point of doctrine in the church. And because such ignorance prevails, they rejoiced in heart that it has pleased the Lord at this time to reveal to mankind many things respecting heaven, and also respecting hell; and thereby to dispel, as far as possible, the darkness which is every day increasing, because the church has come to its end. Therefore they desire me to declare positively from their mouths, that there is not a single angel in the whole heaven who was originally created such, nor any devil in hell who was created an angel of light and cast down; but that all, both in heaven and hell, are from the human race; in ​heaven, those who lived in the world in heavenly love and faith; in hell, those who lived in infernal love and faith; and that hell in the whole complex is what is called the devil and satan.
The angels further said that the Christian world had conceived such an idea respecting the inhabitants of heaven and hell from certain passages of the Word, understood merely according to the sense of the letter and not illustrated by genuine doctrine from the Word; when yet the literal sense of the Word not illustrated by genuine doctrine, perplexes the mind in regard to many things,—whence come ignorance, heresies and errors.
Another reason why the man of the church so believes is, that he supposes no one can go to heaven or hell before the time of the last judgment, when—agreeable to the conception he has formed of that event—all visible things are to perish and new ones to be created, and the soul then to return into its body, and man again to live as a man by virtue of that reunion. This belief involves the other, that angels were created such from the beginning; for it cannot be believed that heaven and hell are from the human race, while it is imagined that no man can enter either until the end of the world.
That heaven is from the human race may be further evident from this, that angelic minds and human minds are similar. Both enjoy the faculty of understanding, perceiving and willing. Both are formed to receive ​heaven; for the human mind is capable of wisdom as well as the angelic mind; but it does not become so wise in the world, because it is in an earthly body, and in that the spiritual mind thinks naturally. But it is otherwise when released from its connection with that body. Then it no longer thinks naturally, but spiritually; and when it thinks spiritually, it thinks things incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man. Thus it becomes wise as an angel.
From these observations it may be seen that the internal of man, which is called his spirit is, in its essence, an angel; and when released from the earthly body it is in the human form the same as an angel. But when the internal of man is not open above but only beneath, then after its release from the body it is still in the human form, but hideous and diabolical; for it cannot look upward to heaven, but only downward to hell.