# The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter29

XXIX.—The First State after Death.
The New Church believes and teaches that every individual enters the spiritual world precisely the same, in disposition and character, as he was when in this world. Physical death works no change of character. And as men in the flesh are not altogether in heaven nor altogether in hell, but in a state intermediate between the two, so immediately after death they are in a similar intermediate state, called "the world of spirits." And as society on earth is of a mixed character—the good and bad mingling together, because the internals of each one are covered over and hidden from the view of others—so is it also in "the world of spirits." So must it be, unless physical death works some change of character, which is alike unreasonable and unscriptural.
Some persons are so fully regenerated, or rise so completely out of the old into the new life, that they become fitted while on earth for the companionship of angels. They have thoroughly vanquished the life of self, and come into such close and blissful conjunction with the Lord, that they do not remain long in the intermediate state after death, but pass immediately into some kindred society in heaven. But there are very few of this class. Most people—even good people— ​do not become altogether fitted in this world for the society of angels. The ruling love may be right, yet the habits of thought, feeling and action—all the things of the outward life—have not yet been brought into perfect agreement with the spirit of heaven. Something of the old man still remains to be put off, before the life is altogether angelic. And among the unregenerate, few become so entirely depraved in this world as to be altogether devilish. Nearly all the wicked retain, while on earth, some good qualities—externally if not internally. Few are so thoroughly false and evil from centre to circumference, that they are fitted for the society of devils as soon as they enter the other world. So that the wicked—those who are internally such, yet have some external goodness appertaining to them—remain, for a greater or less time after death, in the intermediate state or world of spirits.
But the process by which the interiors are developed or uncovered, and the hidden things of one's life are made known, commences immediately after death, and proceeds with greater rapidity in the world of spirits than it does in this world. The change is comparatively like that which takes place with plants when removed from a cold to a tropical region, where they are brought under the more direct rays of the sun. And as the process goes on, whereby the interiors are laid open and ​the quality of each one's ruling love which is his life, is revealed, his real character—that which he was interiorly while he lived on earth—becomes more and more manifest. Until finally the externals of every one are put off, or brought into perfect agreement with his internals, and he appears and is outwardly just what he is inwardly.
This process, whereby each one's character or ruling love becomes fully dislosed, takes place in "the world of spirits," and is what is meant by "the judgment" that every one must undergo after death. When this is accomplished, the individual is prepared for his final abode—among the angels in heaven or the devils in hell, according as his real character is angelic or infernal. He then goes freely and willingly to the society of those whose ruling love is most akin to his own. For there, and only there, he finds a congenial home. His inner man (or "book of life") is opened, and out of, or according to, it he is judged.
And here, in this intermediate state or world of spirits, is where those who had been friends and acquaintances on earth, meet and recognize each other, and remain together as long as their society is mutually agreeable. As the character of every one is the same on his first entrance into the other world as it was before his decease, so his voice, manners and looks are the same as before; therefore he is readily recognized by those ​who had known him on earth. And if he desires to see any friend or relative who had died many years before, and who may have passed through the intermediate state to his final abode, his desire is gratified; his friend is remitted into the world of spirits, which means that he is let into a state similar to what he was in when on earth, and in that state he looks, speaks and acts precisely as he did before he died; and they are permitted to remain together as long as they desire. But if they are very different internally and spiritually, they will in a short time prefer to separate—each one going in freedom to the society of spirits most akin, and therefore most agreeable, to himself.