We shall be better able to understand the reason and necessity of this intermediate state, if we consider how much of the external, which we exhibit to each other while in this world, is merely assumed for the sake of appearance. Now as we enter the spiritual world in the same state in which we leave this, it is evident that these assumed appearances must be got rid of, before we can be prepared to live among those who think, speak and act under the manifest influence of their ruling love, whatever it may be. The externals which are assumed in this world by the good and the evil, are often very similar to each other. When they enter the world of spirits, both often hope and expect to be received into heaven. But they both have false ideas of what heaven is. They are also both in a great measure ignorant of their own internal state and ruling love; and consequently they have false ideas of the heaven which they desire, or of what would be heaven in their estimation. But being freed from the external restraints of the body and of the natural world, they come more and more under the influence of their internal, ruling love, and of those spirits who are in a similar state. Thus they gradually learn what they are, and what they wish to become. Those who are internally unlike each other, and who have been united only on external grounds, are thus mutually prepared to be separated; while those who are internally alike are prepared to be associated together, without reference to the fact whether they have been previously on terms of personal acquaintance and equality, or not. For they have now come into a world where artificial and assumed distinctions no longer avail, and where all things are arranged according to internal realities."
A remark ought to be made in this connection in regard to that portion of the spiritual world which constitutes the immediate receptacle of the departed. In the language of the New Church, this is called "The World of Spirits," to distinguish it from heaven and hell, the former of which is inhabited by those who having become confirmed in the love of goodness and truth, are called angels, while the latter is the abode of those who being fully confirmed in evil and falsity are called devils or satans. In appearance the world of spirits is between heaven and hell. For the reader will have observed from the views presented in a former section,
