is the seat of his own will and thought." These he rarely exhibits, if they are selfish. "For man is accustomed from childhood to make a show of friendship, benevolence and sincerity, and to conceal the thoughts springing from his will. He has consequently acquired the habit of living a moral and civil life outwardly, whatever he may be inwardly; and the effect of this habit is that man scarcely knows or thinks anything about his inner mind."
"The first state of man after death is like his state in the world, because his life is still external. He has therefore a similar face, speech and disposition, thus a similar moral and civil life; so that he thinks he is still in the world, unless he pays close attention to the experiences he meets with . . ."
He does not usually pay close attention. Swedenborg has explained that immediately after death there has been a little interlude in which angels try to do their best for the new arrival, but he generally leaves them as quickly as he can and forgets about them.
And he meets his friends and acquaintances from this world; they know each other because, all being in the first or external stage, they still look the same. "When anyone in the other life thinks of another, he thinks of his face, and at the same time of many of the facts connected with his life, and when he does this the other enters his presence as if he had been summoned. This is so in the spiritual world, because thoughts are there diffused around, and there is no space such as exists in the natural world."
But these and other little oddities soon become familiar to the new arrivals, and they cease to notice them, because, as Swedenborg says, they are from the order of things in the other life, and "that which happens according to order is like a familiar thing, which is not thought about." 16
There are many reunions in this stage, at least temporarily. "I have frequently," Swedenborg says, "heard those who have come from the world rejoicing at seeing their friends again . . . Very often a husband and wife meet and congratulate each other, and also remain together for a longer or shorter time, according to the delight they had felt in living together in the world. If true marriage love, which is a union of minds brought about by heavenly love, has not joined them together, they are separated after a while.
