Emanuel Swedenborg's Spiritual Diary Vol. 1, Recounting Spiritual Experiences During the Years 1745 to 1765

Volume 1 of 4. After one has read from the pages of this 20-year journal of a respected scientist and statesman in which he recorded his spiritual experiences of seeing and speaking with those who have passed on to the other world, how could one doubt that there is a life after death? These almost daily otherworldly experiences began in 1745 when God, the Lord Himself, opened Swedenborg's spiritual senses so that he might communicate with those in the spiritual world and thus serve as a human instrument of a new Divine revelation to mankind. Regarding this Swedenborg wrote on August 23, 1748: "All the things that I have written in this book have not been written in any other way than from actual experience, from conversation with spirits and angels, from thought as tacit speech, then, when I was writing, from things imparted by those who for the most part were together with me at the time while they were being experienced, and from their guidance of my thoughts, of the things written, of my hand. So everything written in these three books and elsewhere, though here and there disconnected, are nevertheless experiences, and everything in its own way came from spirits, or angels-this likewise having been guided by spirits next to my head. For I have in every case perceived their presence." Swedenborg's experiences are rationally convincing evidence that the other world, the life after death that awaits us all, is very, very real. Swedenborg tells of meeting well-known acquaintances of his who had passed on-not a few of whom were amazed that they are still fully alive and fully human although they had left this earthly world! And he describes what living conditions are like in heaven and hell, and relates incidents which lucidly illustrate the consequences of faithless, evil behavior, such as adultery, and the peaceful happiness that follows a sincere pursuit of heavenly goodness.