443、在来世，人们能清楚感知到他活在肉身时对灵魂、灵和死后生活所持的观点；因为当他们被保持在似乎仍在肉体中的状态时，其想法与他们在肉体中时的很相似。这些想法会传达出来，并且清楚地就像把它们大声说出来一样。有一次，我发觉一个离世不久的人，如他自己所承认的，的确相信灵的存在，不过却认为死后，灵必定过着一种朦胧的生活。他如此认为的原因是，如果肉体生命退出，就只剩下模糊和朦胧。事实上，他认为生命在肉体中，因而认为灵是一种幻影。他因看到动物也拥有几乎和人类一样的生命而确认这种观念。然而，现在他惊奇地看到，灵人和天使住在最大的光，最大的聪明和智慧，以及幸福之中，伴随着完美到几乎无法形容的感知。因此，他们的生活非但一点也不阴暗，反而是明亮而又最为清晰可辨的。
New Century Edition
Cooper(2008,2013)
[NCE]443. Several Examples from Spirits of Opinions They Adopted during Their Physical Lives Concerning the Soul or Spirit
IN the other life it is easy to tell what opinions others held during bodily life concerning the soul, the spirit, and life after death. When people are kept in a state like the one they had in the body, they think the same way they did then, and their thinking is communicated as clearly as if they were talking out loud.
In the case of one spirit{*1} who had departed this world not long before, I perceived — and he admitted — that although he believed he would live on as a spirit, he expected to live a vague kind of life. His thinking, since he located life in the body, was that if physical life were withdrawn, only a vague something-or-other would remain. So his picture of the spirit was like that of a ghost. The observation that brute animals too had life, almost as people do, had confirmed him in his opinion. But now he was amazed to see that spirits and angels live in the greatest possible light and in the greatest possible intelligence, wisdom, and happiness, with such keen perception that it can hardly be described. Far from living a dim kind of life, he discovered, they live a clear and intensely vivid life.
Footnotes:
{*1} This person is identified as a man named Dippel in Swedenborg's Spiritual Experiences (Swedenborg 1998-2002) 3890, where the same story is told. This Dippel is almost certainly Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734), a physician and radical Pietist who wrote works critical of the Protestant clergy under the name "Christianus Democritus" (see Tafel 1877, 1138-1139). [LHC, SS]
Potts(1905-1910) 443
443. SOME EXAMPLES DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE WITH SPIRITS CONCERNING WHAT THEY HAD THOUGHT DURING THEIR LIFE IN THE BODY ABOUT THE SOUL OR SPIRIT. In the other life it is given to perceive clearly what opinions people had entertained while they lived in the body concerning the soul, the spirit, and the life after death; for when kept in a state resembling that of the body they think in the same way, and their thought is communicated as plainly as if they spoke aloud. In the case of one person, not long after his decease, I perceived (what he himself confessed) that he had indeed believed in the existence of the spirit, but had imagined that it must live after death an obscure kind of life, because if the life of the body were withdrawn there would remain nothing but what is dim and obscure; for he had regarded life as being in the body, and therefore he had thought of the spirit as being a phantom; and he had confirmed himself in this idea from seeing that brutes also have life, almost as men have it. He now marveled that spirits and angels live in the greatest light, and in the greatest intelligence, wisdom, and happiness, attended with a perception so perfect that it can scarcely be described; consequently that their life, so far from being obscure, is most perfectly clear and distinct.
Elliott(1983-1999) 443
443. SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT CERTAIN SPIRITS HAD THOUGHT DURING THEIR LIFETIME ABOUT THE SOUL OR SPIRIT In the next life one is enabled to have a clear perception of the opinions which people have held during their lifetime about the soul, about the spirit, and about life after death; for when they are kept in a state as though they were still in the body their thought is similar to what it had been in the body. And such thought is communicated just as plainly as if they uttered it aloud. On one occasion I perceived from someone who had departed the earthly life only a little while before that - as he himself admitted - he had indeed believed in the existence of the spirit, but that as a spirit he would be leading a shadowy existence. His reason far believing this was that if the life of the body were withdrawn nothing would be left apart from something shadowy. Indeed he focused life in the body; consequently his idea of the spirit was of a phantom. And he confirmed this idea in himself from seeing that animals also possessed life that was virtually the same as human beings. Now however he was amazed to see that spirits and angels dwelt in the greatest light, and in the greatest intelligence, wisdom, and happiness, accompanied by perception such as almost defied description. So their life is very far from being shadowy, but is bright and very clearly discernible.
Latin(1748-1756) 443
443. Exempla quaedam a Spiritibus, quid cogitaverint in vita corporis de Anima aut SpirituIn altera vita manifeste percipere datur quas opiniones habuerint, cum vixerunt in corpore, de anima, de spiritu, de vita post mortem; nam cum tenentur in statu quasi essent in corpore, tunc similiter cogitant, et cogitatio tam perspicue communicatur ac si aperte loquerentur. A quodam qui ante paucum tempus decesserat, percepi, quod etiam fassus, quod quidem crediderit spiritum, sed quod victurus vitam obscuram, ex causa, si abstraheretur vita corporis, quod remaneret obscurum quid; posuit enim in corpore vitam; quare habuit ideam de spiritu sicut de larva; seque confirmavit ex eo quod viderit bruta quoque vitam habere paene sicut homines; miratus nunc quod spiritus et angeli in summa luce vivant, in summa intelligentia, sapientia et felicitate, cum tali perceptione ut vix describi queat; ita minime in vita obscura sed in clara et distinctissima.