1990. About the condition of certain souls after death
The greater part, and almost all, do not know what the happiness of the blessed after death is, because it does not come to their perception. What inward and very inward blessedness and happiness is, is a matter entirely cloaked in ignorance. Only from bodily, sensual and worldly gladness and joy do they have any sense of it, so that what they do not know, they think to be nothing. Yet bodily and worldly joys are nothing, filthy, and productive of rottenness.
1990. CONCERNING THE STATE OF CERTAIN SOULS AFTER DEATH.
(The greater part of mankind, and indeed nearly all, are ignorant of what constitutes the happiness of the blessed after death, because they have no perception on the subject. Within their ignorance lies entirely concealed the nature of interior and inmost blessedness and felicity, so that it is only from corporeal delights and joys, from sensual and worldly things that they have any perception. Hence they regard the things of which they are ignorant as of no account, when yet corporeal and worldly joys are worthless, foul, putrescent, and the like.)
1990. De statu quarundam animarum post mortem
Plurima pars, et paene omnes, ignorant quae felicitas beatorum post mortem, quia nullam ejus perceptionem habent, quid beatitudo et felicitas interior et intimior prorsus in ignorantia latet; solum ex laetitiis et gaudiis corporeis, sensualibus et mundanis perceptionem habent, hinc quae ignorant, nihil esse putant, cum tamen gaudia corporea, et mundana sint nihili, spurci 1
, et similia, quae putrescere faciunt.
Footnotes:
1. sic Manuscript ut et Arcana Coelestia 540