Heaven and Hell is the best known and most popular of Swedenborg’s books. Published in 1758 as De Coelo et Ejus Mirabilibus, et de Inferno, ex Auditis et Visis (Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell: Drawn from Things Heard and Seen), the work describes Swedenborg’s view of the spiritual realms and their inhabitants.
In Swedenborg’s cosmology, the physical world that we live in is surrounded by the world of spirits, an intermediate realm between heaven and hell. When our physical bodies die, angels help our souls transition into the world of spirits, where we undergo a process of instruction and review of our lives. During this time, our true inner natures are gradually revealed. If we have done good works out of a genuine love of service and desire to help others, we are drawn toward heaven; if we are inherently selfish and enjoy causing pain and suffering, we are pulled toward hell. But the Lord does not judge or condemn people, Swedenborg emphasizes; people find their true home based on what they love most. A person who ends up in hell will find it more pleasant and comfortable than heaven. In a departure from the commonly held beliefs of his time, Swedenborg asserts that people of all faiths can be accepted into heaven, and that even unbaptized children will go there after death. Children, he writes, have a special place in heaven, where they grow to adulthood under the care of angels.
One unusual feature of Swedenborg’s theology is that spiritual worlds are populated entirely by human beings—from the highest heaven to the deepest hell, there are no angels or demons who were not once living as people in the physical world. These spirits maintain their human form after death, although that form is affected by their inner nature. People who are good will become more beautiful in heaven. The evil will grow ugly and deformed, particularly when seen in the light of heaven, although to other evil spirits they will look normal, even attractive.
Life in heaven may seem remarkably similar to life on earth. Angels wear clothes, have houses and jobs, and fall in love and get married. However, Swedenborg also describes some significant differences between this world and the next. For example, travel between two places is instantaneous, and people can communicate with each other simply by thinking.
Much of the material for Heaven and Hell was drawn from the first theological work Swedenborg published, Secrets of Heaven. Issued in eight quarto volumes between 1749 and 1756, Secrets of Heaven was Swedenborg’s first published attempt to put the information gleaned from his visions into writing. Though the work is primarily an exposition on the inner meaning of Genesis and Exodus, interspersed with the commentary are descriptions of Swedenborg’s experiences in the spiritual realms and the things he learned there. However, the length of Secrets of Heaven, combined with the heavy biblical exegesis, daunted many readers in his day. Heaven and Hell was an attempt to reach a broader audience by producing a short work focused specifically on the spiritual realms. This approach found more success: Heaven and Hell attracted an audience of both skeptics and admirers, and, as Swedenborg’s fame spread, was translated into German (1775), English (1778), and French (1782). The English edition had a particularly fateful impact when it found its way into the hands of a young man named Robert Hindmarsh, who became one of the key early organizers of the Church of the New Jerusalem, a denomination founded on the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
[A Swedenborg sampler : selections from Heaven and hell, Divine love and wisdom, Divine providence, Secrets of heaven, and True Christianity / Emanuel Swedenborg ; translated by George F. Dole, Lisa Hyatt Cooper, and Jonathan S. Rose ; edited by Morgan Beard, Jonathan S. Rose, and Stuart Shotwell.]