99 Stories of God

42. Pretty Much the Same, Then

The Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg wrote a book called Heaven and Hell in which he describes the afterlife.

After dropping the physical body, souls transit into an intermediate realm where they meet dead friends and relatives.

Following a period of self-examination, they are compelled to go to a particular afterlife world — either a “heaven” or a “hell.”

Hell is unpleasant.

Heaven is more pleasant.

In heaven as well as hell, people work, play, get married, and even indulge in war and crime. Both realms also have social structures and government.

One may progress through various levels of heaven or hell, with the exception that one is never able to leave heaven or hell.