Here is a Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life by a reader named Patty:
I know this may seem silly but I struggle with my weight and I’m extremely self-conscious about it. Will my body be the right weight and appearance in the afterlife?
Thanks for the good question, Patty!
You are certainly not alone either in your struggle with your weight or in your self-consciousness about the appearance of your body. Many people have ongoing battles with their weight, whether with being overweight or underweight. And many people—even people whose bodies are a healthy weight—have major body image issues.
The anxiety people feel about their bodies is commonly attributed to the widespread use of idealized and sexualized male and especially female bodies in advertising and mass media. And that certainly does have a major effect.
But there’s more to it than that.
Jacob’s Dream, by William Blake, 1805
It is through our body that we communicate and interact with the world. Not only our words, but our facial expressions, our gestures, our actions, and the general appearance of our body communicates—or conceals—what is in our mind and heart. Our body is an integral part of who we are and how we relate to our family, friends, and everyone else we see each day. It is only natural to have some concern about the appearance of our body and the messages it sends to the people around us.
Unfortunately—or sometimes fortunately—while we are living here on earth our body doesn’t always reflect the reality of the person inside.
However, in the spiritual world our body will become a perfect reflection of the person we truly are. So the short answer to your question is: Yes, your body will be the right weight and appearance in the afterlife, in the sense that it will fully and accurately express your true self to everyone around you.
Do you find that idea reassuring? Or scary?
Either way, it is a call to action.
Our physical body
Here on earth, many things affect the appearance of our physical body. Our genetics, our upbringing, our environment, the values of our community, and yes, our own choices and our own emotional state. Some of these things are under our own control. Others are not.
This means that as long as we are living here in the material world, the appearance of our body only partially reflects our own thoughts, feelings, and values.
We can do things that will make our body more or less healthy. For example, we can eat good food and get regular exercise or we can eat junk food and be couch potatoes. And our choices and lifestyle will have a major effect on the health and appearance of our body.
On the other hand, we have no control over the genes we were born with, and there’s nothing we can do about the diet and lifestyle our parents or guardians raised us with. Both of these can cause health problems for us that we may not be able to fully overcome. We also may not have a choice about where we live—and if we happen to live in a polluted area, that can also have a major impact on our health.
Further, we can’t always control our emotional environment. Sometimes we are stuck in very painful and conflicted human situations that we can’t just walk away from. And our emotional state and environment, too, have a profound effect on our body and our physical health.
So yes, we do have some control over our physical health and the appearance of our body. And it is good for us to use the choice and control that we do have to take care of our body as best we can.
But there are also many things that affect our body that are beyond our choice and control. Understanding this can help us not to be too hard on ourselves if we don’t have the body we wish we had.
And finally, society can be very hard on people whose bodies don’t conform to ideals of physical beauty that are unrealistic and unattainable for the vast majority of people. Achieving peace with our physical appearance also requires us to pay less and less attention to the often superficial values and messages of society, and pay more and more attention to developing our own internal values for our own life and our place, purpose, and mission in the world.
As we gain a sense of our own value, integrity, and unique contribution to society, what society thinks of us and of the appearance of our body will matter less and less to us. And as we develop a healthier sense of self, we will tend to become more physically healthy too, and more comfortable with the particular body that we have.
Our spiritual body
Angels Ministering to Christ, by William Blake, 1820
What does this have to do with the weight and appearance of our body in the afterlife?
Quite simply, unlike in the physical world, in the afterlife our internal sense of self will be fully expressed in the appearance and actions of our spiritual body.
Yes, as the apostle Paul says:
If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44)
In the afterlife, we are not wispy, ethereal beings. We have a body that is exactly like our body here on earth, only instead of being made of physical matter, it is made of spiritual substance. And because it’s made of spiritual substance, it is much more responsive to the ongoing state of our mind and heart.
People who arrive in the spiritual world are often surprised to find out that they still have a body. In his most popular book, Heaven and Hell, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) wrote:
People in the Christian world are in such blind ignorance about angels and spirits that they think of them as minds without form, as mere thoughts, and can conceive of them only as something airy with something alive within it. Further, since they attribute to them nothing human except a capacity for thought, they believe angels cannot see because they have no eyes, cannot hear because they have no ears, and cannot talk because they have no mouths or tongues. (Heaven and Hell #74)
But based on his own extensive experience in the spiritual world, he reported that it is quite the contrary:
Angels are completely human. They have faces, eyes, ears, chests, arms, hands, and feet. They see each other, hear each other, and talk to each other. In short, they lack nothing that belongs to humans except that they are not clothed with a material body. I have seen them in their own light, which is far, far greater than noonday on our earth, and in that light I have seen all the details of their faces more crisply and clearly than I have seen the faces of people here in the world.
In other words, Swedenborg reported exactly what everyone who encountered angels in the Bible reported: that they are people in every way, who look, sound, and feel just like people here on earth. (And no, they don’t really have wings.) Here is just one example, from the scene of the empty tomb after Jesus’ resurrection:
When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. (Mark 16:4–5, italics added)
If you read through the Bible, you will find that every time angels are described, they are described as people, with hands, feet, chests, mouths, eyes, ears, hair, and every other part of the human body.
Men are still men, and women are still women
The Angels Appearing to the Shepherds, by William Blake, 1809
And according to Swedenborg, this includes our specifically male and female body parts. Here is part of a story he tells about some newcomers to the spiritual world:
Once I saw three spirits fresh from the world wandering around, exploring, and asking questions. They were surprised that they were living people just as before and that the things they saw were the same. They knew that they had left the former or natural world, where they had thought that they would not live as people again until the day of the Last Judgment, when they would be clothed with the flesh and bones that had been laid in their graves.
To remove all doubt that they really were people, they kept examining and touching themselves and others and feeling objects, and by a thousand ways assured themselves that they were still people the same as in the world before, except that they saw each other in a brighter light and objects in more brilliance and therefore much more perfectly.
At this point they were joined by some regular inhabitants of the spiritual world. And since two of the three newcomers were young men, the conversation naturally turned to sexual subjects. In the course of their explorations of this new world they had seen some rather beautiful women—which for some reason had gotten the ol’ libido going. But being in the presence of angels, they beat around the bush:
“Are human figures in heaven exactly like the ones in the natural world?”
The answer was: “Exactly the same. Nothing is taken away from a man and nothing from a woman. In a word, a man is a man and a woman is a woman in total perfection of the form that they were created in. Step aside and look at yourself if you want, and see if anything is missing—whether you are just as male as you were before.” (from Marriage Love #44)
The message is clear: If you are a woman, in the afterlife you will still be a woman, and your body will be fully female. If you are a man, in the afterlife you will still be a man, and your body will be fully male.
In heaven, old people grow young and beautiful
Further, in heaven, Swedenborg says, however old we may have been when we died, our spiritual body will progress back to the peak of young adulthood:
People in heaven are continually progressing toward the springtime of life. The more thousands of years they live, the more pleasant and happy is their springtime. This continues forever, increasing according to the growth and level of their love, thoughtfulness, and faith.
As the years pass, elderly women who have died of old age—women who have lived in faith in the Lord, thoughtfulness toward their neighbor, and in contented marriage love with their husbands—come more and more into the flower of youth and into a beauty that surpasses any notion of beauty accessible to our sight. Their goodness and thoughtfulness is what gives them their form and gives them its own likeness, making the pleasure and beauty of thoughtfulness radiate from every least corner of their faces so that they become actual forms of thoughtfulness. Some people have seen them and have been stunned.
The form of thoughtfulness that is open to view in heaven is like this because it is thoughtfulness itself that both gives and is given visible form. In fact, it does this in such a way that the whole angel, especially her face, is virtually thoughtfulness itself appearing to open perception. When people look at this form, its beauty is unutterable, affecting the very inmost life of the mind with thoughtfulness.
In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. People who have lived in love for the Lord and in thoughtfulness toward their neighbor are forms like this, or beauties like this, in the other life. All angels are forms like this, in infinite variety. This is what makes heaven. (Heaven and Hell #414)
Similarly, those who die as children or teenagers will grow up to young adulthood:
Many people think that children remain children in heaven and are like children among the angels. People who do not know what an angel is can corroborate this opinion because of the images here and there in churches, where angels are represented as children.
However, things are actually very different. Intelligence and wisdom make an angel, qualities that they do not have as long as they are children. Children are with the angels, but they themselves are not angels yet. Once they are intelligent and wise they are angels for the first time. In fact—something that has surprised me—then they no longer look like children but like adults, because they no longer have a childlike nature but a more grown-up angelic nature. This goes with intelligence and wisdom. . . .
It does need to be known that children in heaven do not grow up beyond the prime of youth, but remain at that age forever. To assure me of this, I have been allowed to talk with some who had been raised as children in heaven and had grown up there, with some while they were still children, and then later with the same ones when they had become youths; and I have heard from them about the course of their life from one age level to another. (Heaven and Hell #340)
By “the prime of youth” here Swedenborg means young adulthood.
The Angel of Revelation, by William Blake, 1803
No matter what age you may be now, and no matter what age you may be when you die, you can imagine yourself as an angel being a young man or woman at the peak of your physical power and health.
That is why, in the Bible, angels are commonly described as powerful young men, and even as radiant in their appearance. Here are two examples:
Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.
The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.” (Numbers 22:31–33)
And again at the time of Jesus’ resurrection:
And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. (Matthew 28:2–3)
Because of these and other descriptions of angels in the Bible, they are commonly pictured in Christian art as young, powerful, and beautiful.
The take-away is that in heaven your body will be young and beautiful.
A call to action
That is, if you choose to go to heaven, and not to hell.
Without going into the gory details, just as angels are young, powerful, and beautiful in body, so the evil spirits in hell are ugly, misshapen, and repulsive in body—especially when seen from a distance.
That’s because as I said at the beginning of the article, in the afterlife our spiritual body will perfectly reflect and express our true self to everyone around us.
- If our true, inner self is beautiful, loving, thoughtful, and wise, then in the afterlife we will be beautiful angels in heaven.
- If our true, inner self is ugly, selfish, thoughtless, greedy, and foolish, then in the afterlife we will be ugly demons in hell.
The choice is 100% ours. And it is a choice that we make during our lifetime on earth.
The appearance of our physical body here in the material world is only partially under our control. Though we can live healthfully in body and mind, that may or may not be enough to overcome genetic and environmental factors that can take their toll on our physical body and health.
But the appearance of our spiritual body is well within our control. That’s because our spiritual body will be beautiful or ugly depending on whether we choose to turn our mind and heart toward love and kindness for others or toward self-centeredness and greed.
In the afterlife, we don’t have to worry about genetic diseases and environmental pollution that can damage and destroy our physical health and wellbeing. All of those external influences on the appearance of our body will be taken away.
What’s left will be the inner influences of our own choices, in our own mind and heart, about what kind of person we want to be.
Do you want to have a body that is young, powerful, and beautiful in the afterlife?
Then choose every day to be powerful in loving and serving the people around you, and beautiful in expressing compassion and care for your fellow human beings in need.
If in your everyday life you choose to love God and love your fellow human beings, as Jesus commanded us to do, then in the afterlife you will soon find yourself living in a body more beautiful than you could have imagined during your lifetime here on earth.
But even better, you will lose any self-consciousness about your body. In fact, you won’t spend a lot of time thinking about your body. You’ll be too busy sharing a happy life of love, learning, and kindness with your spiritual family and friends in heaven.
This article is a response to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader.
For further reading:
- Will Sick or Disabled People Return to Good Health in the Spiritual World?
- It’s not fair that God made some people incredibly beautiful, and others just average!
- Dani Mathers, Body-Shaming, and How to Develop Beauty
- What Happens To Us When We Die?
- How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?
- Money Can’t Buy Happiness . . . But Service Can
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
I am enjoying your site more fully for the first time and my comprehension is expanding accordingly. Thank you, Dru
Hi Dru,
Nice to hear from you again. I’m glad you’re enjoying the site! I hope all is going well with you and yours.
It astonishes me that helping animals as well as fellow humans is not mentioned. If we are compassionate, loving, ethical beings, that includes helping every fellow being on earth. Luckily, there are animal angels making positive changes for the voiceless!
Hi Julia,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. If Annette had written this article, helping animals certainly would have been mentioned! 🙂 She’s the pet person in our household.
Hi Lee, this has always bothered me and makes me very depressed. Some NDEers say they where “just energy orbs” or “all knowing-consciousness” or what they saw on the other side was like other “orbs of people” in space or just being in state of “light”. Other NDEers said they went to a real spiritual world / heaven with bodies like ours. Some “mediums” say where are just “energy floating around” other say that there is a real world. Ever since my best friend died it will be a year coming this December 16th. I’ve feel I’m going through this spiritual journey. I feel confident to say that there is an afterlife but what gets me depressed is of what type of state. I read so many NDE accounts and I still feel very lost. I can never imagine just being “energy” or just “consciousness”. I love my life, my home, my earth, my body, the faces of my loved ones, what we do here on earth, just everything about this life it’s what makes us human. I am fairly newly acquainted to Swedenborg and I find his writing to be extremely comforting about the afterlife and his teachings about the Lord. So I guess my question is why are there so many variations about the afterlife?
I just pray my best friend is doing what they used to love doing here and is perfectly ok. I just want to give them a big hug and a kiss when my time comes to see them again.
P.S your website has been a blessing to me. I still fight with depression but your words about the Bible and Swedenborg have been heaven sent.
Hi Sam,
Thanks for stopping by, and for you comment and questions. I’m sorry to hear about your best friend’s death. I’m glad our website has given you some hope and something solid to hang onto about the afterlife.
The thing is, NDEers visit the spiritual world only briefly. And because the spiritual world is far more responsive to people’s state of mind than this physical earth is, people see all different things depending upon their particular state of mind, their beliefs, and so on. It’s very complicated. Depending only on the brief experiences of NDEers for our understanding of the spiritual world is not very reliable.
Swedenborg was different than anyone else in history (that I am aware of) in that he spent, not just a few minutes or even a few days in the spiritual world, but a period of nearly three decades from his mid-fifties to the time of his death in his eighties. This gave him the time to get fully acclimated to the spiritual world, and get a more detailed and realistic picture of it. For more on this, please see:
Do the Teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg take Precedence over the Bible?
Reading the experiences of NDEers is good because it offers many spiritual experiences by many different people, which increases our assurance that the spiritual world is indeed real, and that our life does not end with physical death.
However, to get a real and solid understanding of what the spiritual world is like, I recommend that you get a copy of Swedenborg’s book Heaven and Hell, which is the most extensive tour of the spiritual world ever written. The link is to my book notice here on this website, which provides links where you can purchase it or download a free e-book version.
About people being “orbs of light” in the spiritual world, Swedenborg does describe some spirits who are so averse to physical and bodily things that they prefer to think of themselves as orbs of light, and even present themselves to others in that way. But this, he says, is more wishful thinking than the reality. Even these spirits do have spiritual bodies just like every other spirit. New Age types here on earth who have woo-woo ideas about “spirituality” may gravitate toward such spirits in the spiritual world because New Agers often like to think of spiritual life as “pure energy” without a specific form and structure. Just for fun, here’s the Star Trek version:
But the reality is that nothing exists without a definite structure and form. And though in the spiritual world we no longer have a physical body made of physical matter, we do have a spiritual body made of spiritual substance. That body is just as real, touchable, and huggable as our physical body here. It also has all of the same parts and internal organs as our body here, all of which are just as functional as those of our physical body. That’s why we can eat, sleep, run, play, talk, and do everything else there that we can do here. For more on this, please see:
Is Heaven Physical? Can Angels Play Tennis?
I can assure you that when it comes your time to leave this world for the next, you will be able to give your friend that big hug and kiss!
Thank Thank thank you Lee! I can give you a big hug! Thank you for clearing up my very confused mind! There is so much wrong information out there it can make you really depressed. I will definitely read the books you recommended and I really appreciate you responding to my message. You really turned my whole perspective around and it really makes sense now on why there are so many different NDEs out there. Now I can rest easy, now that I know the truth. Thank you so much again and God Bless! You are changing peoples lives by spreading the true meaning of the Word and of the afterlife.
Hi Sam,
You are very welcome. It’s my pleasure. If you have further questions as you read, or while you’re just thinking about things, feel free to ask.
Hi Lee. I figured this post would be a good place to ask this question, and given it’s relevance to so many people, I’m surprised I haven’t heard it addressed in detail by any Swedenborgian yet! My question relating to our appearance in the afterlife is: how, if at all, does gender identity factor into it? If a person felt genuine gender dysphoria and a strong desire in their heart and soul to be the opposite sex, would that be fulfilled in heaven, either through the Lord’s love and wisdom or the principle of correspondences? Or would they cease to feel gender dysphoria in heaven and “adapt” to their biological (human birth) sex? I’m curious about your thoughts on this matter.
Chad
Hi Chad,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question. It is an excellent and very tricky one.
Most likely the reason you haven’t heard it addressed in detail by any Swedenborgian is that in Swedenborg’s day and age, multiple permutations of gender identity was not a cultural “thing.” People thought in binary terms: there was male, and there was female. A biological male was male; a biological female was female. There was some awareness of people born hermaphroditic, but such births were considered “monsters,” and they did not shake the binary view of sex and gender that prevailed in society. Swedenborg therefore never addressed the issue of people whose sense of gender identity is different than their biological sex. Such a possibility probably never occurred to him.
This is also the reason I can’t give you a definitive answer to the question of what gender people who experience gender dysphoria will be in the afterlife. (There may be some information about this in the near-death experience literature, however.)
I presume that conservative Swedenborgians would say, in your words, that “they [will] cease to feel gender dysphoria in heaven and ‘adapt’ to their biological (human birth) sex.” However, though that certainly is possible, I find it a less than entirely convincing answer.
Here, in at least minimal detail, are some of the issues involved:
When we die, we leave behind our physical body, and live in our spiritual body instead.
However, there is a caveat in that Swedenborg says we take with us a “border” (Latin: limbus) of “the finest [meaning subtlest] substances in nature.” (See True Christianity #103—but I do not agree with some of what Swedenborg says here; also “sperm” is a mistranslation, slated for correction in future printings of this translation.) This “border” provides fixity to our life in the spiritual world. This could be used to argue that we will return to identifying with our biological sex in the afterlife, because (as the argument would go), our biological sex would be stamped on that limbus.
The other, and greater, argument for that position would be that our gender is an indelible part of our inmost soul, which cannot be changed.
However, this argument raises the question of what gender is “stamped upon our soul.” After all, our sense of identity, which is an inner and spiritual thing, is closer to our inmost soul than our biological sex, which is an external and physical thing.
Conservative Swedenborgians would likely hold that it is impossible for our biological sex not to match the gender of our soul, since, as Swedenborg says in various places, the soul builds the body in its own image. But then we have to ask the question of why our physical body does indeed get out of phase with our spirit, such that Swedenborg says that in the spiritual world our appearance changes, and is not the same as our physical appearance here on earth. If our physical body perfectly reflected our soul, this would not be the case.
The argument then might be that because of the Fall of Humankind, for some of us our gender identity got out of sync with our biological sex, and gender dysphoria is therefore a result of the damage done by the Fall. Still, it is mere assumption that therefore our biological sex is the standard, and our gender identity must yield to our biological sex. Perhaps one of the effects of the Fall was that like other physical characteristics, our biological sex no longer always corresponds to the gender of our soul. (And I do continue to believe that the human soul is not neuter, but gendered at its core, as Swedenborg says.)
These are some of the issues and arguments that would have to be worked through in order to answer your question.
To get back to the basics, though, when we die we leave our physical body behind, and live in our spiritual body to eternity. And according to Swedenborg, our spiritual body and its appearance perfectly correspond to our character as a person, especially as determined by our “ruling love,” or dominant motivation. In this our spiritual body is unlike our physical body, which, as discussed above, may diverge to a greater or lesser extent from accurately representing the true content of our heart and mind.
For this reason, without having any certainty on the question, I lean toward thinking that it will be our inner sense of gender identity, not our biological sex (if they are different), that will prevail in the spiritual world.
To put it plainly, I tend to think that people who think of themselves as female will have a female spiritual body, people who think of themselves as male will have a male spiritual body, and those few people who think of themselves as something else will have . . . something else for the form of their spiritual body.
These are my thoughts on this matter.
On the practical, legal, and societal level, Annette and I believe that as uncomfortable as it may be for many people who have a more traditional outlook on sex and gender, people must be allowed to express their own gender identity, sexual orientation, and so on. If doing so involves surgery, other than the socially charged nature of sex reassignment surgery due to those traditional views of sex and gender that still prevail in much of society, this is not much different than repairing a cleft palate or separating conjoined twins.
This, in our view, is not only a matter of human rights and non-discrimination, but also a matter of going with the flow of the new spiritual freedom, and the resulting new political and social freedom, that has entered into human society here on earth in the past few centuries as a result of the Lord’s second coming and the beginning of the descent of the New Jerusalem out of heaven from God. (See: “Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?”)
Thank you for such an insightful answer, Lee! Swedenborg’s insights into the spiritual world, and the teachings about living and conduct that stem from them, have helped me grow as both a Christian and person, and have helped explain the thorny questions that gave me a crisis of faith earlier in life. I cannot thank you enough for the work you and Annette (and countless other Swedenborgians and faithful Christians) do to help people draw closer to God and understand the teachings of the Bible. You’ll probably be hearing more questions from me in the future, if you don’t mind. God bless you and everyone on our wonderful earth!
Hi Chad,
You are most welcome. Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you’ve found light to guide you along your way. And yes, please feel free to ask any other questions that may come to mind if you don’t find an article here that already addresses them. God bless.
Im sorry, if Im asking quite a dumb question, but will my body look exactly the same in heaven? It makes me depressed when i think about looking different than Im looking right now:( I love my body and I dont want to look any different than Im looking now.
Thank you for your answer:)
Hi Jozef,
It’s a good question, not a dumb one. What your body looks like in the spiritual world will depend upon what sort of life you live here on earth.
The appearance of our physical body here on earth depends upon genetics, environment, lifestyle, and so on. But in the spiritual world, the appearance of our body depends upon our inner character. If we have built up a good character by living a life of care and useful service for our fellow human beings, then we will have a good-looking body that reflects our good spirit. But if we have built up a bad character by living a life of caring only for ourselves and our own friends and family, and treating other people badly, then we will have an ugly body that reflects our ugly spirit.
After you die, at first your spiritual body will look exactly like your physical body did here on earth. But over time, it will change depending on what sort of person you are inwardly. If you have been a criminal or a jerk, your body will, over time, become ugly and deformed. But if you have been a good and thoughtful person, your body will come to look even better than it did here—even if that doesn’t seem possible to you right now! 😛
As for whether it will be exactly the same as your body here, that is a good question. But it will certainly reflect the person you are inside. That means you will have a body that you enjoy, and that feels like “you.” If the one you have right now is one you enjoy and that fits you, I don’t see why it would have to change. Except that if you die when you are old, your body will grow younger until it is at the peak of its youthful vigor.
I hope my body will not change so my close friends and family could recognize me and also for my own joy, because as I said earlier I love my body and i wouldnt change anything about it even if I could, because this is me… and I dont want to be anyone else, I just want to be ME:)
Also I want to thank you very much, I appreciate your response:)
Hi Jozef,
You are very welcome.
And yes, you will be YOU, and your family and friends will recognize you in the afterlife. 🙂
Hi Lee. When you say our spiritual body and appearance reflects the person we truly are, to what extent does the appearance of our spiritual body also correspond with “how we see ourselves”? Let’s say, for example, someone has dyed their hair a certain color for most of their life, such that having that hair color becomes a part of how that person conceives of themselves (maybe not a major part, but still a part nonetheless). Would their spiritual body then have that hair color that the person sees as “part of them”, or their natural hair color? What about other factors, like physical age? Is every adult in heaven in their early 30s as their “prime” (as some of the early church fathers infer based on Jesus’ age when He was crucified), or is there some variance? What about people who see the prime of their life as middle age or later adulthood, when they have attained more life experience and wisdom; will their spiritual bodies appear “as they see and think of themselves”?
God Bless,
Chad
Hi Chad,
It’s an interesting question.
In heaven, how we see ourselves will likely be very close to, if not identical with, who we truly are. That’s because in heaven especially, there are no outward masks that don’t match the inner self, as there are here on earth. Everything we are inwardly is perfectly expressed in who we are outwardly. There will therefore not likely be any disconnect between who we truly are and how we see ourselves.
In hell it’s a little more complicated. Falsehood and deception are integral to hellish life, such that evil spirits in hell commonly create fantasies for themselves and others that don’t represent how things actually are. These fantasies are not stable, but they can deceive people in hell for a shorter or longer time. Also, to each other evil spirits look like normal people, but to outsiders, especially to angels looking in from a distance, they look deformed and monstrous according to their deformed and monstrous ruling love and character.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s stick with heaven. 🙂
About hair color or other external appearances of the body, keep in mind that there is no “natural” hair color in the sense of a genetically determined hair color. Our material genetics no longer exist in the spiritual world, because we have left our physical body and its DNA behind. Rather, our ruling love, and the other subordinate loves that serve it, will form our spiritual DNA that determines our appearance.
Meanwhile, in heaven there is also a great deal of freedom to express ourselves according to our own loves and character. We aren’t locked in to some specific way of being because of some impersonal ruling love beyond our control. Rather, our ruling love and its supporting loves are us, and we express them freely. If that involves having green hair, or even green hair one day and pink hair the next day, there would be nothing particular to prevent that. Angels do wear different clothes different days. I don’t see why they couldn’t also “dye” their hair different colors if they so choose, according to the day’s, or month’s, mood.
Having said that, I think that the average angel will have more of a steady, stable character that will not involve ever-changing unusual hair colors. But if a person is artistic and mercurial here on earth, that character will be carried into the spiritual world, and will be expressed just as freely there as here, if not more so. We are the same people there as we are here, only without social constraints on outwardly expressing fully and exactly who we are inwardly.
This, at any rate, is how I expect things will be in heaven when it comes to our bodily dress, grooming, and appearance.
As for “physical age,” Swedenborg seems to go more for early twenties as the time of peak physical health. Just because Jesus died in his early thirties, that doesn’t make early thirties the time of our physical peak.
However, I presume this is a generalization also. Individual variations are certainly possible. Once again, it’s not as though we’re locked into some appearance that’s beyond our control. Our physical appearance will perfectly express our true inner self. In heaven there will be no gender dysphoria, age dysphoria, weight dysphoria, or any other dysphoria. Whatever body we have, we will have it because that’s the body that perfectly expresses who we are.
One thing Swedenborg is clear about is that even though the angels he saw appeared very youthful, they have all the wisdom of age that they had developed both during their earthly life and in their ongoing life in heaven.
Here on earth we think of gray hair as connoting wisdom because our physical bodies tend to go gray by the time we have developed wisdom. In the spiritual world, that won’t necessarily be so. Based on Swedenborg’s descriptions, it seems that in heaven wisdom is communicated more by the eyes and the face generally, and by a light that may surround the wisest of the angels. So it seems that in heaven wisdom creates different signs and signals than here on earth.
The key idea is that in heaven, our outward appearance will perfectly reflect our true inner self. There will be no false inner self either, as in people completely misconstruing their own character so that their self-image doesn’t match their actual character. And when we are expressing our true inner self, we are completely free. There is nothing saying that we have to appear a certain way. Rather, our appearance reflects the person we love to be. If that happens to be different from the average angel, then we are still free to express our odd and unusual self in odd and unusual ways.
I don’t see how it could be any other way.
Thanks for your response, Lee! It’s very comforting and reassuring to know that in Heaven, our appearance will reflect, as you say, “the person we love to be”, and that we will be free to express ourselves in that way. To know that my spiritual body will perfectly reflect my soul and ruling loves is a very happy thought.
Wait so in Hell, evil spirits look attractive to each other but those in Heaven see their true appearance? Also, where do fantasies come into play if everything in Hell is as real as to the evil spirits as it is during their time on Earth?
Hi Ray,
I would say rather than “attractive,” evil spirits look ordinary to one another. I.e., to one another they look fully human. Only from the outside do they look like monsters of one sort or another.
Fantasies come in because evil spirits are not seeing the reality of who they are and what their surroundings look like. Their surroundings also look ordinary to them, but in the light of heaven they look like blasted landscapes of one sort or another. Also, evil spirits can induce various fantasies upon themselves and one another based on their evil desires and false ideas. One example Swedenborg gives is misers imagining themselves counting huge piles of gold when in reality all they have in front of them on the table is a few grains of fool’s gold.
Well, I figured evil spirits would have to be physically attracts to each other to f commit adultery. So, if a miser believed he has tons of gold or wealth, he can manipulate others into thinking he has it if he flaunts it. Are evil spirits ever snapped out of their fantasy and see if their surroundings for what they truly are!m?
Hi Ray,
Yes, evil spirits can induce a fantasy of attractiveness around themselves. They do this by appealing to whatever sexual fantasies may be in the minds of those looking at them. Prostitutes in hell can make themselves look very beautiful to potential “customers.” This fantasy generally dissipates when the “john” actually goes into the room to engage in sex with them, or if not then, afterwards.
As for the misers, yes, they can maintain the fantasy of piles of gold only so long. Then they wake up to the reality that it’s just fools gold. But they enjoy the fantasy so much that they don’t really care, so they go right back into it next chance they have.
And they still sleep with them after seeing how ugly they really are?
Hi Ray,
Apparently. It seems that by that time they’ve already been roped in, and they can’t back out. These prostitutes are, after all, evil spirits, and not innocent at all. They have their ways . . . .
So any woman that is an evil spirit that likes sex is considered a prostitute? If they are deformed and misshapen, would they still have their parts in the right place?
From what I’ve read of Swedenborg writings, both angels and devils can appear in forms that are not their true forms – maybe even non-human forms – but I take it the true form is “the easiest to be”, and that’s the spiritual body that perfectly reflects one’s nature?
Hi K,
Most often, angels and devils appear in correspondential form from a distance, but in their own form up close.
For example, a group of angels of the highest heaven may look like a flock of sheep from a distance, because sheep correspond to innocence, and the highest heaven is the heaven of innocence. But once a visitor gets close to them, they look like people.
Meanwhile evil spirits of a particular kind may look like satyrs from a distance, but like themselves close up, as in a story that Swedenborg tells in Marriage Love #521.
And yes, sometimes individual spirits and angels or groups of spirits or angels intentionally appear in a non-human form, or in a modified human form, representing some aspect of their thinking or their self-image. Swedenborg descried one group of spirits that preferred to present themselves visually as an orb of light, even though they were actually regular human beings.
Where in the writings does Swedenborg mention this orb of light thing?
Hi K,
I was afraid you were going to ask me that! 😛 But I found it. It’s in Other Planets #19. The wording used is “crystal balls” rather than “orbs of light” as I misremembered it. It is about spirits that Swedenborg said were from the planet Mercury.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can cause intrusive thoughts to be associated with various and even ordinary stimuli. It can become ingrained in the thinking, which can be mental torment. Do such associations get severed if and when OCD is cured, or can such associations remain for eternity, becoming part of the character?
Hi K,
As you know, after we die most of us do not go directly to heaven or to hell, but rather spend a shorter or longer time in the intermediate state between heaven and hell, which Swedenborg calls the world of spirits. There, anything that does not accord with our “ruling love,” which is our heart of hearts, falls away into the background, so that it is no longer part of our active daily life.
Swedenborg lived before modern psychology existed, with all of its various diagnoses of mental illnesses. He therefore couldn’t talk about this or that mental condition that today we classify as mental illnesses. Instead, he generally accepted the traditional Christian view that what we today call mental illnesses involve the presence and activity of evil spirits. He believed that evil spirits played a role in physical illnesses as well, while also accepting that external factors such as diet and lifestyle played a role as well.
Further, he said that when people enter the spiritual world, they begin growing bodily young again, until they are in the prime of their life in terms of physique—probably representing our physical state in our twenties. Being physically or mentally ill would not be compatible with that. And in fact, whenever Swedenborg met and spoke with angels in heaven, he always described them as physically beautiful and healthy.
Based on all this, I think we can say with some confidence that both physical and mental illnesses and afflictions will fall away during our time in the world of spirits, before we move on to our final home in heaven. Physically, we will “grow young” toward the prime of youth. And if Swedenborg is right, and evil spirits are associated with mental illness (which is not necessarily incompatible with physical and biological causes of mental illness), then those evil spirits will fall away as well, since they cannot bear the atmosphere of heaven.
In short, I believe that mentally handicapping conditions such as OCD will fall away during our time in the world of spirits. Will it have had some effect upon our personality? Probably. But any negative effects of it will fall away, I believe, and we will be left with any positive developments of character that happened in us as a result of our struggle with that condition during our lifetime here on earth.
Hi Lee,
I’ve loved reading all your posts since my discovery of this website, and after finding this post, I have yet to find an answer to a question of mine: Do facial features change according to our inner self as well? I find that this is likely lumped into “spiritual bodies” but I have tried to figure out if our facial features, along with our bodies, resemble who we really are. And, if so, how can I keep my current body when I enter heaven?
Thanks,
Josiah
Hi Josiah,
It’s a good question, and a tricky one to answer definitively. Swedenborg does say that our body and face change during our second stage after death to perfectly correspond to our inner character. But I get the sense that this means we become more beautiful or more ugly based on whether we are good or evil people inside. We also do grow young in face and body if we died when old.
The real question is whether our physical face and body during our earthly lifetime reflects our inner character. My general thought is that it does tend to reflect our inner character, but not perfectly. So I tend to think that our eventual spiritual face and body will bear some resemblance to our physical face and body, but may be morphed in a more beautiful or more ugly direction based on our true inner character.
One of the reasons I lean in this direction is that Swedenborg also says that our spirit directs the formation of our body. This would suggest that even our physical body is a reflection of our spirit. However, we know scientifically that our physical development is also shaped by many external environmental factors, which might pull our physical face and body away from a perfect expression of our inner character.
These are some of my thoughts on your good and fascinating question.