What if someone we love goes to hell? Will we still remember them? Won’t that kind of suck?
That is the essence of some questions that a reader named Max asked in several recent comment threads here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life. And though the answers aren’t what everyone wants to hear, the point of this website is not to be popular, but to give real answers to hard questions.
First, contrary to popular belief, hell is 100% voluntary. No one is forced to go there. During our lifetime on earth we choose whether we want to go to heaven or to hell by deciding what kind of person we want to be. If we decide to be a selfish and greedy S.O.B., we are choosing to go to hell. If that is our choice, in the afterlife neither God nor the Devil will send us to hell. We will go there of our own free will because that’s where we prefer to be. See: Is There Really a Hell? What is it Like?
Second, the afterlife is a continuation of this life. We are still the same person we have always been, but we are the same person we were inwardly. Any outward fakeries or masks that we have put on are stripped away. We become outwardly exactly the person we were within ourselves here on earth. See: What Happens To Us When We Die?
This means that the answers to these questions are human answers, based on who we are and how we function as human beings. And even here on earth, we drift away from, and sometimes consciously choose to cut ourselves off from, people who have taken paths that go in an opposite or very different direction than the path we have chosen. When it comes to people who have chosen hell, we do this not only because their life is incompatible with ours, but also to protect ourselves from the harm they would do to us if we let them keep their hooks in us.
It’s not that we can’t remember them. It’s that we choose to move on with our life, and leave them to their own very different chosen life. And eventually, yes, we forget that we ever knew them. Otherwise, it really would suck, both for us and for them.
Some basics about the afterlife
Unfortunately, there is a whole lot of misinformation and fallacy about the afterlife, much of it based on a much too literal reading of the Bible. For the real answers to these questions to make much sense, it is necessary to lay out some basic principles about the afterlife. Other articles here explain these principles in more depth. For now, I’ll just lay them out to get you oriented on what the afterlife is all about.
- The afterlife is in the spiritual world, not in the physical world. Once we die, we leave our physical body behind, and we never rejoin it or return to earth.
- In the spiritual world, we have a spiritual body that looks and feels a lot like the one we had on earth, but it is lighter and freer and more capable because it is made of spiritual substance, not of physical matter.
- In the spiritual world, time and space as we know it here do not exist. Yes, we experience a passage of events one after another, but we live in an eternal present. And yes, we see people and things around us, near and far, but that is based on how close to or far from them we are in our heart, meaning in love.
- The spiritual world is a world of love. Love is what we’re made of, love is what makes us the person we are, and love is what determines our relationships with each other. Whatever we love most of all, that’s who we are as a person.
- The spiritual world is a world of truth. There’s no faking it or pretending to be someone we’re not. Whoever we truly are, that’s what we are both inside and out. Everyone can see exactly who and what we are, because it is fully expressed in our face and body, and in all our words and actions.
- There are three regions of the spiritual world: heaven, hell, and in between them, the “world of spirits,” where we first go after we die.
- Heaven is where people who have chosen to love God and/or their fellow human beings most of all go.
- Hell is where people who have chosen to love only themselves and their own power, pleasure, and possessions go.
- In the world of spirits, where we go immediately after death, everything that doesn’t fit with our true inner character is gradually stripped away, until become outwardly exactly who we are inwardly.
- Once we have gone through this process of getting rid of everything that doesn’t fit in with our true character, we see a path that leads to the heaven or the hell that corresponds to our character, and we willingly follow that path. This path brings us to our eternal home either in heaven or in hell, based on the kind of person we decided to be during our lifetime here on earth.
One more thing: Children and teens who die before they have reached the age of adulthood and self-responsibility are raised to adulthood in heaven, and they all become angels of heaven. No one goes to hell unless she or he has intentionally and persistently chosen as an adult to live a selfish and greedy life here on earth.
With these basics under our belt, we can start to answer Max’s questions. I have edited them, and my responses, for clarity and context, and have provided links to the original versions.
In heaven, we are all brothers and sisters
The question about whether we will remember our loved ones who go to hell came out of another discussion in which Max asked:
Lee, I was curious, but won’t we be considered brothers and sisters of Christ in heaven? And no relationship of anyone such as gf, bf, wife, husband, dad, and mom etc.?
To which I replied:
Brothers and sisters of each other, but not of Christ. In the Gospels, Jesus calls his followers “brothers and sisters,” but they never call him “brother.” They call him “Lord” and “Master.” There’s a reason for that. In heaven, people will not see Jesus Christ as their brother, but as their Father in Heaven. Jesus Christ is God, and the angels of heaven know that very well.
In the afterlife, parent and child relationships will indeed fade away over time. In heaven, everyone will view their fellow angels as brothers and sisters even if they came from different generations on earth. There, everyone is physically in the springtime of their youth.
However, husband-and-wife relationships will remain. That is how God created us in the beginning. What God has joined together, no one, not even God, will separate in this life or in the next. But this applies only to people who are inwardly married, not to people who were civilly married but have no inner oneness of mind and heart.
In response, Max asked:
So my mother would be my “sister”? Would she still remember her being my mother and me as her son or would all that go away? Would I have to stop calling her mom?
My reply:
When you first arrive in the spiritual world, it will probably be the same as it was on earth. You’ll still think of her as your mother, and she’ll still think of you as her son. But as time goes on and you both become young adults physically while still retaining the knowledge, experience, and wisdom you gained during your respective lifetimes on earth, not to mention the new knowledge, experience, and wisdom you are gaining in the spiritual world, it will make less and less sense to pay attention to the earthly age difference and relationship between you, because you will both be full angels.
If you still want to remember the mother/son relationship, you can. There is no “have to” about it. In heaven, no one is forced to do or not do, or to think or not think, anything. It’s just that her job of raising you to be a self-responsible and good adult, and now an angel of heaven, will be complete. There won’t be any particular reason for you to think of her as your mother, or for her to think of you as her son, because you won’t need that relationship with her anymore.
If you both end up in the same community of heaven, you will think of each other as close friends. The memory of your earthly relationship could come back if there were some reason for it. But that would only drag both of you back down to your earthly, material state of mind, which will pale in comparison to the spiritual state of mind you are in there. So again, it’s not that you have to stop calling her “mom.” It’s that you will have entered into a different kind of relationship with her—a relationship of equals, and of being fellow angels of heaven.
I realize this idea is upsetting to many people who have a good relationship with their parents or children and want to keep that relationship. And again, there is no compulsion involved. You can keep that relationship as long as you want to. But consider how you will feel about each other after both of you have lived in heaven for the equivalent of a thousand or ten thousand earth years, having your own adult life, your work, your skills, your interests. Would it really make sense after all that time to look to someone as your mother when the two of you are now full adults who, on those time scales, have been around just as long as each other? You would no longer need her to look up to as a mother and mentor, because you are now a full grown-up just like her.
That’s the situation. It’s not that you can’t think of her as your mother. It’s that eventually you won’t think of her as your mother because that won’t be the kind of relationship you have with her anymore. And she will be perfectly happy with that also. She will have her own very full life to live among her friends and companions, one of whom might be you.
You can read the original thread here.
The long and the short of it is that the longer we live in the spiritual world, the more our outward and biological relationships on earth fade away. They are replaced by relationships like those between brothers and sisters, or between friends. And the people we are closest to, and who live in the same community of heaven as we do, are the people who love the same types of things we do, and think about things in a similar way.
It’s not that we can’t have relationships with people who are more distant from ourselves in their thoughts and feelings. We can. But we will always come back to our own community and our own home, where the people who are closest to us live.
This also means that the one who is closest to us, our partner in spiritual marriage, will continue to share our home and our bed with us. See: How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?
What about friends and loved ones who go to hell?
This brings us to the question posed in the title of this article. On another thread, which you can see here, Max asked:
Would God still erase our memories of our loved ones who didn’t make it?
To which I replied:
As far as our memories of loved ones who choose hell instead of heaven, it’s not that God erases our memory of them. It’s that our memory of them fades away over time because they’re not part of our life anymore. It’s sort of like families who have one sibling go bad and become a thief or a druggie or whatever, and who never shows up at family gatherings anymore. After a while, they don’t think about him all that much anymore because he’s no longer a part of their ongoing life as a family. They can think about him if they want to, but there’s not so much reason to think about him anymore.
(Of course, the same thing applies to a female family member who goes bad.)
Later, referring back to this in a series of questions here, Max asked:
In a comment back when you said something like “we can remember our loved ones but we just don’t since it’s like a family member who’s in jail now and don’t really have to think about them anymore, or if we wanted to we can.” Where’d you get that idea from? Like how do you know we can still remember the ones who didn’t make it?
In another answer to that comment, I said that most of my knowledge of how things work in the spiritual world comes from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), especially his most popular book, Heaven and Hell, which I recommend to anyone interested in the afterlife.
The Bible is meant to tell us how to get to heaven, not what heaven is like. Most of what the Bible says about the afterlife is metaphorical, not literal. Fortunately for us, God opened Swedenborg’s spiritual eyes and allowed him to spend almost three decades traveling around in the spiritual world and reporting back to us what it is like. This is the clearest and most extensive information about the afterlife ever published.
Here is a slightly edited version of my reply to Max’s main question, about whether we still remember loved ones who go to hell. The original version, which also covers another one of Max’s questions, is here.
Our memory of old friends fades
You asked whether we will remember loved ones who go to hell. My reply was that over time, although we could think about them if we wanted to, we won’t anymore because they are no longer an active part of our life.
Really, this works almost the same as it does here. There are kids I hung out with when I was young, but we’ve long since parted ways, and I rarely think about them anymore because I’m living a whole different life now than I did then. It’s not some terrible, nefarious thing where our memory is wiped clean by some robot overlord. It’s just that those people aren’t part of our life anymore, and we’re thinking mostly about the people we’re living and working and playing with now, not the ones we were living and working and playing with twenty or thirty or forty years ago.
Now consider that people in heaven live the equivalent of thousands of earth years and more. They’re not actually in time and space the way we are here on earth. But their experiences do accumulate, and they move on from one day and activity to the next. If you had a friend a thousand years ago, but that friend hasn’t been part of your life for a thousand years, and meanwhile you’ve made new friends who are a part of your life now, are you really going to think about that friend that you had a thousand years ago? Most likely, you won’t even be able to remember his or her name.
If we kept the active memory of everyone we ever had a connection with, our mind would become so crowded that we would hardly be able to get anything done. We could think about those people if we really wanted to. But most of the time we don’t, because we’re busy with the work and the people and the activities we’re engaged in now, and those other people and activities are in the past.
Leaving behind loved ones who go bad
As far as loved ones who go to hell, it’s not that they “didn’t make it.” It’s that they chose hell over heaven, by choosing to live a selfish and power-hungry life instead of a good, thoughtful, useful, and kind life.
And if a family member or friend makes that choice, and persists in it, nothing good will come of maintaining your relationship with that person. When it becomes clear that they are selfish and greedy, and will take advantage of you also, and even suck you into their own destructive or criminal life if they can, the best thing to do is to cut them off, as difficult and painful as that may be. It sounds hard-hearted, but the alternative is to give them hooks that they can grab onto and use to drag you down along with them.
Angels understand this. And yes, it’s hard to see someone you care about go to “the dark side.” But in the end, if that’s the choice they make, there is nothing you can do about it. People sometimes get a savior complex and try to intervene and “fix” the one who went bad. And though it’s not necessarily wrong to stage an intervention, because in some cases it works, in the end, it will be their own choice. If they reject your efforts to help them, and persist in their bad motives and bad behavior, then there is nothing you can do about it.
We are free human beings. We can make choices about our own life that no one else can overrule. In the end, if someone we love makes the choice to go evil, we just have to accept it as a fact, and protect ourselves from that person, usually by cutting them off so that they no longer have access to us. If they do still have access to us, all they will do is drag down and destroy our life. For example, people who have had abusive partners commonly have to go no-contact with them to protect themselves from that person, who would only continue to abuse them if they didn’t cut off all contact.
It’s not just a simple matter of “we forget all about loved ones who go to hell.” It is an active, and very difficult choice on the part of good people who go to heaven to let go of their loved ones who have chosen hell. At that point, there is no more possibility that they will change their minds. They have made their choice, they are now living it, and they have zero interest in changing. Any efforts to reach out to them would only result in pain and misery. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said:
Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6)
Can we still remember them?
It’s not that angels can’t remember their loved ones who go to hell. They can if they want to. But they choose not to because there is nothing they can do for them anymore.
Thinking about them and trying to reach out to them would only cause pain and misery on both sides. Pain and misery for the angel because she or he would be dragged down into a hellish state of mind. Pain and misery for the loved one who chose hell because he or she would be tormented by the atmosphere of light and love around the angel reaching out to him or her. For people in hell, love and kindness are painful, because they conflict with their own selfishness, greed, and hatred.
The spiritual world is a real, human world. It is not all ponies and rainbows. We are human beings with all our thoughts and feelings and abilities to choose one thing over another. People who have chosen heaven in this life continue to choose what is good and loving and true in the afterlife. And that means making hard choices to leave behind friends and family members who chose greed and selfishness and a desire for power. Those people have made their choice. Allowing them to continue to drag us down emotionally does no good for either one, either here or in the afterlife.
We can’t save people from their own choices
I know this is not the popular or politically correct thing to say. But people who keep trying to “fix” other people will have to learn the hard way that it just doesn’t work. Only an internal choice on the part of those other people can fix them. It can’t be done from the outside. And sometimes we must make hard choices to cut off toxic people. If we don’t, but keep showering them with our “pearls” of hard-won love and wisdom, they will only “turn and tear us to pieces,” just as Jesus said.
The same is true in the spiritual world. There, once we have made the choice to leave behind those who have chosen evil over good, their memory gradually fades from our mind because we are now focused on the good and happy life we are living in the present, not on past connections that in reality were severed, not by us, but by the person who chose evil over good, and thereby destroyed their relationship with us.
This is what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples as he sent them out to preach the good news:
Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. (Matthew 10:11–15)
Living a good and spiritual life is not a walk in the park. It requires definite, sometimes difficult action. This is why Jesus said in the very next verse:
I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16)
Here is a shorter video version of this article:
For further reading:
- Is There Really a Hell? What is it Like?
- Pain, Punishment, Prison, and Hell
- Can Gang Members Go to Heaven? (Is Life Fair?)
- What Happens To Us When We Die?
- Who Are the Angels and How Do They Live?
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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 
Thank you so much for this article. It answered many of my questions. God bless you and Annette. I miss you both dearly.
Pam J.
Hi Pam,
Great to hear from you! It’s been way too long. Glad the article was helpful to you.
loved the article Lee! hopefully it reaches out the people who had similar questions like i did and it helps them..
as for the part you said “The spiritual world is a real, human world. It is not all ponies and rainbows.” is heaven also considered in the spiritual world? is heaven not like “ponies and rainbows” from my perspective does that still mean we have challenges or tough situations in heaven? i know we can’t be selfish anymore but what if we chose one person over another hangout is that still possible?
Again appreciate this awesome article Lee!
Hi Max,
Glad you liked the article! Thanks for asking all the good questions that led to it. As you can see, most of it was edited versions of your questions and my answers, but I added some new stuff as well. And as you can also see in the first comment, it did answer some other people’s questions as well.
About ponies and rainbows, Swedenborg actually does describe a rainbow heaven in Secrets of Heaven #1623. But that’s just one small part of heaven. Most areas of heaven aren’t full of rainbows.
But to actually answer your question, I do think that we still have challenges to face and tough situations to deal with in heaven, if we have developed the kind of character that’s able to handle them. In the Bible, angels fight battles against Satan and his crew, and if that’s not a tough challenge, I don’t know what is. Angels are also with each one of us, battling against the evil thoughts and desires from hell that are trying to take us over and enslave us. Not all angels are engaged in these battles, but many of them are.
So yes, angels still “go to work,” so to speak, and their work isn’t just a walk in the park.
Another type of work angels do is learning and teaching. That involves exploring and developing and understanding new ideas. If you think about scientists and physicists trying to figure out how the physical universe works, and having to work hard, make observations, read scientific articles, and come up with and test theories, you can get some sense of how in the spiritual world, exploring and developing new spiritual ideas is real work, and it’s not easy.
What doesn’t happen is angels getting into conflicts with each other over who wins and who loses, and who gets the credit and accolades and who doesn’t, as happens so often here on earth. In heaven, angels work together with each other. This doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t some friendly competition, but it’s more like sports teams that have good sportsmanship, and congratulate each other on their wins rather than getting all mad and cussing out the other team when they lose a game.
Being a fan of old Star Trek, I also think it’s similar to Gene Roddenberry’s rule that the crews of Federation starships couldn’t have conflicts with each other. The drama had to come from facing external threats together. I think that’s how it is in heaven. They’re working together harmoniously and not fighting each other, but they do face external threats. In this case the threats are from hell and all the evil spirits there. It’s heaven’s job to keep hell in check and prevent it from breaking out and laying waste to everyone and everything as the people who live in hell would love to do.
So yes, there are real challenges in heaven, some of them intellectual, some of them emotional, and some of them involving conflict and battle with hell both on a large scale and in the minds and hearts of each individual person on earth.
As for choosing one person over another, people in heaven are good, but not perfect. There can still be relationship issues as the people face the remaining flaws in their character. For example sometimes, Swedenborg says, an angel gets a little too full of himself, and falls out of heaven for a while until he (or she) comes to his senses. If that happened in a friendship or marriage, there could be some issues to work out between the people involved. While that’s going on, someone might “choose one person over another,” and all the relationship dynamics that go on here would happen there as well. It’s sort of like here on earth, where if you’re being an idiot, your friends might kick you out of their circle for a while until you stop being such an idiot. And so on.
Remember, we’re still the same people there as we are here. We don’t suddenly become perfect just because we’re in heaven instead of being on earth.
Hey lee i have lots of emails from past conversations that make me confused on some parts such as
there being more levels to heaven and the highest being more angelic i guess in a way? how exactly does that work and are we assigned to specific levels for everyone?
Then when were there for eternity and we try to “perfect ourselves” does that mean at one point we do perfect ourselves since we had a lot of time and were no longer us but someone more “perfect” than me?
and then how people can miss their loved ones in hell and that sometimes (i forgot how you said it) something that we can make a reservation to see the person in hell if they wanna come but it barley works since they chose hell. something like that i’m totally wrong. but can people change in hell and come to heaven?
and seriously being in heaven for eternity how does it not mess your mind up?
lastly if we can think our own thoughts in heaven since were the same person can some people not look at other bodies and think something about them? assuming people say “woah she/he have since body” hinting they like something about that body.
sorry for all these questions Lee just abit confused is all… no matter how long were there for eternity do we really not lose sanity and still ourselves?
Hi Max,
These are all good questions.
On the first one, yes, there are higher and lower levels of heaven. However, we are not “assigned” to them. We go to our own level and community of heaven of our own free will, based on the kind of person we have become here on earth. People who are just basic good people go to the lowest level of heaven, people who live their lives based on spiritual principles that they have adopted go to the middle level, and people who live a life full of love for God and for all the people around them go to the highest heaven. This is a simplified version, but it’s the basic idea. The main point is that we are not “sent” to some part of heaven. It is not a reward for good behavior. We go to a particular level and community of heaven because it matches the character we developed here on earth.
As far as perfecting ourselves, we always remain the same person. Our basic character never changes after we die. What happens is that we become a better and better version of ourselves. And we never actually become perfect. Only God is perfect. Rather, we keep learning and growing spiritually forever.
For a while after we die, we could visit loved ones who are in hell if we wanted to. This may be necessary for some people to be able to let go of them and move on with their lives. We often have unfinished business with friends and family members that we have to take care of in the other life because one or both of us dies before we can resolve those issues. If one of them has chosen hell, as I said in the above article, we’ll have to recognize that there’s nothing we can do, and make the difficult decision to let go of that person and move on with our life. Eventually we will forget all about the people we know who have chosen hell and are living there. We will be living our own good life, and there will be no reason to think about them anymore.
And no, once people go to hell, they do not ever change and leave. I know this is not the popular thing to say. Even Swedenborg had a hard time believing it at first. But over time, it became clear to him that it is the truth, and he stated it very clearly in Heaven and Hell and other books. The choice we make here on earth is permanent. That’s why it’s important not to waste this life, but to make good use of it developing into a good, loving, thoughtful, and heavenly person.
About heaven “messing your mind up,” I suppose that might be an issue if it were like living in time and space here on earth. But there is no time and space as we know it in the spiritual world. Angels don’t spend their time thinking about the past or the future. They are always living in the present, enjoying the present moment, or focusing on the job they’re doing right now. And because God is infinite, and always keeps giving us new things to think about and to do, we never run out of things to do, and we never get bored. It doesn’t mess up our minds because we’re always happy to be where we are doing what we’re doing right now.
About seeing beautiful women in heaven, yes, the women in heaven are very beautiful—more beautiful than we can even imagine here, especially in the higher parts of heaven. However, all the men there are happily married. Each man loves his own wife more than you can imagine, and he has no sexual or romantic interest in any other woman. The very thought of sleeping with another women fills him with horror. It’s not that the men in heaven don’t appreciate the beauty of other women. But there’s no sexual desire in that appreciation.
For one thing, in heaven our body expresses our soul. When you are looking at another person, male or female, you aren’t just seeing their body. You’re seeing their personality and character as expressed in their body. Just looking at someone’s body, without thinking about who they are as a person, is completely impossible for people in heaven. It’s not something they do, and it’s not something they can do. In today’s PC language, men in heaven don’t “objectify” women, and women in heaven don’t objectify men either. There, seeing someone’s body is seeing that person’s soul.
And it is very clear to everyone there whose character is a match for their own, and whose is not. A person’s own wife or husband is a match for his or her own soul. Nobody else is. And spiritually, sex is the physical expression of an inner union of mind and heart. The very thought of doing that with someone who is not one with you in mind and heart (meaning everyone else besides your own partner in marriage) is horrifying. It actually feels painful and disgusting to an angel. If you bring it up with them, they’ll tell you not to say such a terrible thing.
So yes, men in heaven see and appreciate the beauty of other women besides their wives. But there is no sexual or romantic desire for those other women. Only for their own wife, who, to them, is the most beautiful woman of all.
And one more time, no, we don’t lose our sanity in the eternity of heaven. In fact, we are always becoming more and more “sane” as we grow in love and wisdom, and this continues forever. Every moment has new things to think, feel, and do. And we continue to enjoy that in the eternal present moment forever.
and we aren’t turned to “happy robots”??
Hi Max,
Nope. We’re completely free, and completely ourselves. Same as here, only much more free, and much more ourselves.
off topic but as for people who are into sports (specifically boxing) can they no longer box anymore i would assume heaven is really strict on being friendly meaning no fights. even though boxing is a sport.
and would there be angel or anyone in heaven telling us for example if we fall or stumble or something scared us and we say “oh crap” or “what the f*” we can’t say that or? just in the intention of it scaring you and the word just coming out didn’t harm anyone’s feelings idk
Hi Max,
There are no behavior or speech police in heaven. People can say and do what they want there. Nobody in heaven wants to do bad and destructive things, so there’s no need to have anyone policing people’s behavior. And though there aren’t so many things to swear about in heaven as there are on earth, for people in certain cultures, swearing is sort of like punctuation or emphasis. In some parts of heaven, probably mostly the lower parts, I think it will still go on because that’s just how some people talk.
Only if someone from hell sneaks into heaven are there problems, but that’s because those people don’t belong there. They get thrown out pretty quickly, if they don’t run away of their own accord because they can’t stand the atmosphere there.
As for boxing and other martial arts, as long as it’s something both people want to do, I don’t see why people couldn’t do that in heaven. Once again, I think it would probably be mostly in the lower levels of heaven, but that’s still part of heaven.
People in heaven are free to live the way they want to live, and talk the way they want to talk. They’ll be living in the same community with other people who think, talk, and act in a similar way, so nobody’s going to get all upset about it. People who don’t want to engage in or watch martial arts, or who don’t want to hear “colorful” language, wouldn’t be living in those parts of heaven anyway.
because free will and evil or just bad things or not always saying “no” to things. is it possible there’s still bad in heaven? just like when you said angels can read your mind but only when you try to lie.. can you or? we don’t want to do anything destructive in heaven but is there still like that?
Hi Max,
About angels reading your mind when you try to lie, that was about people newly arrived from the material world who are now living in the “world of spirits” between heaven and hell, where everyone first arrives in the spiritual world. (“The spiritual world” refers to the entire spiritual realm, including heaven, hell, and the world of spirits.)
When people first arrive in the spiritual world, they are still just like they were on earth, including putting up false faces that hide what they’re actually like inside. During our stay in the world of spirits, those false faces, or “masks,” are gradually peeled away, so that we say and do outwardly exactly what we think and want inwardly. By the time we are ready to go to our permanent home in either heaven or hell, there’s no more pretending. Everyone can see and know exactly who we are and what we think by looking at our face and body and by listening to our words and our voice.
But before the masks come off, people who have committed crimes commonly lie about it and deny that they ever committed those crimes, just as criminals commonly do here on earth. That is when angels open up their minds and display for them and for the bystanders the crimes themselves.
It’s not just reading their minds. It’s actually displaying the crimes as if it were a movie, but it’s the actual crimes themselves exactly as they happened. This is how they bring out the “evidence” and make these lying newcomers admit to their crimes. If you want to read about it for yourself, it’s in Heaven and Hell #462(b). At this link you have to scroll down to get to it.
So to answer your question, what I said was not about people lying in heaven. That’s not possible. Once we have gone through the stripping away of our outward masks, we can no longer say something we don’t believe. In heaven, especially, people can’t and don’t lie. They can hold their tongue and not say anything, but if they speak, it will be the truth.
In hell, people do “lie” in the sense of saying things that are false. But when they do so, they believe that these things are true. So they’re not saying something they don’t believe. They’re saying exactly what they believe, but everything people in hell believe is false, because falsity goes with evil. Technically, they’re not lying because they actually believe what they’re saying.
Bottom line: People in heaven don’t lie. They can’t lie. In heaven it is impossible to say something you don’t believe to be true. And no one there wants to lie anyway.
Hi Max,
About your overall question of whether there’s still bad in heaven, it’s a very good question. Job 15:15–15 says:
Swedenborg agrees. He says that no one, not event the highest angel, is perfectly pure. All the evil we have ever wanted, thought, said, or done is still inside us. Nothing is ever completely wiped away. Like our memory, it’s all still there. What happens for good people is not that their evil is washed away and purged so that it’s no longer in them anymore, but that it gets pushed more and more to the side, so that it is no longer a significant part of their everyday life. It’s in our peripheral vision, so to speak, where we mostly don’t notice it because that’s not what our eyes are focused on.
In heaven, we mostly don’t remember the wrong things we have desired and said and done, and we don’t think about the evil that’s still within us but chained in the dungeon of our mind, so to speak, unless there is some reason to remember it. This would usually be if we start to get a big head and think we’re really great and really hot stuff, when in fact, if it weren’t for God constantly keeping us focused on and engaged in things that are good and true, we would all be horrible monsters.
When people in heaven start thinking they’re good on their own, they fall out of heaven and are given a glimpse of what their true inner character is like without God. They then recognize that they themselves are nothing but evil, that only God is good, and that everything good in them is from God, not from themselves. Then they are lifted back up to heaven, and resume their happy life.
So is there bad in heaven? Yes, because even the highest angels are not perfect. But there isn’t intentional evil. Angels are angels because during their lifetime on earth they chose to have a good “ruling love,” meaning primary motive in life. This ruling love is what determines their whole character. And for angels, it is one of the Great Commandments that Jesus gave: Loving God above all and loving their neighbor as themselves. So angels do not want to say or do anything bad.
However, being faulty and imperfect humans, it’s still possible for them to mess up, and unintentionally do something that’s not so good. Mostly in the lower parts of heaven, but no one is immune. For example, someone might say something that is hurtful to another person without intending to do so, just as often happens here among friends or lovers who do love and care about each other, but sometimes say stupid things to them. This sort of thing can still go on in heaven, and angels learn from their mistakes just as we do here on earth.
I think your overarching question is whether we’re still real people in heaven.
Yes, we’re real people in heaven. We’re still ourselves. We can still do stupid things, though over time we do fewer and fewer stupid things because we learn from our mistakes there just as we do here, and we don’t want to hurt people or say insulting things. So when we mess up, we admit it and apologize for it as needed, and make the corrections in our own thinking and attitudes so that we won’t do it again. It’s a lot like how things work here for people who have a good heart but still aren’t perfect, because we’re all human beings.
Only God is perfectly good. Heaven is not clean in God’s sight. But God looks on the people in heaven with love and compassion, and does not hold their remaining impurity against them. Instead, God guides them out of it so that they can always be growing in love, understanding, and happiness with one another and with God.
Lee do you by chance believe in miracles? like Can God or jesus talk to us through other people or humans giving us what to hear or like a sign?
Hi Max,
I think miracles are possible, but rare these days because even most religious people don’t really believe that the spiritual world can have any effect upon the material world. Without faith in God and spirit, miracles are not possible.
As for God talking to us through other people or receiving signs, yes, I think this happens all the time.
there’s days rn where i just have a bad day or just don’t wanna get out of bed and be on my phone or just nap.. is that possible in heaven or would i have to get up and do activities? as for heaven is there work to do like shifts? or whenever we want to? i ask since i do plan on hanging out with my friends there!!!
Hi Max,
Once again, everyone in heaven is completely free. No one has to do anything. People there do things because they want to do them.
That includes work. Nobody has “shifts” that they have to show up for on time. Rather, people wake up in the morning looking forward to getting something useful done that day. People enjoy their work. They do it because they love to do it. And they put their whole self into it. There’s no half-assing it because you don’t want to be there, or you’re just doing it for the paycheck. In heaven, there are no paychecks, and no need to make money to survive, because God provides everything you need—food, clothes, a place to live—for free to everyone in heaven.
As far as other activities, there is plenty of time for recreation and hanging out with friends. Swedenborg doesn’t say a lot about people’s work day, probably because it likely varies a lot depending on the person and the type of job he or she does, but in one place he seems to say that people work in the morning, and have the afternoon and evening free for recreation or whatever else they want to do.
Bottom line: You’ll have all the time you want to hang out with your friends. But you’ll also have work to do that you love to do and can’t wait to get to in the morning.
“Just looking at someone’s body, without thinking about who they are as a person, is completely impossible for people in heaven. It’s not something they do, and it’s not something they can do.”
in this case does that get wiped out of our memory? and by just wanting to look at someone does it always show who they really are even for a sec you look at them? i’m thinking of a scenario where everyone you look at in heaven either a family member a friend your lover or stranger a random pop up shows up how they really are for as long as you look at them..
i guess now i’m afraid and what i do that can cause harm since we don’t wanna do bad in heaven. like rn i like having a laugh with friends pulling a leg or just prank people like i said before but i don’t like to cuss or instigate anything. and as for lying do we also get our memory wiped from lying or how do we just randomly start knowing not to lie anymore?
Hi Max,
It’s not that we get our memory wiped. It’s that we always say and do exactly what we think and feel. There’s no faking it in heaven, as there is here on earth. If you don’t want to do something, you just don’t do it. If you do want to do something, you do it. And you say exactly what you think, without pretending to believe something you don’t believe, or lying about what you think. It’s the exact opposite of a memory wipe. It is expressing exactly what’s in your thoughts and memory.
As for doing bad, as I said before, nobody in heaven is perfect. You can still do stupid things. And if you do, you’ll learn from your mistakes just as you do here. The higher you are in heaven, the less likely you are to make stupid mistakes.
People in the highest heaven are always being willingly led by God, like sheep willingly being led by their shepherd. But they are not “sheeple.” They are the wisest and most loving of the angels, and they follow God out of love and wisdom, not blindly, because they know that God is far wiser and more loving than they are, and that if they follow God, God will give them the happiest life possible every moment.
People in the middle heaven are always thinking about what’s the best way to act, and they are very smart and thoughtful, so most of the time they don’t make stupid mistakes because they think before they act. They play things out in their mind, look at different possibilities, and do their best to choose the most sensible and effective course of action. They may still make mistakes occasionally, but if they do, they’ll learn from it very quickly, and won’t make that mistake again, because they’ll understand exactly why it is a mistake, and that will become part of their intellectual equipment, so to speak.
People in the lowest heaven are the ones most likely to make mistakes because they learn by doing, not by thinking as in the middle heaven, or by loving and feeling, as in the highest heaven. In the lowest heaven, trial-and-error will still be a common method of approaching problems. And that means sometimes there will be errors that must be corrected. There’s no bad intention behind it. It’s just that people in the lowest heaven are ordinary Joes and Janes who don’t think deeply about things. They’re like ordinary blue collar workers who try to do their best, but sometimes cut the board to the wrong length, and have to try again with a different board. But they’re still a lot smarter than working folks here on earth.
And if you and your friends still want to pull practical jokes on each other, there’s no problem with that. If you still like doing that sort of thing in heaven, you’ll be around other people who also like that sort of thing, and will think it’s very funny when they’re walking down the path and suddenly that innocent looking pile of leaves turns out to be a pit trap. But of course, they won’t be seriously injured. Maybe just a couple of bumps and bruises, which will heal quickly.
Don’t worry. In heaven you’ll still be exactly the person you are. Quite a bit smarter and happier than you are here, and you won’t do quite as many stupid things, but underneath it all you’ll still be the same Max that you are here.
is it possible for one to get in a fight from one getting annoyed by another? or in general
Hi Max,
I doubt that anyone in heaven gets into fights. Fights come from people wanting to assert their own way and control other people, or get other people’s belongings or reputation for themselves. That’s not how people are in heaven. But in hell, yes, there are fights all the time.
as so we can no longer joke like where a friend is asking “where’s jayson at?” and clearly you don’t see him but jokingly you point at another friend and say “look it’s jayson” showing to get a laugh out of it but in a way it’s a lieish ? idk
Hi Max,
Jokes are not lies. If it’s obvious to everyone that you’re joking, and you don’t mean it literally, then it’s not a problem. But some of these things we’ll just have to wait until we get there to see how it works. It’s above my pay grade to examine every joke and figure of speech and say whether we can or can’t say that sort of thing in heaven. The main thing is that we’re free to say and do what we want to say and do, but we can’t, and don’t want to, lie and mislead people. That’s in heaven. In hell it’s a whole different story.
you know Lee i’m starting to think heaven can be strict in a way… i like to play and hang with my friends i sometimes hide there keys for a bit just to reveal them afterwards but if that’s consider misleading i would be upset about it. Everyone says i tend to be funny.
In the bible 1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
people fully understand each other so misunderstandings or confusion are gone.. i really can’t prank anyone or make them confused for us to both laugh?
and Lee lastly on this in really big on this but i genuinely don’t know be a “happy smiling robot” that’s not me so why? and how do you you know we can still feel other emotions than just being happy in heaven?
growing up heaven sounds like a “all you need and finally be happy forever”
Hi Max,
I would suggest not getting all fixated on this. Enjoy your life and your pranking now, and live a good life. Then heaven will take care of itself. As Jesus said, each day has enough troubles of its own. No need to get all worried about the future.
And I know that angels have different emotions because they are described having different emotions both in the Bible and in Swedenborg’s writings, not to mention in the accounts of other people who have had experiences with angels in the spiritual world. Plus, Jesus himself expressed many different emotions, including anger, not to mention having a biting sense of humor. Swedenborg also talks about angels getting mad when someone says just the sort of thing you’re saying: that heaven is going to be boring and insipid. They tell the guy in no uncertain terms that he knows nothing about heaven.
My suggestion is: Chill out about pranking in heaven. You can prank now to your heart’s content. Enjoy it. And don’t worry about whether you can prank in heaven. If you want to then, you can. But that’s in the future.
The main point is that in heaven you are completely free—the exact opposite of being a robot. You can do whatever you want to do and say whatever you want to say.
I’m glad I discovered your website. It’s a real breath of fresh air.
Hi JRW,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. Glad you’re enjoying the articles here.
Godspeed on your spiritual journey.