2748. Certain spirits who had led adulterous lives in the world came and talked to me. I realized that they had not been very long in the next life, for they did not know that they were there but imagined that they were still in the world. The ability to reflect where they were had been taken away from them. I was allowed to tell them that they were in the next life; but they soon forgot and began to ask where there were houses where they might worm themselves in. But I asked them whether they had no respect for spiritual things, that is to say, for conjugial love, which is destroyed by such seducings. I told them that such things were contrary to heavenly order; but to all this they paid no attention nor even understood what I was saying. I went on to ask whether they had no fear of the laws, or of punishments according to the law. But these they held in contempt. Only when I said that perhaps they would be severely beaten with sticks by the servants in those houses did they feel any fear. After that I was given to perceive their thoughts, for in the next life thoughts are communicated. They were so filthy and obscene that the upright were positively horrified; yet those things - every single one - are in the next life exposed before spirits and angels. From all this it may become clear that such persons cannot be in heaven.
