693. The second experience.*
Some weeks later I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'There is to be another meeting on Parnassium; come and we will show you the way.' I went and when I came near I saw someone with a trumpet standing on Heliconeum, announcing and summoning a meeting, Then I saw people coming up from the city of Athenaeum and its neighbourhood as before, and among them three newcomers from the world. The three were from the Christians, one a priest, the second a politician, and the third a philosopher. On the way the people entertained them with talk on various subjects, especially about the wise men of antiquity, whom they mentioned by name, The three asked whether they would see them. They were told that they would see them, and if they wished greet them, since they were easy to approach.
They asked about Demosthenes**, Diogenes and Epicurus***. 'Demosthenes,' they said 'is not here but where Plato lives. Diogenes with his school lives under Heliconeum, because he regards worldly matters as of no value and reflects on heavenly matters. Epicurus lives on the western boundary and does not visit us, because we make a distinction between good and evil affections; we hold that good affections go along with wisdom, and evil affections are opposed to wisdom.'
[2] When they had climbed the hill of Parnassium, some guards there brought water from its spring in crystal goblets, saying: 'This is water from the spring mentioned by the ancient writers of fables as having been broken open by the hoof of the horse Pegasus and later consecrated by the Nine Maidens****. But by the winged horse Pegasus the ancients meant the understanding of truth by which comes wisdom. The hooves of its feet meant the experiences which give rise to natural intelligence; and by the Nine Maidens they meant knowledge and learning of every kind. These stories are nowadays called fables, but were correspondences, a manner of expression the earliest people used.'
'Don't be surprised,' their companions told the three newcomers. 'The guards are taught to speak like this. We understand by drinking the water from the spring being taught about truths, and by means of truths about different kinds of good, and so to be wise.'
[3] After this they went into the Palladium and with them the three newcomers from the world, the priest, the politician and the philosopher. Then those with laurel wreaths who were sitting at the tables asked: 'What news is there from earth?'
'The news,' they replied, 'is that a certain person is claiming to talk with angels, and to have his sight opened into the spiritual world just as much as he has it opened into the natural world. He reports a great deal of news from there, including the following. A person, he says, lives as a person after death, just as he previously lived in the world. He sees, hears and talks, just as he did previously in the world. He is dressed and wears adornments just as previously in the world. He feels hunger and thirst, eats and drinks, just as previously in the world. He enjoys the delights of married life, just as previously in the world. He goes to sleep and wakes up, just as previously in the world. That world has lands and lakes, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, springs and rivers, parks and woodland; as well as palaces and houses, towns and villages, just as the natural world. There are writings and books there, there are official duties and business enterprises, precious stones, gold and silver. In short, every single thing that there is on earth is to be found in heaven, and in infinitely greater perfection. The only difference is that everything in the spiritual world is of spiritual origin, and so is spiritual, since it comes from the sun there, which is pure love. Everything in the natural world is of natural origin, and so is natural and material, because it comes from the sun there which is pure fire. In short, a person after death is perfectly human, in fact, a more perfect person than he was previously in the world. For previously in the world he had a material body, but in the spiritual world he has a spiritual body.'
[4] When this was said, the wise men of antiquity asked what the people on earth thought about this. 'We,' said the three, 'know that this is true, because we are here and have looked at and tested everything. But we shall tell you what was said and what reasonings were employed on earth.'
Then the priest said: 'The clergy like me, when they first heard these things, called them visions, then fictions, and later said that the man had seen ghosts. Finally they were perplexed and said, "Believe it if you like. We have up to now taught that a person will not have a body after death, until the day of the Last Judgment." '
'Are there not intelligent men,' they asked, 'among them, who can prove and convince them of the truth that a person lives on after death?'
[5] The priest said that there were some who proved it but failed to convince. 'Those who offer proofs,' he said, 'assert that it is contrary to sound reason to believe that a person does not go on living as a person before the day of the Last Judgment, and in the meantime is a soul without a body. "What is a soul and where does it live in the meanwhile? Is it more than a breath, a puff of wind flying through the air, or something lodged in the middle of the earth, where its Pu***** is. Do the souls of Adam and Eve, and of all their successors for six thousand years or sixty centuries still flit about the universe, or are they shut up in the bowels of the earth, awaiting the Last Judgment? Is there anything more worrying and pitiable than such a period of waiting? Could not their fate be compared to that of prisoners in jails chained hand and foot? If that is man's fate after death, would it not be better to have been born a donkey than a man? Surely it is unreasonable to believe that a soul can be clothed again in its body, when the body has been eaten by worms, rats or fish? Or that some new body will be wrapped around a bony skeleton which has been parched by the sun or has collapsed into dust? How can such stinking bits of corpse be gathered together and united with souls?" But when they hear such arguments, they do not offer any reasonable answer, but cling to their faith, saying; "We keep our reason obedient to our faith." Their reply to the question about all being gathered from the grave on the day of the Last Judgment is: "This is the task of omnipotence," and when they start talking about omnipotence and faith, reason flies out of the window. I can assure you that then sound reason is treated as nothing, and some regard it as a mirage. They are actually able to tell sound reason that it is crazy.'
[6] On hearing this the wise men of Greece said: 'Are not these paradoxes refuted by themselves as being contradictory? Yet in the world to-day even sound reason cannot refute them. Can you believe anything more paradoxical than what is said about the Last Judgment, that then the universe will come to an end, and then the stars of the sky will fall upon the earth, although it is not as big as the stars? Or that people's bodies, what will then be corpses or mummies eaten up by people or reduced to shreds, will be joined to their souls again? When we were in the world, we believed in the immortality of people's souls because of the deductions which reason offered us. We also allotted a place for the blessed, which we called the Elysian fields, believing them to be likenesses or appearances of human beings, though delicate because they are spiritual.
[7] After these speeches, they turned to the second newcomer, who in the world had been a politician. He admitted that he had not believed in life after death, and had thought that the stories he had heard about it were imagination and fiction. 'When I thought about it,' he said, 'I said: "How can souls be bodies? Everything a person is lies dead in the grave. Has he got an eye there to see with? Has he got an ear there to hear with? How can he have a mouth to talk with? If any part of a person lived after death, could it be anything but a kind of ghost? How can a ghost eat and drink? How can it enjoy the delights of married life? Where does it get clothes, house, food, and so on? Ghosts, which are airy forms, look as if they existed, but they do not." It was this and such like that I thought when I was in the world about people's life after death. But now that I have seen everything, and touched everything with my hands, I have been convinced by my very senses that I am a person just as in the world. So much so, that I am unaware that I am not living as I formerly did, but for the fact that now my reason is sounder. I have several times been ashamed of what I thought formerly.'
[8] The philosopher told much the same story about himself. But the difference was that he ascribed all the news he had heard about life after death to opinions and theories which he had learnt from ancient and modern thinkers.
The wise men were astonished to hear this. Those who belonged to the school of Socrates said that this news from earth allowed them to perceive that the interiors of men's minds had little by little been closed up, so that in the world now belief in falsity shone like truth, and silly cleverness like wisdom. They said that the light of wisdom had since their time lowered itself from the interior of the brain to the mouth beneath the nose, where it looked to the eyes like the gleam of lips, and what the mouth had to say from that source seemed like wisdom.
On hearing this one of the recruits there said: 'How stupid are the minds of those who dwell on the earth to-day! I wish the disciples of Heraclitus and Democritus******, who laugh at everything or who weep at everything, were here. We should hear a mighty laughter and a mighty weeping.'
When the meeting was over, they gave the three newcomers from earth mementoes of their country; these were copper plates on which some hieroglyphs had been engraved, and these they took away with them.
* This is repeated from CL 182. ** The famous Greek politician and orator of the 4th century BC. *** Greek philosophers of the late 4th century BC. **** Otherwise known as the Muses. ***** See note on 29.2. Pu, the Greek word for 'Where?' is a term for the place where the souls of the dead are thought to await resurrection. ****** Greek philosophers of the 5th century BC; Democritus was famous for his use of ridicule.