To peruse the pages of this work is to make a spiritual journey with one of the most remarkable visionaries the Western world has ever produced. Swedenborg leads us through the unseen realms that await us after death - a world that is both foreign to us and at the same time surprisingly familiar to our deeper consciousness. With his guidance we sense the light, warmth, and harmony of the angelic heavens, as well as the gradations of darkness and the twisted longings of the various hells. Under his instruction we learn why and how the human spirit inevitably seeks its eternal home in one realm or the other. He tells us of his own near-death experience and of the angelic welcome and the process of self-discovery that await us after we die. Swedenborg also guides us through Scripture undermining the power and import of the literal sense, he reveals layer upon layer of meaning within the verses of Genesis and Exodus. From deep within the Bible he uncovers evidence of emotional and mental trials Jesus underwent during his life on earth, which are scarcely hinted at in the surface of Scripture and are unmentioned in history or legend. And perhaps most importantly, he shows us the way home-the path of spiritual renewal and rejuvenation that takes us from wherever we find ourselves now to where our hearts belong.
