In the diary notes as in the books, Swedenborg maintained that out of the knowledge and experience man obtained here on earth he could literally build his own heaven and hell. Thoughts were substantial things, in a sense. All the books a man had read, all the sights he had seen, all his sense impressions indeed, were still his, and under certain circumstances could again, at least for a while, become his consciously in the forms, or even better, under which he had enjoyed them. If people had enough memories in common, cities appeared. He noted libraries, public and private, which, naturally, Swedenborg visited. "There was a vast number who studied the books, and some of them become learned, many intelligent, and others wise." 32
Every kind of activity of human beings could be found in the other world, only they were subject to the law of "correspondence." Not man's mere wish decided what he was to experience in that world, but his character. Houses, garments, gardens, all might change or disappear, if the spirit yielded to evil thoughts, and these again created their own dire punishments.
Both charming and fantastic vignettes can be culled from Swedenborg's diaries—subjects for artists of imagination. Once he said he saw a little girl of five or six, beautifully clothed, walking on a path in a garden full of leafy arches, and when she entered, "the most exquisite garlands of flowers sprung forth over the entrance and shone with splendor as she approached." New garments according to her perfection were given her, and although these things were not of course "real," Swedenborg said, "for spirits cannot either possess or walk on gravelled paths," yet "it is sufficient that they perceive them as vividly, yea more vividly than men perceive similar things in gardens in this world, as I have also perceived them when I was in the spirit . . ." 33
Idle rich women, he said, those who suffer themselves to be served like queens by a retinue of servants, "having no concern about any use . . . but living in luxury and idleness, lolling on sofas, adorning themselves, presiding at entertainments and thus spending their lives—the punishment of such women in the other life is dreadful." According to the law that like attracts like, they are put with women of the same kind. This works well for a while, they keep up appearances, but "they soon begin to strike, to bruise
