of good and truth and yet desire them; and such from that desire are also called hungry.{2} Those that have conceived an idea of the small extent of heaven from the Word not understood believe it to be in one place, where all are gathered together; when, in fact, heaven consists of innumerable societies (see above, n. 41-50).  Such also have no other idea than that heaven is granted to everyone from mercy apart from means, and thus that there is admission and reception from mere favor; and they fail to understand that the Lord from mercy leads everyone who accepts Him, and that he accepts Him who lives in accordance with the laws of divine order, which are the precepts of love and of faith, and that the mercy that is meant is to be thus led by the Lord from infancy to the last period of life in the world and afterwards to eternity.  Let them know, therefore, that every man is born for heaven, and that he is received that receives heaven in himself in the world, and he that does not receive it is shut out.

{Footnote 1} Those are the elect who are in a life of good and truth (n. 3755, 3900).  Election and reception into heaven are not from mercy, as that term is understood, but are in accordance with the life (n. 5057, 5058).  There is no mercy of the Lord apart from means, but only through means, that is, to those that live in accordance with His precepts; such the Lord from His mercy leads continually in the world, and afterwards to eternity (n. 8700, 10659).

{Footnote 2} By the “poor,” in the Word, those are meant who are spiritually poor, that is, who are ignorant of truth and yet wish to be taught (n. 9209, 9253, 10227).  Such are said to hunger and thirst, which is to desire knowledges of good and of truth, by which there is introduction into the church and into heaven (n. 4958, 10227).

421.  XLIV.  What the world of spirits is.

The world of spirits is not heaven, nor is it hell, but it is the intermediate place or state between the two; for it is the place that man first enters after death; and from which after a suitable time he is either raised up into heaven or cast down into hell in accord with his life in the world.

422.  The world of spirits is an intermediate place between heaven and hell and also an intermediate state of the man after death.  It has been shown to me not only that it is an intermediate place, having the hells below it and the heavens above it, but also that it is in an intermediate state, since so long as man is in it he is not yet either in heaven or in hell.  The state of heaven in man is the conjunction of good and truth in him; and the state of hell is the conjunction of evil and falsity in him.  Whenever good in a man-spirit is conjoined to truth he comes into heaven, because that conjunction, as just said, is heaven in him; but whenever evil in a man-spirit is conjoined with falsity he comes into hell, because that conjunction is hell in him.  That conjunction is effected in the world of spirits, man then being in an intermediate state.  It is the same thing whether you say the conjunction of the understanding and the will, or the conjunction of good and truth.