504.  All men without exception are let into this state after death, because it is their spirit’s own state.  The former state is such as the man was in regard to his spirit when in company; and that is not his own state.  That this state, namely, the state of the exteriors into which man first comes after death (as shown in the preceding chapter) is not his own state, many things show, for example, that spirits not only think but also speak from their affection, since their speech is from their affection (as has been said and shown in the chapter on the speech of angels, n. 234-245).  It was in this way that man had thought while in the world when he was thinking within himself, for at such times his thought was not from his bodily words, but he [mentally] saw the things, and in a minute of time saw more than he could afterwards utter in half an hour.  Again that the state of the exteriors is not man’s own state or the state of his spirit is evident from the fact that when he is in company in the world he speaks in accord with the laws of moral and civil life, and at such times interior thought rules the exterior thought, as one person rules another, to keep him from transgressing the limits of decorum and good manners.  It is evident also from the fact that when a man thinks within himself, he thinks how he must speak and act in order to please and to secure friendship, good will, and favor, and this in extraneous ways, that is, otherwise than he would do if he acted in accordance with his own will.  All this shows that the state of the interiors that the spirit is let into is his own state, and was his own state when he was living in the world as a man.

505.  When the spirit is in the state of his interiors it becomes clearly evident what the man was in himself when he was in the world, for at such times he acts from what is his own.  He that had been in the world interiorly in good then acts rationally and wisely, and even more wisely than in the world, because he is released from connection with the body, and thus from those earthly things that caused obscurity and interposed as it were a cloud.  But he that was in evil in the world then acts foolishly and insanely, and even more insanely than in the world, because he is free and under no restraint.  For while he lived in the world he was sane in outward appearance, since by means of externals he made himself appear to be a rational man; but when he has been stripped of his externals his insanities are revealed.  An evil man who in externals takes on the semblance of a good man may be likened to a vessel shining and polished on the outside and covered with a lid, within which filth of all kinds is hidden, in accordance with the Lord’s saying: 

     Ye are like whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear
     beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones and
     of all uncleanness (Matt. 23:27).