A Letter to Neale

Reader question:

Dear Neale.. I was a liberal wing Swedenborgian back in the 90's. In 1758, in one of his revelations he said came from God (sound like anyone ), he wrote a very definite book account of visiting Heaven and Hell. He said God is never angry, is love itself, and never sentences anyone to hell --- but he said there is one. "Anyone can enter heaven. However as soon as an evil person inhales the air there, they have excruciating torment, so they quickly shun it and escape to a state/place in keeping with their true state.” As the old saying goes, “Where the tree falls, there it lies. So either his revelation is wrong, is his imagination according to his state, hell shut down since 1758 or your revelation is your version of your state. I don't know how anyone can assess this stuff definitely. Two groups formed from Swedenborg who never formed a church and tried to write anonymously. One said that it was new revealed scripture. In it, God sort of ducks the question of whether there is any truth other then ones personal version. What do you think, feel or have spirited out? I don't want any afterlife surprises like this hell. Regards affectionately... Mike

Neale Responds:

Dear Mike...The book HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends tell us that hell does not exist --- but that, yes, exactly as Swedenborg said he was told --- my understanding is that we will create in the moment after our death whatever we expect to experience.

If we expected to experience fire and brimstone, or abject suffering in some form, because that is what we think we deserve, that is what we will experience. This is because the act of Creation goes on not only during physical life, but in the so-called Afterlife as well. This is because there is no such thing as the "afterlife." Life itself simply goes on and on and on eternally, yet in different forms. That is, we take differing forms.

Yet fear not, for HOME WITH GOD also says that in the very instant that we decide we do not like what we have created (such as our own personal version of "hell"), we uncreate it! Our decision and choice about things produces our direct experience...but it does not take any "time" to produce that experience as it sometimes does on Earth. The creation is immediate. The effect is instantaneous with our thought. Thus, we find ourselves in our own particular "hell" for something like one-one millionth of a nano-second...unless, of course, we actually enjoy being there, in which case we may experience it as long as we wish.

To illustrate this in easily understandable human terms, imagine getting your fingers too close to a hot kettle and accidentally touching it. It would take you no time at all to pull your finger back from the heat. This is the reaction you would have to finding yourself in your own "hell" in the Afterlife...only faster.

For a full and rich explanation of what I have been given to understand about what happens following death, do read HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends. You may obtain it from any online bookseller.

I send you my wish that you may experience God's presence in you and working through you all the days of your life.

Love,