The Last Judgment
Emanuel Swedenborg

Babylon and its Destruction - part 7
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VI. Thus now was the spiritual world freed from such spirits, and the angels rejoiced on account of its liberation from them, because they who were of Babylon infested and seduced all whomsoever they could, and there more than in the world; for their cunning is more malignant there, because they are spirits; for it is the spirit of each in which all his wickedness is hidden, since the spirit of the man is what thinks, wills, intends, and plots. Many of them were explored, and it was found that they believed nothing at all, and that the heinous lust of seducing, the rich for the sake of their riches, and the poor for the sake of dominion, was rooted in their minds, and that on account of that end they kept all in the densest ignorance, thus blocking up the way to light, thus to heaven: for the way to light and to heaven is obstructed, when the knowledges of spiritual things are overwhelmed by idolatries, and when the Word is adulterated, weakened, and taken away.

(63) Those of them who were in the affection of truth from good were preserved. Those of the Papal nation who lived piously, and were in good, although not in truths, and still from affection desired to know truths, were taken away and carried into a certain region, in front in the western quarter, near the north, and there habitations were given them, and societies of them were instituted, and then priests from the Reformed were sent to them, who instructed them from the Word, and as they are instructed, they are accepted in heaven.

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