1877. The souls or spirits who are in the world of spirits, especially the wicked, retain at first the things which they had in their life of the body, that is, things earthly, corporeal, and worldly, and with them the principles which they had taken up. Among these spirits are those who are not willing to hear anything concerning the internal sense of the Word, but only concerning the literal sense, which they carry so far as to believe that the twelve apostles are to sit upon twelve thrones and to judge the twelve tribes of Israel; and also that none but the poor, the miserable, and they that have suffered persecutions can enter into heaven; when yet both the rich and the powerful who have lived in charity and in faith in the Lord are there. As such persons claim heaven for themselves on account of their merits, I have seen them running hither and thither, and wherever they went they derided the things which are of the internal sense of the Word, for the reason that these are contrary to their persuasions and cupidities, in that they desire to merit heaven and to be preferred before all others. But they are like the corrupt and noxious things that flow into the blood, and pervade the veins and arteries, and pollute the mass of the blood.