5849. The two spirits who are linked to a person provide a communication with hell, while the two angels provide a communication with heaven. Without the communication with heaven and hell a person could not go on living for even a moment. If the two lines of communication were taken away the person would fall down lifeless as a log, for if they were removed his connection with the Primary Source of Being, which is the Lord, would be taken away. I have also had this demonstrated to me by experience. The spirits with me began to be taken a little distance away; and then as they departed I began almost to expire, and I would have expired if they had not been sent back. But I realize few believe that any spirit is present with them, or indeed that spirits exist at all. The chief reason for this is that at the present day there is no faith because there is no charity, and therefore no one believes in the existence of hell, or indeed of heaven either, or consequently in life after death. A further reason for that lack of belief is that they do not see spirits with their eyes; for they say, 'If I could see them I would believe in them; what I can see exists, but whether what I cannot see exists I do not know'. Yet they do know or are capable of knowing that the human eye is so deficient and limited that it cannot see even the more observable details of the natural creation, as is made evident from optical devices which make such details visible. So how is the eye going to be able to see things that exist within an even purer creation where spirits and angels are? These cannot be seen by a person except with the eye of his internal man; for that eye is suited to beholding such things. But the sight of this eye is not opened for a person while he is in the world, for a number of reasons. All this shows how far removed belief is at the present day from the belief of old. The belief of old was that each individual person had his own angel residing with him.