4293. Like other men, I wondered that such things exist in the other world, since it is contrary to our conception of the life of spirits; as also from whence they were, but the reason is, that the Lord appears to them as a sun, whence is their lumen and light, which many times exceed the light of the sun on the earth; and as they have light, so also the variegation of light, which causes color; without such variegation light does not exist, for it is to them shade; thence they have colors which I have often seen, so splendid and beautiful that they cannot be described. Everything which exists in the other life is not, as some suppose, empty and void, but is the substantial itself, because it is the origin of all that is substantial in nature. There the substantial is living, or a most pure ethereal principle, which is formed by the Lord into things of this kind so wonderful that they can scarcely be described. It is enough that I have seen them, and that often; I have been there; I have spoken with them, and they have said that those things were real while the things on earth were not, being comparatively dead, and such as they despise. - 1749, June 2.