[Footnote ss:  Motions, progressions, and changes of place, in the other life, are changes of the state of the interiors of life, and nevertheless it really appears to spirits and angels as if they actually existed, nos. 1273-1277, 1377, 3356, 5606, 10734.]

126.  That there are many systems, may appear to every one from the fact that so many stars appear in the universe; and it is known in the learned world that every star is like a sun in its own place, for it remains fixed as the sun of our Earth does in its place; and that it is the distance that makes it appear in so small a form as a star; consequently, that, like the sun of our system, each star has planets around it, which are earths; and that the reason why these do not appear before our eyes is on account of their immense distance, and because only the light from their own star reaches us, which light cannot be again reflected from the planets so far as to reach us.  To what other purpose could so great a heaven with so many constellations be intended?  For the end of the creation of the universe is man, that from man there may be an angelic heaven; but what would a human race, and from it an angelic heaven, from one single earth, be for an Infinite Creator, for whom a thousand, yea tens of thousands of earths, would not suffice?  It has been calculated that, supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every earth three hundred million men, and two hundred generations within six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit there were to be allotted a space of three cubic ells, the sum of that great number of men or spirits would not occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this Earth, consequently hardly the space occupied by one of the satellites of the planet Jupiter or Saturn:  which would be a space in the universe so small as to be scarcely discernible; for a satellite [of Jupiter or Saturn] is scarcely visible to the naked eye.  What would this be for the Creator of the universe, for whom the whole universe, even if it were completely filled, would not be enough, for He is Infinite.  In conversing with the angels on this subject, they have told me that they have a similar idea of the fewness of the human race relatively to the infinity of the Creator; but that, nevertheless, they do not think from spaces, but from states, and that according to their idea, earths numbering as many myriads as could ever be conceived in thought would still be as absolutely nothing to the Lord.  The earths in the starry heaven, however, shall now be treated of in what follows from real experience; from which it will likewise be made manifest how the translations to these earths were effected as to my spirit, whilst my body remained in its own place.

THE FIRST EARTH IN THE STARRY HEAVEN, AND ITS SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS:  FROM THINGS HEARD AND SEEN.