{Footnote 1} All freedom pertains to love and affection, since what a man loves, that he does freely (n. 2870, 3158, 8987, 8990, 9555, 9591).  Because freedom pertains to love everyone’s life and delight is therefrom (n. 2873).  Nothing appears as one’s own, except what is from his freedom (n. 2880).  The veriest freedom is to be led by the Lord, because one is thus led by the love of good and truth (n. 892, 905, 2872, 2886, 2890-2892, 9096, 9586-9591).

46.  Again, all who are in like good, even though they have never seen each other before, know each other, just as men in the world do their kinsmen, near relations, and friends; and for the reason that in the other life there are none but spiritual kinships, relationships, and friendships, thus such as spring from love and faith.{1} This it has sometimes been granted me to see, when I have been in the spirit, and thus withdrawn from the body, and in the society of angels.  Some of those I then saw seemed as if I had known them from childhood, but others as if not known at all.  Those whom I seemed to have known from childhood were such as were in a state similar to that of my spirit; but those who seemed unknown were in a dissimilar state.

{Footnote 1} All nearness, relationship, connections, and as it were ties of blood, in heaven are from good and in accordance with its agreements and differences (n. 685, 917, 1394, 2739, 3612, 3815, 4121).

47.  All who form the same angelic society resemble each other in countenance in a general way, but not in particulars.  How these general resemblances are related to differences in particulars can in some measure be seen from like things in the world.  It is well known that with every race there is a certain general resemblance of face and eyes, by which it is known and distinguished from all other races.  This is still more true of different families.  In the heavens this is much more fully the case, because there all the interior affections appear in and shine forth from the face, for there the face is the external and representative form of those affections.  No one there can have any other face than that of his own affection.  It was also shown how this general likeness is varied in particulars with individuals in the same society.  A face like an angel’s appeared to me, and this was varied in accordance with such affections for good and truth as are in those who belong to a single society.  These changes went on for a long time, and I noticed that the same face in general continued as a ground work, all besides being what was derived and produced from that.  Thus by means of this face the affections of the whole society were exhibited, whereby the faces of those in it are varied.  For, as has been said above, the faces of angels are the forms of their interiors, thus of the affections that belong to their love and faith.