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HEAVEN AND ITS WONDERS AND HELL
From Things Heard and Seen
Emanuel Swedenborg
1758
www.cosmic-people.com
www.angels-heaven.org
CONTENTS
(*)
Editor’s Preface
(**)
Author’s Preface
(I)
Part 1: Heaven
(1)
The God of Heaven Is the Lord
(2)
It Is the Divine of the Lord That Makes Heaven
(3)
In Heaven the Divine of the Lord Is Love to Him and Charity toward the Neighbor
(4)
Heaven Is Divided into Two Kingdoms
(5)
There Are Three Heavens
(6)
The Heavens Consist of Innumerable Societies
(7)
Each Society Is a Heaven in a Smaller Form, and Each Angel in the Smallest Form
(8)
All Heaven in the Aggregate Reflects a Single Man
(9)
Each Society in Heaven Reflects a Single Man
(10)
Therefore Every Angel Is in a Complete Human Form
(11)
It Is from the Lord’s Divine Human That Heaven as a Whole and in Part Reflects Man.
Extracts from Arcana Coelestia relating to the Lord and His Divine Human
(12)
There Is a Correspondence of All Things of Heaven with All Things of Man
(13)
There Is a Correspondence of Heaven with All Things of the Earth
(14)
The Sun in Heaven
(15)
Light and Heat in Heaven
(16)
The Four Quarters in Heaven
(17)
Changes of State of the Angels in Heaven
(18)
Time in Heaven
(19)
Representatives and Appearances in Heaven
(20)
The Garments with Which Angels Appear Clothed
(21)
The Places of Abode and Dwellings of Angels
(22)
Space in Heaven
(23)
The Form of Heaven That Determines Affiliations and Communications There
(24)
Governments in Heaven
(25)
Divine Worship in Heaven
(26)
The Power of the Angels of Heaven
(27)
The Speech of Angels
(28)
The Speech of Angels with Man
(29)
Writings in Heaven
(30)
The Wisdom of the Angels of Heaven
(31)
The State of Innocence of Angels in Heaven
(32)
The State of Peace in Heaven
(33)
The Conjunction of Heaven with the Human Race
(34)
Conjunction of Heaven with Man By Means of the Word
(35)
Heaven and Hell Are from the Human Race
(36)
The Heathen, or Peoples outside of the Church, in Heaven
(37)
Little Children in Heaven
(38)
The Wise and the Simple in Heaven
Extracts from Arcana Coelestia respecting Knowledges
(39)
The Rich and the Poor in Heaven
(40)
Marriages in Heaven
(41)
The Occupations of Angels in Heaven
(42)
Heavenly Joy and Happiness
(43)
The Immensity of Heaven
(II)
Part 2: The World of Spirits and Man’s State after Death
(44)
What the World of Spirits Is
(45)
In Respect to His Interiors Every Man Is a Spirit
(46)
The Resuscitation of Man from the Dead and His Entrance into Eternal Life
(47)
Man After Death Is in a Complete Human Form
(48)
After Death Man Is Possessed of Every Sense, and of All the Memory, Thought, and Affection That He Had in the World, Leaving Nothing Behind except His Earthly Body
(49)
Man After Death Is Such as His Life Had Been in the World
(50)
The Delights of Every One’s Life Are Changed after Death into Things That Correspond
(51)
The First State of Man after Death
(52)
The Second State of Man after Death
(53)
Third State of Man after Death, Which Is a State of Instruction for Those Who Enter Heaven
(54)
No One Enters Heaven by Mercy apart from Means
(55)
It Is Not So Difficult to Live the Life That Leads to Heaven As Is Believed
(III)
Part 3: Hell
(56)
The Lord Rules the Hells
(57)
The Lord Casts No One into Hell; This Is Done by the Spirit
(58)
All Who Are in Hell Are in Evils and Related Falsities Derived from the Loves of Self and of the World
(59)
What Hell Fire Is and What the Gnashing of Teeth Is
(60)
The Malice and Heinous Artifices of Infernal Spirits
(61)
The Appearance, Situation, and Number of the Hells
(62)
The Equilibrium between Heaven and Hell
(63)
By Means of the Equilibrium between Heaven and Hell Man Is in Freedom.
Extracts from Arcana Coelestia Respecting the Freedom of Man, Influx, and the Spirits through Whom Communications Are Effected
(***)
Index of Scripture References
(****)
Index
(*)
Editor’s Preface
First published in London in 1758, Heaven and Hell has become Emanuel Swedenborg’s most popular work. In 66 brief chapters, this book contains descriptions of some of Swedenborg’s most startling spiritual revelations. These include actual descriptions of life after death, a declaration that the final judgment foretold in the Bible did not predict the destruction of this earth (but that it had already taken place in the spiritual world), accounts involving married partners in heaven, and details about the work and character of angels.
There have been at least nineteen distinct translations or revisions of translations of this work in English since the first English translation by Thomas Hartley in 1778. There have also been editions in German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Arabic and Russian, to mention a few. The present translation, by John Ager, was first published by the Swedenborg Foundation in both an English version and a Latin-English edition in 1900. The text of this current edition was electronically scanned from the Foundation’s Standard Edition of Swedenborg’s theological works. This process has allowed the book to be completely reset in a more readable typeface. Certain stylistic elements have also been modernized and the spelling updated to reflect contemporary usage. In a few cases English words that have changed meaning significantly since the turn of the century have been replaced by words which more accurately reflect Swedenborg’s Latin. A case in point is the word “intercourse,” which appeared nine times in the earlier edition to translate several Latin words with a range of meanings. But this word is seldom used today in its earlier general meaning, and words such as “association,” “discussion,” etc., have been substituted. Arabic numbers have replaced Roman numerals, and several of the running heads have been reworded to reflect more clearly the subject matter of the chapters. On the whole, however, the Ager translation has not been materially altered.
This is the only major published work of Swedenborg in which the author inserted copious references from an earlier publication (his Arcana Coelestia), both in the form of footnotes and also as grouped excerpts. As these extracts are an integral part of the work, they have been retained in this edition. (The popular paperback editions of this work have generally omitted both the author’s footnotes and the three sections of grouped extracts from Arcana Coelestia: pages 59-64, 271-274, and 500-503 in this edition.)
As was the custom in his day, Swedenborg referred to the Psalms as the book of David. As with previous printings, the bold numerals in brackets, [2], [3], etc., indicate divisions of Swedenborg’s long numbered sections, made for the convenience of the reader by J. F. Potts in his six-volume Swedenborg Concordance (London: Swedenborg Society, 1888-1902).
William Ross Woofenden Sharon, Massachusetts.
(**)
Author’s Preface
1. The Lord, speaking in the presence of his disciples of the consummation of the age, which is the final period of the church,1 says, near the end of what he foretells about its successive states in respect to love and faith:2
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send forth his angels with a trumpet and a great sound; and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the end to end of the heavens (Matt. 24:29-31).
Those who understand these words according to the sense of the letter have no other belief than that during that latest period, which is called the final judgment, all these things are to come to pass just as they are described in the literal sense, that is, that the sun and moon will be darkened and the stars will fall from the sky, that the sign of the Lord will appear in the sky, and he himself will be seen in the clouds, attended by angels with trumpets; and furthermore, as is foretold elsewhere, that the whole visible universe will be destroyed, and afterwards a new heaven with a new earth will come into being. Such is the opinion of most men in the church at the present day. But those who so believe are ignorant of the arcana that lie hidden in every particular of the Word. For in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritual and heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treated of in the sense of the letter. And this is true not only of the meaning of groups of words, it is true of each particular word.3 For the Word is written solely by correspondences,4 to the end that there may be an internal sense in every least particular of it. What that sense is can be seen from all that has been said and shown about it in Arcana Coelestia [published 1749-1756]; also from quotations gathered from that work in the explanation of the White Horse [of the Apocalypse, published 1758] spoken of in Revelation.
It is according to that sense that what the Lord says in the passage quoted above respecting his coming in the clouds of heaven is to be understood. The “sun” there that is to be darkened signifies the Lord in respect to love;5 the “moon” the Lord in respect to faith;6 “stars” knowledges of good and truth, or of love and faith;7 “the sign of the Son of man in heaven” the manifestation of Divine truth; “the tribes of the earth” that shall mourn, all things relating to truth and good or to faith and love;8 “the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven with power and glory” his presence in the Word, and revelation,9 “clouds” signifying the sense of the letter of the Word,10 and “glory” the internal sense of the Word;11 “the angels with a trumpet and great voice” signify heaven as a source of Divine truth.12 All this makes clear that these words of the Lord mean that at the end of the church, when there is no longer any love, and consequently no faith, the Lord will open the internal meaning of the Word and reveal arcana of heaven. The arcana revealed in the following pages relate to heaven and hell, and also to the life of man after death. The man of the church at this date knows scarcely anything about heaven and hell or about his life after death, although all these matters are set forth and described in the Word; and yet many of those born within the church refuse to believe in them, saying in their hearts, “Who has come from that world and told us?” Lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial, which especially prevails with those who have much worldly wisdom, should also infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years; so now from what I have seen and heard it has been granted me to describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus be enlightened and unbelief dissipated. Such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is what is meant by the coming of the Lord.
Part 1
Heaven
(1)
The God of Heaven Is the Lord
2. First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend. Throughout all heaven no other than the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of heaven. There it is said, as he himself taught,
That he is one with the Father; that the Father is in him, and he in the Father; that he who sees him sees the Father; and that everything that is holy goes forth from him (John 10:30, 38; 14:9-11; 16:13-15).
I have often talked with angels on this subject, and they have invariably declared that in heaven they are unable to divide the Divine into three, because they know and perceive that the Divine is One and this One is in the Lord. They also said that those of the church who come from this world having an idea of three Divine beings cannot be admitted into heaven, since their thought wanders from one Divine being to another; and it is not allowable there to think three and say one,13 because in heaven everyone speaks from his thought, since speech there is the immediate product of the thought, or the thought speaking. Consequently, those in this world who have divided the Divine into three, and have adopted a different idea of each, and have not made that idea one and centered it in the Lord, cannot be received into heaven, because in heaven there is a sharing of all thoughts, and therefore if anyone came thinking three and saying one, he would be at once found out and rejected. But let it be known that all those who have not separated what is true from what is good, or faith from love, accept in the other life, when they have been taught, the heavenly idea of the Lord, that he is the God of the universe. It is otherwise with those who have separated faith from life, that is, who have not lived according to the precepts of true faith.
3. Those within the church who have denied the Lord and have acknowledged the Father only, and have confirmed themselves in that belief, are not in heaven; and as they are unable to receive any influx from heaven, where the Lord alone is worshiped, they gradually lose the ability to think what is true about any subject whatever; and finally they become as if dumb, or they talk stupidly, and ramble about with their arms dangling and swinging as if weak in the joints. Again, those who, like the Socinians, have denied the Divinity of the Lord and have acknowledged his humanity only, are likewise outside of heaven; they are brought forward a little toward the right and are let down into the deep, and are thus wholly separated from the rest that come from the Christian world. Finally, those who profess to believe in an invisible Divine, which they call the soul of the universe [ens universi], from which all things originated, and who reject all belief in the Lord, find out that they believe in no God; since this invisible Divine is to them a property of nature in her first principles, which cannot be an object of faith and love, because it is not an object of thought.14 Such have their lot among those called nature worshipers. It is otherwise with those born outside the church, who are called the heathen; these will be treated of hereafter.
4. Infants, who form a third part of heaven, are all initiated into the acknowledgment and belief that the Lord is their Father, and afterwards that he is the Lord of all, thus the God of heaven and earth. That children grow up in heaven and are perfected by means of knowledges, even to angelic intelligence and wisdom, will be seen in the following pages.
5. Those who are of the church cannot doubt that the Lord is the God of heaven, for he himself taught,
That all things of the Father are his (Matt. 11:27; John 16:15; 17:2).
And that he hath all power in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18).
He says “in heaven and on earth,” because he that rules heaven rules the earth also, for the one depends upon the other.15 “Ruling heaven and earth” means to receive from the Lord every good pertaining to love and every truth pertaining to faith, thus all intelligence and wisdom, and in consequence all happiness, in a word, eternal life. This also the Lord taught when he said:
He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life (John 3:36).
I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he die yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die (John 11:25, 26).
I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
6. There were certain spirits who while living in the world had professed to believe in the Father; but of the Lord they had the same idea as of any other man, and therefore did not believe him to be the God of heaven. For this reason they were permitted to wander about and inquire wherever they wished whether there were any other heaven than the heaven of the Lord. They searched for several days, but nowhere found any. These were such as place the happiness of heaven in glory and dominion; and as they were unable to get what they desired, and were told that heaven does not consist in such things, they became indignant, and wished for a heaven where they could lord it over others and be eminent in glory like that in the world.
(2)
It Is the Divine of the Lord That Makes Heaven
7. The angels taken collectively are called heaven, for they constitute heaven; and yet that which makes heaven in general and in particular is the Divine that goes forth from the Lord and flows into the angels and is received by them. And as the Divine that goes forth from the Lord is the good of love and the truth of faith, the angels are angels and are heaven in the measure in which they receive good and truth from the Lord.
8. Everyone in the heavens knows and believes and even perceives that he wills and does nothing of good from himself, and that he thinks and believes nothing of truth from himself, but only from the Divine, thus from the Lord; also that good from himself is not good, and truth from himself is not truth, because these have in them no life from the Divine. Moreover, the angels of the inmost heaven clearly perceive and feel the influx, and the more of it they receive the more they seem to themselves to be in heaven, because the more are they in love and faith and in the light of intelligence and wisdom, and in heavenly joy therefrom; and since all these go forth from the Divine of the Lord, and in these the angels have their heaven, it is clear that it is the Divine of the Lord, and not the angels from anything properly their own that makes heaven.16 This is why heaven is called in the Word the “dwelling place” of the Lord and “his throne,” and those who are there are said to be in the Lord.17 But in what manner the Divine goes forth from the Lord and fills heaven will be told in what follows.
9. Angels from their wisdom go still further. They say that not only everything good and true is from the Lord, but everything of life as well. They confirm it by this, that nothing can spring from itself, but only from something prior to itself; therefore all things spring from a first, which they call the very being [esse] of the life of all things. And in like manner all things continue to exist, for continuous existence is a ceaseless springing forth, and whatever is not continually held by means of intermediates in connection with the first instantly disperses and is wholly dissipated. They say also that there is but one fountain of life, and that man’s life is a rivulet therefrom, which if it did not unceasingly continue from its fountain would immediately flow away.
[2] Again, they say that from this one fountain of life, which is the Lord, nothing goes forth except Divine good and Divine truth, and that each one is affected by these in accordance with his reception of them—those who receive them in faith and life find heaven in them while those who reject them or stifle them change them into hell; for they change good into evil and truth into falsity, thus life into death. Again, that everything of life is from the Lord they confirm by this: that all things in the universe have relation to good and truth—the life of man’s will, which is the life of his love, to good, and the life of his under standing, which is the life of his faith, to truth; and since everything good and true comes from above it follows that everything of life must come from above.
[3] This being the belief of the angels they refuse all thanks for the good they do, and are displeased and withdraw if anyone attributes good to them. They wonder how anyone can believe that he is wise from himself or does anything good from himself. Doing good for one’s own sake they do not call good, because it is done from self. But doing good for the sake of good they call good from the Divine; and this they say is the good that makes heaven, because this good is the Lord.18
10. Such spirits as have confirmed themselves during their life in the world in the belief that the good they do and the truth they believe is from themselves, or is appropriated to them as their own (which is the belief of all who place merit in good actions and claim righteousness to themselves) are not received into heaven. Angels avoid them. They look upon them as stupid and as thieves; as stupid because they continually have themselves in view and not the Divine; and as thieves because they steal from the Lord what is his. These are averse to the belief of heaven, that it is the Divine of the Lord in the angels that makes heaven.
11. The Lord teaches that those that are in heaven and in the church are in the Lord and the Lord is in them, when he says:
Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for apart from Me ye can do nothing (John 15:4, 5).
12. From all this it can now be seen that the Lord dwells in the angels of heaven in what is his own, and thus that the Lord is the all in all things of heaven; and this for the reason that good from the Lord is the Lord in angels, for what is from the Lord is the Lord; consequently heaven to the angels is good from the Lord, and not anything of their own.
(3)
In Heaven the Divine of the Lord Is Love to Him and Charity toward the Neighbor
13. The Divine that goes forth from the Lord is called in heaven Divine truth, for a reason that will presently appear. This Divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord from his Divine love. The Divine love and the Divine truth therefrom are related to each other as the fire of the sun and the light therefrom in the world, love resembling the fire of the sun and truth therefrom light from the sun. Moreover, by correspondence fire signifies love, and light truth going forth from love.19 From this it is clear what the Divine truth that goes forth from the Lord’s Divine love is—that in its essence it is Divine good joined to Divine truth, and being so conjoined it vivifies all things of heaven; just as in the world when the sun’s heat is joined to light it makes all things of the earth fruitful, which takes place in spring and summer. It is otherwise when the heat is not joined with the light, that is, when the light is cold; then all things become torpid and lie dead. With the angels this Divine good, which is compared to heat, is the good of love; and Divine truth, which is compared to light, is that through which and out of which good of love comes.
14. The Divine in heaven which makes heaven is love, because love is spiritual conjunction. It conjoins angels to the Lord and conjoins them to one another, so conjoining them that in the Lord’s sight they are all as one. Moreover, love is the very being [esse] of everyone’s life; consequently from love both angels and men have life. Everyone who reflects can know that the inmost vitality of man is from love, since he grows warm from the presence of love and cold from its absence, and when deprived of it he dies.20 But it is to be remembered that the quality of his love is what determines the quality of each one’s life.
15. In heaven there are two distinct loves, love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor, in the inmost or third heaven love to the Lord, in the second or middle heaven love toward the neighbor. They both go forth from the Lord, and they both make heaven. How these two loves are distinct and how they are conjoined is seen in heaven in clear light, but in the world only obscurely. In heaven loving the Lord does not mean loving him in respect to his person, but it means loving the good that is from him; and to love good is to will and do good from love; and to love the neighbor does not mean loving a companion in respect to his person, but loving the truth that is from the Word; and to love truth is to will and do it. This makes clear that these two loves are distinct as good and truth are distinct, and that they are conjoined as good is conjoined with truth.21 But this can scarcely be comprehended by men unless it is known what love is, what good is, and what the neighbor is.22
16. I have repeatedly talked with angels about this matter. They were astonished, they said, that men of the church do not know that to love the Lord and to love the neighbor is to love what is good and true, and to do this from the will, when they ought to know that one evinces love by willing and doing what another wishes, and it is this that brings reciprocal love and conjunction, and not loving another without doing what he wishes, which in itself is not loving; also that men should know that the good that goes forth from the Lord is a likeness of him, since he is in it; and that those who make good and truth to belong to their life by willing them and doing them become likenesses of the Lord and are conjoined to him. Willing is loving to do. That this is so the Lord teaches in the Word, saying,
He that hath My commandments and doeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and I will love him and will make My abode with him (John 14:21, 23).
If ye do My commandments ye shall abide in My love (John 15:10, 12).
17. All experience in heaven attests that the Divine that goes forth from the Lord and that affects angels and makes heaven is love; for all who are in heaven are forms of love and charity, and appear in ineffable beauty, with love shining forth from their faces, and from their speech and from every particular of their life.23 Moreover, there are spiritual spheres of life emanating from and surrounding every angel and every spirit, by which their quality in respect to the affections of their love is known, sometimes at a great distance. For with everyone these spheres flow forth from the life of his affection and consequent thought, or from the life of his love and consequent faith. The spheres that go forth from angels are so full of love as to affect the inmosts of life of those who are with them. They have repeatedly been perceived by me and have thus affected me.24 That it is love from which angels have their life is further evident from the fact that in the other life everyone turns himself in accordance with his love—those who are in love to the Lord and in love toward the neighbor turning themselves always to the Lord, while those who are in love of self turn themselves always away from the Lord. This is so, however their bodies may turn, since with those in the other life spaces conform to the states of their interiors, likewise quarters, which are not constant as they are in this world, but are determined in accordance with the direction of their faces. And yet it is not the angels that turn themselves to the Lord; but the Lord turns to himself those that love to do the things that are from him.25 But more on this subject hereafter, where the quarters in the other life are treated of.
18. The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness. For love is receptive of each and all things that are in harmony with it; it longs for them, seeks them, and drinks them in as it were spontaneously, for it desires unceasingly to be enriched and perfected by them.26 This, too, man well knows, for with him love searches as it were the stores of his memory and draws forth all things that are in accord with itself, collecting and arranging them in and under itself—in itself that they may be its own, and under itself that they may be its servants; but other things not in accord with it, it discards and expels.
That there is present in love every capacity for receiving truths in harmony with itself, and a longing to conjoin them to itself, has been made clear also by the fact that some who were simple-minded in the world were taken up into heaven, and yet when they were with the angels they came into angelic wisdom and heavenly blessedness, and for the reason that they had loved what is good and true for its own sake, and had implanted it in their life, and had thereby become capacities for receiving heaven with all that is ineffable there. But those who are in love of self and of the world have no capacity for receiving what is good and true; they loathe and reject it, and at its first touch and entrance they flee and associate themselves with those in hell who are in loves like their own.
There were spirits who had doubts about there being such capacities in heavenly love, and who wished to know whether it were true; whereupon they were let into a state of heavenly love, whatever opposed being for the time removed, and were brought forward some distance, where there was an angelic heaven, and from it they talked with me, saying that they perceived a more interior happiness than they could possibly express in words, and they lamented greatly that they must return into their former state. Others also were taken up into heaven; and the higher or more interiorly they were exalted the more of intelligence and wisdom were they admitted into, such as enabled them to perceive what had before been incomprehensible to them. From this it is clear that the love that goes forth from the Lord is receptive of heaven and all things therein.
19. That love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor include in themselves all Divine truths is made evident by what the Lord himself said of these two loves:
Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second, like unto it, is, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets (Matt. 22:37-40).
“The law and the prophets” are the whole Word, thus all Divine truth.
(4)
Heaven Is Divided into Two Kingdoms
20. As there are infinite varieties in heaven, and no one society nor any one angel is exactly like any other,27 there are in heaven general, specific, and particular divisions. The general division is into two kingdoms, the specific into three heavens, and the particular into innumerable societies. Each of these will be treated of in what follows. The general division is said to be into kingdoms, because heaven is called “the kingdom of God.”
21. There are angels that receive more interiorly the Divine that goes forth from the Lord, and others that receive it less interiorly; the former are called celestial angels, and the latter spiritual angels. Because of this difference heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom, the other the spiritual kingdom.28
22. As the angels that constitute the celestial kingdom receive the Divine of the Lord more interiorly they are called interior and also higher angels; and for the same reason the heavens that they constitute are called interior and higher heavens.29 They are called higher and lower, because these terms designate what is interior and what is exterior.30
23. The love in which those are who are in the celestial kingdom is called celestial love, and the love in which those are who are in the spiritual kingdom is called spiritual love. Celestial love is love to the Lord, and spiritual love is love toward the neighbor. And as all good pertains to love (for good to anyone is what he loves) the good also of the one kingdom is called celestial, and the good of the other spiritual. Evidently, then, the two kingdoms are distinguished from each other in the same way as good of love to the Lord is distinguished from good of love toward the neighbor.31 And as the good of love to the Lord is an interior good, and that love is interior love, so the celestial angels are interior angels, and are called higher angels.
24. The celestial kingdom is called also the Lord’s priestly kingdom, and in the Word “his dwelling place”; while the spiritual kingdom is called his royal kingdom, and in the Word “his throne.” And from the celestial Divine the Lord in the world was called “Jesus,” while from the spiritual Divine he was called “Christ.”
25. The angels in the Lord’s celestial kingdom, from their more interior reception of the Divine of the Lord, far excel in wisdom and glory the angels that are in his spiritual kingdom; for they are in love to the Lord, and consequently are nearer and more closely conjoined to him.32 These angels are such because they have received and continue to receive Divine truths at once in their life, and not first in memory and thought, as the spiritual angels do. Consequently they have Divine truths written in their hearts, and they perceive them, and as it were see them in themselves; nor do they ever reason about them whether they are true or not.33 They are such as are described in Jeremiah:
I will put my law in their mind, and will write it in their heart. They shall teach no more everyone his friend and everyone his brother, saying, Know ye Jehovah. They shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them (Jer. 31:33, 34).
And they are called in Isaiah:
Taught of Jehovah (Isa. 54:13).
That the “taught of Jehovah” are those who are taught by the Lord he himself teaches in John 6:45, 46.
26. It has been said that these angels have wisdom and glory above others for the reason that they have received and continue to receive Divine truths at once in their life. For as soon as they hear Divine truths, they will and do them, instead of storing them up in the memory and afterwards considering whether they are true. They know at once by influx from the Lord whether the truth they hear is true; for the Lord flows directly into man’s willing, but mediately through his willing into his thinking. Or what is the same, the Lord flows directly into good, but mediately through good into truth.34 That is called good which belongs to the will and action therefrom, while that is called truth that belongs to the memory and to the thought therefrom. Moreover, every truth is turned into good and implanted in love as soon as it enters into the will; but so long as truth remains in the memory and in the thought therefrom it does not become good, nor does it live, nor is it appropriated to man, since man is a man from his will and understanding therefrom, and not from his understanding separated from his will.35
27. Because of this difference between the angels of the celestial kingdom and the angels of the spiritual kingdom they are not together, and have no association with each other. They are able to communicate only through intermediate angelic societies, which are called celestial-spiritual. Through these the celestial kingdom flows into the spiritual;36 and from this it comes to pass that although heaven is divided into two kingdoms it nevertheless makes one. The Lord always provides such intermediate angels through whom there is communication and conjunction.
28. As the angels of these two kingdoms will be fully treated of in what follows, particulars are here omitted.
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There Are Three Heavens
29. There are three heavens, entirely distinct from each other, an inmost or third, a middle or second, and an outmost or first. These have a like order and relation to each other as the highest part of man, or his head, the middle part, or body, and the lowest, or feet; or as the upper, the middle, and the lower stories of a house. In the same order is the Divine that goes forth and descends from the Lord; consequently heaven, from the necessity of order, is threefold.
30. The interiors of man, which belong to his mind and disposition, are also in like order. He has an inmost, a middle, and an outmost part; for when man was created all things of Divine order were brought together in him, so that he became Divine order in form, and consequently a heaven in miniature.37 For this reason also man, as regards his interiors, has communication with the heavens and comes after death among the angels, either among those of the inmost, or of the middle, or of the outmost heaven, in accordance with his reception of Divine good and truth from the Lord during his life in the world.
31. The Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the third or inmost heaven is called celestial, and in consequence the angels there are called celestial angels; the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the second or middle heaven is called spiritual, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual angels; while the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the outmost or first heaven is called natural; but as the natural of that heaven is not like the natural of the world, but has the spiritual and the celestial within it, that heaven is called the spiritual-natural and the celestial-natural, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual-natural and celestial-natural.38 Those who receive influx from the middle or second heaven, which is the spiritual heaven, are called spiritual-natural; and those who receive influx from the third or inmost heaven, which is the celestial heaven, are called celestial-natural. The spiritual-natural angels and the celestial-natural angels are distinct from each other; nevertheless they constitute one heaven, because they are in one degree.
32. In each heaven there is an internal and an external; those in the internal are called there internal angels, while those in the external are called external angels. The internal and the external in the heavens, or in each heaven, hold the same relation as the voluntary and intellectual in man—the internal corresponding to the voluntary, and the external to the intellectual. Everything voluntary has its intellectual; one cannot exist without the other. The voluntary may be compared to a flame and the intellectual to the light therefrom.
33. Let it be clearly understood that with the angels it is the interiors that cause them to be in one heaven or another; for as their interiors are more open to the Lord they are in a more interior heaven. There are three degrees of interiors in each angel and spirit, and also in man. Those in whom the third degree is opened are in the inmost heaven. Those in whom the second degree is opened, or only the first, are in the middle or in the outmost heaven. The interiors are opened by reception of Divine good and Divine truth. Those who are affected by Divine truths and admit them at once into the life, thus into the will and into action therefrom, are in the inmost or third heaven, and have their place there in accordance with their reception of good from affection for truth. Those who do not admit truths at once into the will but into the memory, and thence into the understanding, and from the understanding will and do them, are in the middle or second heaven. But those who live morally and who believe in a Divine, and who care very little about being taught, are in the outmost or first heaven.39 From this it is clear that the states of the interiors are what make heaven, and that heaven is within everyone, and not outside of him; as the Lord teaches when he says:
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo here, or Lo there; for behold the kingdom of God ye have within you (Luke 17:20, 21).
34. Furthermore, all perfection increases toward interiors and decreases toward exteriors, since interiors are nearer to the Divine, and are in themselves pure, while exteriors are more remote from the Divine and are in themselves grosser.40 Intelligence, wisdom, love, everything good and the resulting happiness, are what constitute angelic perfection; but not happiness apart from these, for such happiness is external and not internal. Because in the angels of the inmost heaven the interiors have been opened in the third degree, their perfection immeasurably surpasses the perfection of angels in the middle heaven, whose interiors have been opened in the second degree. So the perfection of these angels exceeds in like measure the perfection of angels of the outmost heaven.
35. Because of this distinction an angel of one heaven cannot go among the angels of another heaven, that is, no one can ascend from a lower heaven and no one can descend from a higher heaven. One ascending from a lower heaven is seized with a distress even to anguish, and is unable to see those who are there, still less to talk with them; while one descending from a higher heaven is deprived of his wisdom, stammers in his speech, and is in despair. There were some from the outmost heaven who had not yet been taught that the interiors of angels are what constitute heaven, and who believed that they might come into a higher heavenly happiness by simply gaining access to a heaven where higher angels are. These were permitted to enter among such angels. But when they were there they could see no one, however much they searched, although there was a great multitude present; for the interiors of the newcomers not having been opened in the same degree as the interiors of the angels there, their sight was not so opened. Presently they were seized with such anguish of heart that they scarcely knew whether they were alive or not. Therefore they hastily betook themselves to the heaven from which they came, glad to get back among their like, and pledging themselves that they would no longer covet higher things than were in agreement with their life. Again, I have seen some let down from a higher heaven; and these were deprived of their wisdom until they no longer knew what their own heaven was. It is otherwise when, as is often done, angels are raised up by the Lord out of a lower heaven into a higher that they may behold its glory; for then they are prepared beforehand, and are encompassed by intermediate angels, through whom they have communication with those they come among. From all this it is plain that the three heavens are entirely distinct from each other.
36. Those, however, who are in the same heaven can affiliate with any who are there; but the delights of such affiliation are measured by the kinships of good they have come into; of which more will be said in the following chapters.
37. But although the heavens are so distinct that there can be no companionship between the angels of one heaven and the angels of another, still the Lord joins all the heavens together by both direct and mediate influx—direct from himself into all the heavens, and mediate from one heaven into another.41 He thus makes the three heavens to be one, and all to be in such connection from the first to the last that nothing unconnected is possible. Whatever is not connected through intermediates with the First can have no permanent existence, but is dissipated and becomes nothing.42
38. Only he who knows how degrees are related to Divine order can comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even what is meant by the internal and the external man. Most men in the world have no other idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by continuity, from purer to grosser. But the relation of what is interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous.
Degrees are of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not. Continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of a light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. These degrees are determined by distance.
[2] On the other hand, degrees that are not continuous, but discrete, are distinguished like prior and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what is produced. Whoever looks into the matter will see that in each thing and all things in the whole world, whatever they are, there are such degrees of producing and compounding, that is, from one a second, and from that a third, and so on.
[3] Until one has acquired for himself a perception of these degrees he cannot possibly understand the differences between the heavens, nor between the interior and exterior faculties of man, nor the differences between the spiritual world and the natural world, nor between the spirit of man and his body. So neither can he understand the nature and source of correspondences and representations, or the nature of influx. Sensual men do not apprehend these differences, for they make increase and decrease, even according to these degrees, to be continuous, and are therefore unable to conceive of what is spiritual otherwise than as a purer natural. And in consequence they remain outside of and a great way off from intelligence.43
39. Finally, a certain arcanum respecting the angels of the three heavens, which has not hitherto come into anyone’s mind, because degrees have not been understood, may be related. In every angel and also in every man there is an inmost or highest degree, or an inmost or highest something, into which the Divine of the Lord primarily or proximately flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that follow in accordance with the degrees of order. This inmost or highest degree may be called the entrance of the Lord to the angel or man, and his veriest dwelling place in them. It is by virtue of this inmost or highest that a man is a man, and is distinguished from irrational animals, for these do not have it. From this it is that man, unlike the animals, is capable, in respect to all his interiors which pertain to his mind and disposition, of being raised up by the Lord to himself, of believing in the Lord, of being moved by love to the Lord, and thereby beholding him, and of receiving intelligence and wisdom, and speaking from reason. Also, it is by virtue of this that he lives to eternity. But what is arranged and provided by the Lord in this inmost does not distinctly flow into the perception of any angel, because it is above his thought and transcends his wisdom.
40. These now are the general truths respecting the three heavens; but in what follows each heaven will be particularly treated of.
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The Heavens Consist of Innumerable Societies
41. The angels of each heaven are not together in one place, but are divided into larger and smaller societies in accordance with the differences of good of love and of faith in which they are, those who are in like good forming a single society. Goods in the heavens are in infinite variety, and each angel is as it were his own good.44
42. Moreover, the angelic societies in the heavens are at a distance from each other as their goods differ in general and in particular. For in the spiritual world the only ground of distance is difference in the state of interiors, thus in the heavens difference in the states of love, those who differ much being far apart, and those who differ but little being but little apart, and likeness causing them to be together.45
43. All who are in the same society are arranged in like manner in respect to each other; those who are more perfect, that is, who excel in good, thus in love, wisdom, and intelligence, being in the middle; those who are less preeminent being round about at a distance in accordance with the decrease of their perfection. The arrangement is like light diminishing from the middle to the circumference, those who are in the middle being in the greatest light, and those toward the circumference in less and less.
44. Like are drawn spontaneously as it were to their like; for with their like they are as if with their own and at home, but with others they are as if with strangers and abroad; also when with their like they are in their freedom, and consequently in every delight of life.
45. All this makes clear that all in the heavens are affiliated by good, and are distinguished according to the quality of the good. Nevertheless it is not the angels who thus affiliate themselves, but the Lord, from whom the good is. The Lord leads them, conjoins and separates them, and preserves them in freedom proportionate to their good. Thus he holds everyone in the life of his love and faith, of his intelligence and wisdom, and the resulting happiness.46
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.47 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.
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.
48. From this it also comes to pass that an angel who excels in wisdom instantly sees the quality of another from his face. In heaven no one can conceal his interiors by his expression, or feign, or really deceive and mislead by craft or hypocrisy. There are hypocrites who are experts in disguising their interiors and fashioning their exteriors into the form of that good in which those are who belong to a society, and who thus make themselves appear angels of light; and these sometimes insinuate themselves into a society; but they cannot stay there long, for they begin to suffer inward pain and torture, to grow livid in the face, and to become as it were lifeless. These changes arise from the contrariety of the life that flows in and affects them. Therefore they quickly cast themselves down into hell where their like are, and no longer want to ascend. These are such as are meant by the man found among the invited guests at the feast not clothed with a wedding garment, who was cast out into outer darkness (Matt. 22:11 seq.).
49. All the societies of heaven have communication with one another, though not by open conversation; for few go out of their own society into another, since going out of their own society is like going away from themselves or from their own life, and passing into another life which is less congenial. But all the societies communicate by an extension of the sphere that goes forth from the life of each. This sphere of the life is the sphere of the affections of love and faith. This sphere extends itself far and wide into the surrounding societies, and farther and wider in proportion as the affections are the more interior and perfect.48 In the measure of that extension do the angels have intelligence and wisdom. Those that are in the inmost heaven and in the middle of it have extension into the entire heavens; thus there is a sharing of all in heaven with each one, and of each one with all.49 But this extension will be considered more fully hereafter, where the form of heaven in accord with which the angelic societies are arranged, and also the wisdom and intelligence of angels, will be treated of; for in accordance with that form all extension of affections and thoughts proceeds.
50. It has been said above that in the heavens there are larger and smaller societies. The larger consist of myriads of angels, the smaller of some thousands, and the least of some hundreds. There are also some that dwell apart, house by house as it were, and family by family. Although these live in this scattered way, they are arranged in order like those who live in societies, the wiser in the middle and the more simple in the borders. Such are more closely under the Divine auspices of the Lord, and are the best of the angels.
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Each Society Is a Heaven in a Smaller Form, and Each Angel in the Smallest Form
51. Each society is a heaven in a smaller form, and each angel in the smallest form, because it is the good of love and of faith that makes heaven, and this good is in each society of heaven and in each angel of a society. It does not matter that this good everywhere differs and varies, it is still the good of heaven; and there is no difference except that heaven has one quality here and another there. So when anyone is raised up into any society of heaven he is said to come into heaven; and those who are there are said to be in heaven, and each one in his own. This is known to all in the other life; consequently those standing outside of or beneath heaven, when they see at a distance companies of angels, say that heaven is in this or that place. It is comparatively like civil and military officers and attendants in a royal palace or castle, who, although dwelling apart in their own quarters or chambers above and below, are yet in the same palace or castle, each in his own position in the royal service. This makes evident the meaning of the Lord’s words, that:
In his Father’s house are many abiding places (John 14:2);
also what is meant by the dwelling places of heaven, and the heavens of heavens, in the prophets.
52. That each society is a heaven in a smaller form can be seen from this also, that each society there has a heavenly form like that of heaven as a whole. In the whole heavens those who are superior to the rest are in the middle, with the less excellent round about in a decreasing order even to the borders (as stated in a preceding chapter, n. 43). It can be seen also from this, that the Lord directs all in the whole heaven as if they were a single angel; and the same is true of all in each society; and as a consequence an entire angelic society sometimes appears in angelic form like a single angel, as I have been permitted by the Lord to see. Moreover, when the Lord appears in the midst of the angels he does not appear as one surrounded by many, but the appearance is as a one, in an angelic form. This is why the Lord is called “an angel” in the Word, and why an entire society is so called. “Michael,” “Gabriel,” and “Raphael” are no other than angelic societies so named from their function.50
53. As an entire society is a heaven in a smaller form, so an angel is a heaven in the smallest form. For heaven is not outside of the angel, but is within him, since the interior things which belong to his mind are arranged into the form of heaven, thus for the reception of all things of heaven that are outside of him. These also he receives according to the quality of the good that is in him from the Lord. It is from this that an angel is a heaven.
54. It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of anyone; it is within him. For it is in accordance with the heaven that is within him that each angel receives the heaven that is outside of him. This makes clear how greatly misled is he who believes that to come into heaven is simply to be taken up among angels, without regard to what one’s interior life may be, thus that heaven is granted to each one by mercy apart from means;51 when, in fact, unless heaven is within one, nothing of the heaven that is outside can flow in and be received. There are many spirits who have this idea. Because of this belief they have been taken up into heaven; but when they came there, because their interior life was contrary to the angelic life, their intellectual faculties began to be blinded until they became like fools; and they began to be tortured in their voluntary faculties until they became like madmen. In a word, if those that have lived wickedly come into heaven they gasp for breath and writhe about, like fishes out of water in the air, or like animals in ether in an air pump when the air has been exhausted. From this it can be seen that heaven is not outside of a man, but within him.52
55. As everyone receives the heaven that is outside of him in accordance with the quality of the heaven that is within him, so in like manner does everyone receive the Lord, since it is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven. And for this reason when the Lord becomes manifestly present in any society his appearance there is in accord with the quality of the good in which the society is, thus not the same in one society as in another. This diversity is not in the Lord; it is in the angels who behold him from their own good, and thus in accordance with their good. And they are affected by his appearance in accordance with the quality of their love, those who love him inmostly being inmostly affected, and those who love him less being less affected; while the evil who are outside of heaven are tortured by his presence. When the Lord is seen in any society he is seen as an angel, but is distinguished from others by the Divine that shines through.
56. Again, heaven is where the Lord is acknowledged, believed in, and loved. Variety in worship of the Lord from the variety of good in different societies is not harmful, but beneficial, for the perfection of heaven is therefrom. This can scarcely be made clear to the comprehension without employing terms that are in common use in the learned world, and showing by means of these how unity, that it may be perfect, must be formed from variety. Every whole exists from various parts, since a whole without constituents is not anything; it has no form, and therefore no quality. But when a whole exists from various parts, and the various parts are in a perfect form, in which each attaches itself like a congenial friend to another in series, then the quality is perfect. So heaven is a whole from various parts arranged in a most perfect form, for the heavenly form is the most perfect of all forms. That this is the ground of all perfection is evident from the nature of all beauty, agreeableness and delight, by which the senses and the mind are affected; for these qualities spring and flow from no other source than the concert and harmony of many concordant and congenial parts, either coexisting in order or following in order, and never from a whole without many parts. From this is the saying that variety gives delight; and the nature of variety, as is known, is what determines the delight. From all this it can be seen as in a mirror how perfection comes from variety even in heaven. For from the things that exist in the natural world the things of the spiritual world can be seen as in a mirror.53
57. What has been said of heaven may be said also of the church, for the church is the Lord’s heaven on earth. There are also many churches, each one of which is called a church, and so far as the good of love and faith reigns therein is a church. Here, too, the Lord out of various parts forms a unity, that is, one church out of many churches.54 And the like may be said of the man of the church in particular that is said of the church in general, namely, that the church is within man and not outside of him; and that every man is a church in whom the Lord is present in the good of love and of faith.55 Again, the same may be said of a man that has the church in him as of an angel that has heaven in him, namely, that he is a church in the smallest form, as an angel is a heaven in the smallest form; and furthermore that a man that has the church in him, equally with an angel, is a heaven. For man was created that he might come into heaven and become an angel; consequently he that has good from the Lord is a man-angel.56 What man has in common with an angel and what he has in contrast with angels may be mentioned. It is granted to man, equally with the angel, to have his interiors conformed to the image of heaven, and to become, so far as he is in the good of love and faith, an image of heaven. But it is granted to man and not to angels to have his exteriors conform to the image of the world; and so far as he is in good to have the world in him subordinated to heaven and made to serve heaven.57 And then the Lord is present in him both in the world and in heaven just as if he were in his heaven. For the Lord is in his Divine order in both worlds, since God is order.58
58. Finally it should be said that he who has heaven in himself has it not only in the largest or most general things pertaining to him but also in every least or particular thing, and that these least things repeat in an image the greatest. This comes from the fact that everyone is his own love, and is such as his ruling love is. That which reigns flows into the particulars and arranges them, and everywhere induces a likeness of itself.59 In the heavens love to the Lord is the ruling love, for there the Lord is loved above all things. Hence the Lord there is the All-in-all, flowing into all and each, arranging them, clothing them with a likeness of himself, and making it to be heaven wherever he is. This is what makes an angel to be a heaven in the smallest form, a society to be a heaven in a larger form, and all the societies taken together a heaven in the largest form. That the Divine of the Lord is what makes heaven, and that he is the All-in-all, may be seen above (n. 7-12).
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All Heaven in the Aggregate Reflects a Single Man
59. That heaven in its whole complex reflects a single man is an arcanum hitherto unknown in the world, but fully recognized in the heavens. To know this and the specific and particular things relating to it is the chief thing in the intelligence of the angels there, and on it many things depend which without it as their general principle would not enter distinctly and clearly into the ideas of their minds. Knowing that all the heavens with their societies reflect a single man they call heaven the greatest man and the Divine man60—Divine because it is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven (see above, n. 7-12).
60. That into such a form and image celestial and spiritual things are arranged and joined cannot be seen by those who have no right idea of spiritual and heavenly things. Such think that the earthy and material things of which man’s outmost nature is composed are what makes the man; and that apart from these man is not a man. But let them know that it is not from these that man is a man, but from his ability to understand what is true and to will what is good. Such understanding and willing are the spiritual and celestial things of which man is made. Moreover, it is known that everyone’s quality is determined by the quality of his understanding and will; and it can also be known that his earthly body is formed to serve the understanding and the will in the world, and to skillfully accomplish their uses in the outmost sphere of nature. For this reason the body by itself can do nothing, but is moved always in entire subservience to the bidding of the understanding and will, even to the extent that whatever a man thinks he speaks with his tongue and lips, and whatever he wills he does with his body and limbs, and thus the understanding and the will are what act, while the body by itself does nothing. Evidently, then, the things of the understanding and will are what make man; and as these act into the minutest particulars of the body, as what is internal into what is external, they must be in a like form, and on this account man is called an internal or spiritual man. Heaven is such a man in its greatest and most perfect form.
61. Such being the angelic idea of man, the angels give no thought to what a man does with his body, but only to the will from which the body acts. This they call the man himself, and the understanding they call the man so far as it acts in unison with the will.61
62. The angels, it is true, do not see heaven in its whole complex in the human form, for heaven as a whole does not come within view of any angel; but remote societies, consisting of many thousands of angels, they sometimes see as a one in the human form; and from a society, as from a part, they draw their conclusion as to the general, which is heaven. For in the most perfect form generals are like the parts, and parts are like the generals, with simply such a difference as there is between like things of greater or less magnitude; consequently, the angels say that since the Divine from what is inmost or highest sees all things, so in the Lord’s sight heaven as a whole must be in the human form.
63. Heaven being such, it is ruled by the Lord as a single man is ruled, thus as a one. For although man, as we know, consists of an innumerable variety of parts, not only as a whole but also in each part—as a whole, of members, organs, and viscera; and in each part, of series of fibers, nerves, and blood vessels, thus of members within members, and of parts within parts— nevertheless, when he acts he acts as a single man. Such likewise is heaven under the auspices and direction of the Lord.
64. So many different things in man act as a one, because there is no least thing in him that does not do something for the general welfare and perform some use. The general performs a use for its parts, and the parts for the general, for the general is composed of the parts and the parts constitute the general; therefore they provide for each other, have regard for each other, and are joined together in such a form that each thing and all things have reference to the general and its good; thus it is that they act as one.
[2] In the heavens there are like affiliations. Those there are conjoined according to uses in a like form; and consequently those who do not perform uses for the common good are cast out of heaven as something heterogeneous. To perform use is to will well to others for the sake of the common good; but to will well to others not for the sake of the common good but for the sake of self is not to perform use. These latter are such as love themselves supremely, while the former are such as love the Lord supremely. Thence it is that those who are in heaven act as a one; and this they do from the Lord, not from themselves, for they look to him as the Only One, the source of all things, and they regard his kingdom as the general, the good of which is to be sought. This is what is meant by the Lord’s words,
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you (Matt. 6:33).
“To seek his righteousness” means to seek his good.62
[3] Those who in the world love their country’s good more than their own, and their neighbor’s good as their own, are they who in the other life love and seek the Lord’s kingdom; for there the Lord’s kingdom takes the place of country; and those who love doing good to others, not with self as an end but with good as an end, love the neighbor; for in heaven good is the neighbor.63 All such are in the greatest man, that is, heaven.
65. As the whole heaven reflects a single man, and is a Divine spiritual man in the largest form, even in figure, so heaven like a man is arranged into members and parts, and these are similarly named. Moreover, angels know in what member this or that society is. This society, they say, is in a certain part or province of the head, that in a certain part or province of the breast, that in a certain part or province of the loins, and so on. In general, the highest or third heaven forms the head down to the neck; the middle or second heaven forms the breast down to the loins and knees; the lowest or first heaven forms the feet down to the soles, and also the arms down to the fingers. For the arms and hands belong to the lowest parts of man, although at the sides. From this again it is plain why there are three heavens.
66. The spirits that are beneath heaven are greatly astonished when they hear that heaven is not only above but below, for they have a like faith and opinion as men in the world, that heaven is nowhere but above, for they do not know that the arrangement of the heavens is like the arrangement of the members, organs, and viscera in man, some of which are above and some below; or like the arrangement of the parts in each of the members, organs, and viscera, some of which are within and some without. Hence their confused notions about heaven.
67. These things about heaven as the greatest man are set forth, because what follows in regard to heaven cannot be at all comprehended until these things are known, neither can there be any clear idea of the form of heaven, of the conjunction of the Lord with heaven, of the conjunction of heaven with man, of the influx of the spiritual world into the natural, or any idea at all of correspondence—subjects to be treated of in their proper order in what now follows. To throw some light on these subjects, therefore, the above has been premised.
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Each Society in Heaven Reflects a Single Man
68. I have frequently been permitted to see that each society of heaven reflects a single man, and is in the likeness of a man. There was a society into which several had insinuated themselves who knew how to counterfeit angels of light. These were hypocrites. When these were being separated from the angels I saw that the entire society appeared at first like a single indistinct body, then by degrees in a human form, but still indistinctly, and at last clearly as a man. Those that were in that man and made up the man were such as were in the good of that society; the others who were not in the man and did not make up the man were hypocrites; these were cast out and the former were retained; and thus a separation was effected. Hypocrites are such as talk well and also do well, but have regard to themselves in everything. They talk as angels do about the Lord, heaven, love, and heavenly life, and also act rightly, so that they may appear to be what they profess to be. But their thinking is different; they believe nothing; and they wish good to none but themselves. Their doing good is for the sake of self, or if for the sake of others it is only for the appearance, and thus still for the sake of self.
69. I have also been permitted to see that an entire angelic society, where the Lord is visibly present, appears as a one in the human form. There appeared on high toward the east something like a cloud, from glowing white becoming red, and with little stars round about, which was descending; and as it gradually descended it became brighter, and at last appeared in a perfect human form. The little stars round about the cloud were angels, who so appeared by virtue of light from the Lord.
70. It must be understood that although all in a heavenly society when seen together as one appear in the likeness of a man; yet no one society is just such a man as another. Societies differ from one another like the faces of different individuals of the same family, for the reason given above (n. 47), that is, they differ in accordance with the varieties of good in which they are and which determines their form. The societies of the inmost or highest heaven, and in the center there, are those that appear in the most perfect and beautiful human form.
71. It is worthy of mention that the greater the number in any society in heaven and the more these make a one, the more perfect is its human form, for variety arranged in a heavenly form is what constitutes perfection, as has been shown above (n. 56), and number gives variety. Moreover, every society of heaven increases in number daily, and as it increases it becomes more perfect. Thus not only the society becomes more perfect, but also heaven in general, because it is made up of societies. As heaven gains in perfection by increase of numbers, it is evident how mistaken those are who believe that heaven may be closed by becoming full; for the opposite is true, that it will never be closed, but is perfected by greater and greater fullness. Therefore, the angels desire nothing so much as to have new angel guests come to them.
72. Each society, when it appears as one whole, is in the form of a man, for the reason that heaven as a whole has that form (as has been shown in the preceding chapter); moreover, in the most perfect form, such as the form of heaven is, there is a likeness of the parts to the whole, and of lesser forms to the greatest. The lesser forms and parts of heaven are the societies of which it consists, which are also heavens in lesser form (see 51-58). This likeness is perpetual because in the heavens the goods of all are from a single love, that is, from a single origin. The single love, which is the origin of the good of all in heaven, is love to the Lord from the Lord. It is from this that the entire heaven in general, each society less generally, and each angel in particular, is a likeness of the Lord, as has been shown above (n. 58).
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Therefore Every Angel Is in a Complete Human Form
73. In the two preceding chapters it has been shown that heaven in its whole complex, and likewise each society in heaven, reflects a single man. From the sequence of reasons there set forth it follows that this is equally true of each angel. As heaven is a man in largest form, and a society of heaven in a less form, so is an angel in least. For in the most perfect form, such as the form of heaven is, there is a likeness of the whole in the part and of the part in the whole. This is so for the reason that heaven is a common sharing, for it shares all it has with each one, and each one receives all he has from that sharing. Because an angel is thus a recipient he is a heaven in least form, as shown above in its chapter; and a man also, so far as he receives heaven, is a recipient, a heaven, and an angel (see above, n. 57). This is thus described in Revelation:
He measured the wall of the holy Jerusalem, a hundred and forty and four cubits, the measure of a man, which is that of an angel (Rev. 21:17).
“Jerusalem” means here the Lord’s church, and in a more eminent sense, heaven;64 the “wall” means truth, which is a defense against the assault of falsities and evils;65 “a hundred and forty and four” means all goods and truths in the complex;66 “measure” means what a thing is,67 a “man” means one in whom are goods and truths in general and in particular, thus in whom is heaven. And as it is from this that an angel is a man, it is said “the measure of a man, which is that of an angel.” This is the spiritual meaning of these words. Without that meaning how could it be seen that “the wall of the holy Jerusalem” is “the measure of a man, which is that of an angel”?68
74. Let us now turn to experience. That angels are human forms, or men, has been seen by me a thousand times. I have talked with them as man with man, sometimes with one, sometimes with many together; and I have seen nothing whatever in their form different from the human form; and have occasionally been surprised to find them such. And that this might not be said to be a delusion or a vision of fancy, I have been permitted to see angels when fully awake or in possession of all my bodily senses, and in a state of clear perception.
And I have often told them that men in the Christian world are in such blind ignorance in regard to angels and spirits as to believe them to be minds without form, even pure thoughts, of which they have no idea except as something ethereal in which there is some vitality. And as they thus ascribe to angels nothing human except a thinking faculty, they believe that having no eyes they do not see, having no ears they do not hear, and having no mouth or tongue they do not speak.
[2] To this the angels replied that they are aware that such a belief is held by many in the world, and is prevalent among the learned, and to their surprise, even among the clergy. The reason, they said, is that the learned, who were the leaders and who first concocted such an idea of angels and spirits, conceived of them from the sense conceptions of the external man; and those who think from these, and not from interior light and from the general idea implanted in everyone, must needs fabricate such notions, since the sense conceptions of the external man take in only what belongs to nature, and nothing above nature, thus nothing whatever of the spiritual world.69 From these leaders as guides this falsity of thought about angels extended to others who did not think from themselves but adopted the thoughts of their leaders; and those who first take their thoughts from others and make that thought their belief, and then view it with their own understanding, cannot easily recede from it, and are therefore in most cases satisfied with confirming it.
[3] The angels said, furthermore, that the simple in faith and heart have no such idea about angels, but think of them as the men of heaven, and for the reason that they have not extinguished by learning what is implanted in them from heaven, and have no conception of anything apart from form. This is why angels in churches, whether sculptured or painted, are always depicted as men. In respect to this insight from heaven they said that it is the Divine flowing into such as are in the good of faith and life.
75. From all my experience, which is now of many years, I am able to say and affirm that angels are wholly men in form, having faces, eyes, ears, bodies, arms, hands, and feet; that they see and hear one another, and talk together, and in a word lack nothing whatever that belongs to men except that they are not clothed in material bodies. I have seen them in their own light, which exceeds by many degrees the noonday light of the world, and in that light all their features could be seen more distinctly and clearly than the faces of men are seen on the earth. It has also been granted me to see an angel of the inmost heaven. He had a more radiant and resplendent face than the angels of the lower heavens. I observed him attentively, and he had a human form in all completeness.
76. But it must be remembered that a man cannot see angels with his bodily eyes, but only with the eyes of the spirit within him,70 because his spirit is in the spiritual world, and all things of the body are in the natural world. Like sees like from being like. Moreover, as the bodily organ of sight, which is the eye, is too gross, as everyone knows, to see even the smaller things of nature except through magnifying glasses, still less can it see what is above the sphere of nature, as all things in the spiritual world are. Nevertheless these things can be seen by man when he has been withdrawn from the sight of the body, and the sight of his spirit has been opened; and this can be effected instantly whenever it is the pleasure of the Lord that man should see these things; and in that case man does not know but what he is seeing them with his bodily eyes. Thus were angels seen by Abraham, Lot, Manoah, and the prophets; and thus, too, the Lord was seen by the disciples after the resurrection; and in the same way angels have been seen by me. Because the prophets saw in this way they were called “seers,” and were said “to have their eyes opened” (1 Sam. 9:9; Num. 24:3); and enabling them to see thus was called “opening their eyes,” as with Elisha’s servant, of whom we read:
Elisha prayed and said, Jehovah, I pray Thee open his eyes that he may see; and Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (2 Kings 6:17).
77. Good spirits, with whom I have spoken about this matter, have been deeply grieved at such ignorance in the church about the condition of heaven and of spirits and angels; and in their displeasure they charged me to declare positively that they are not formless minds nor ethereal breaths, but are men in very form, and see, hear, and feel equally with those who are in this world.71
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It Is from the Lord’s Divine Human That Heaven as a Whole and in Part Reflects Man
78. That it is from the Lord’s Divine human that heaven as a whole and in part reflects man, follows as a conclusion from all that has been stated and shown in the preceding chapters, namely: (1) That the God of heaven is the Lord. (2) It is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven. (3) Heaven consists of innumerable societies; and each society is a heaven in a smaller form, and each angel in the smallest form. (4) All heaven in the aggregate reflects a single man. (5) Each society in the heavens reflects a single man. (6) Therefore every angel is in a complete human form. All this leads to the conclusion that as it is the Divine that makes heaven, heaven must be human in form. That this Divine is the Lord’s Divine human can be seen still more clearly, because in a compendium, in what has been collected, brought together and collated from Arcana Coelestia and placed as a supplement at the end of this chapter. That the Lord’s human is Divine, and that it is not true that his human is not Divine, as those within the church believe, may also be seen in the same extracts, also in the chapter on the Lord, in the New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, at the end.
79. That this is true has been proved to me by much experience, about which something shall now be said. No angel in the heavens ever perceives the Divine as being in any other than a human form; and what is remarkable, those in the higher heavens are unable to think of the Divine in any other way. The necessity of thinking in this way comes from the Divine itself that flows in, and also from the form of heaven in harmony with which their thoughts spread forth. For every thought of an angel spreads forth into heaven; and the angels have intelligence and wisdom in the measure of that extension. It is in consequence of this that all in heaven acknowledge the Lord, because only in him does the Divine human exist. Not only have I been told all this by angels, but when elevated into the inner sphere of heaven I have been able to perceive it.
From this it is evident that the wiser the angels are the more clearly they perceive this truth; and it is from this that the Lord is seen by them; for the Lord is seen in a Divine angelic form, which is the human form, by those who acknowledge and believe in a visible Divine being, but not by those who believe in an invisible Divine. For the former can see their Divine being, but the latter cannot.
80. Because the angels have no perception of an invisible Divine, which they call a Divine devoid of form, but perceive only a visible Divine in human form, they are accustomed to say that the Lord alone is man, and that it is from him that they are men, and that each one is a man in the measure of his reception of the Lord. By receiving the Lord they understand receiving good and truth which are from him, since the Lord is in his good and in his truth, and this they call wisdom and intelligence. Everyone knows, they say, that intelligence and wisdom make man, and not a face without these. The truth of this is made evident from the appearance of the angels of the interior heavens, for these, being in good and truth from the Lord and in consequent wisdom and intelligence, are in a most beautiful and most perfect human form; while the angels of the lower heavens are in human form of less perfection and beauty. On the other hand, those who are in hell appear in the light of heaven hardly as men, but rather as monsters, since they are not in good and truth but in evil and falsity, and consequently in the opposites of wisdom and intelligence. For this reason their life is not called life, but spiritual death.
81. Because heaven as a whole and in part, from the Lord’s Divine human, reflects a man, the angels say that they are in the Lord; and some say that they are in his body, meaning that they are in the good of his love. And this the Lord himself teaches, saying,
Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me. For apart from Me ye can do nothing. Abide in My love. If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love (John 15:4-10).
82. Because such a perception of the Divine exists in the heavens, to think of God as in a human form is implanted in every man who receives any influx from heaven. Thus did the ancients think of him; and thus do the moderns think of him both outside of the church and within it. The simple see him in thought as the Ancient One in shining light. But this insight has been extinguished in all those that by self-intelligence and by a life of evil have rejected influx from heaven. Those that have extinguished it by self-intelligence prefer an invisible God; while those that have extinguished it by a life of evil prefer no God. Neither of these are aware that such an insight exists, because they do not have it; and yet it is the Divine heavenly itself that primarily flows into man out of heaven, because man is born for heaven, and no one without a conception of a Divine can enter heaven.
83. For this reason he that has no conception of heaven, that is, no conception of the Divine from which heaven is, cannot be raised up to the first threshold of heaven. As soon as such a one draws near to heaven a resistance and a strong repulsion are perceived; and for the reason that his interiors, which should be receptive of heaven, are closed up from their not being in the form of heaven, and the nearer he comes to heaven the more tightly are they closed up. Such is the lot of those within the church who deny the Lord, and of those who, like the Socinians, deny his Divinity. But the lot of those who are born out of the church, and who are ignorant of the Lord because they do not have the Word, will be described hereafter.
84. That the men of old time had an idea of the Divine as human is evident from the manifestation of the Divine to Abraham, Lot, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah and his wife, and others. These saw God as a man, but nevertheless adored him as the God of the universe, calling him the God of heaven and earth, and Jehovah. That it was the Lord who was seen by Abraham he himself teaches in John 8:56; and that it was he who was seen by the rest is evident from his words:
No one hath seen the Father, nor heard his voice, nor seen his form (John 1:18; 5:37).
85. But that God is man can scarcely be comprehended by those who judge all things from the sense conceptions of the external man, for the sensual man must needs think of the Divine from the world and what is therein, and thus of a Divine and spiritual man in the same way as of a corporeal and natural man. From this he concludes that if God were a man he would be as large as the universe; and if he ruled heaven and earth it would be done through many others, after the manner of kings in the world. If told that in heaven there is no extension of space as in the world, he would not in the least comprehend it. For he that thinks only from nature and its light must needs think in accord with such extension as appears before his eyes. But it is the greatest mistake to think in this way about heaven. Extension there is not like extension in the world. In the world extension is determinate, and thus measurable; but in heaven it is not determinate, and thus not measurable. But extension in heaven will be further treated of hereafter in connection with space and time in the spiritual world. Furthermore, everyone knows how far the sight of the eye extends, namely, to the sun and to the stars, which are so remote; and whoever thinks deeply knows that the internal sight, which is of thought, has a still wider extension, and that a yet more interior sight must extend more widely still. What then must be said of Divine sight, which is the inmost and highest of all? Because thoughts have such extension, all things of heaven are shared with everyone there, so, too, are all things of the Divine which makes heaven and fills it, as has been shown in the preceding chapters.
86. Those in heaven wonder that men can believe themselves to be intelligent who, in thinking of God, think about something invisible, that is, inconceivable under any form; and that they can call those who think differently unintelligent and simple, when the reverse is the truth. They add, “Let those who thus believe themselves to be intelligent examine themselves, whether they do not look upon nature as God, some the nature that is before their eyes, others the invisible side of nature; and whether they are not so blind as not to know what God is, what an angel is, what a spirit is, what their soul is which is to live after death, what the life of heaven in man is, and many other things that constitute intelligence; when yet those whom they call simple know all these things in their way, having an idea of their God that he is the Divine in a human form, of an angel that he is a heavenly man, of their soul that is to live after death that it is like an angel, and of the life of heaven in man that it is living in accord with the Divine commandments.” Such the angels call intelligent and fitted for heaven; but the others, on the other hand, they call not intelligent.
Extracts from Arcana Coelestia Relating to the Lord and His Divine Human
[2] The Divine was in the Lord from very conception (n. 4641, 4963, 5041, 5157, 6716, 10125).
The Lord alone had a Divine seed (n. 1438).
His soul was Jehovah (n. 1999, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025).
Thus the Lord’s inmost was the Divine itself, while the clothing was from the mother (n. 5041).
The Divine itself was the being [esse] of the Lord’s life, and from this the human afterwards went forth and became the outgo [existere] from that being [esse] (n. 3194, 3210, 10269, 10738).
[3] Within the church where the Word is and by it the Lord is known, the Lord’s Divine ought not to be denied, nor the holy that goes forth from Him (n. 2359).
Those within the church who do not acknowledge the Lord have no conjunction with the Divine; but it is otherwise with those outside of the church (n. 10205).
The essential of the church is to acknowledge the Lord’s Divine and His union with the Father (n. 10083, 10112, 10370, 10730, 10738, 10816-10820).
[4] The glorification of the Lord is treated of in the Word in many passages (n. 10828).
And in the internal sense of the Word everywhere (n. 2249, 2523, 3245).
The Lord glorified His human, but not the Divine, since this was glorified in itself (n. 10057).
The Lord came into the world to glorify his human (n. 3637, 4287, 9315).
The Lord glorified His human by means of the Divine love that was in Him from conception (n. 4727).
The Lord’s life in the world was His love toward the whole human race (n. 2253).
The Lord’s love transcends all human understanding (n. 2077).
The Lord saved the human race by glorifying His human (n. 4180, 10019, 10152, 10655, 10659, 10828).
Otherwise the whole human race would have perished in eternal death (n. 1676).
The state of the Lord’s glorification and humiliation (n. 1785, 1999, 2159, 6866).
Glorification in respect to the Lord is the uniting of His human with the Divine; and to glorify is to make Divine (n. 1603, 10053, 10828).
When the Lord glorified his human he put off everything human that was from the mother, until at last he was not her son (n. 2159, 2574, 2649, 3036, 10830).
[5] The Son of God from eternity was the Divine truth in heaven (n. 2628, 2798, 2803, 3195, 3704).
When the Lord was in the world he made his human Divine truth from the Divine good that was in him (n. 2803, 3194, 3195, 3210, 6716, 6864, 7014, 7499, 8127, 8724, 9199).
The Lord then arranged all things in himself into a heavenly form, which is in accord with Divine truth (n. 1928, 3633).
For this reason the Lord was called the Word, which is Divine truth (n. 2533, 2813, 2859, 2894, 3393, 3712).
The Lord alone had perception and thought from himself, and this was above all angelic perception and thought (n. 1904, 1914, 1919).
The Divine truth which was himself, the Lord united with Divine good which was in himself (n. 10047, 10052, 10076). The union was reciprocal (n. 2004, 10067).
[6] In passing out of the world the Lord also made his human Divine good (n. 3194, 3210, 6864, 7499, 8724, 9199, 10076).
This is what is meant by his coming forth from the Father and returning to the Father (n. 3194, 3210).
Thus he became one with the Father (n. 2751, 3704, 4766).
Since that union Divine truth goes forth from the Lord (n. 3704, 3712, 3969, 4577, 5704, 7499, 8127, 8241, 9199, 9398). How Divine truth goes forth, illustrated (n. 7270, 9407).
It was from his own power that the Lord united the human with the Divine (n. 1616, 1749, 1752, 1813, 1921, 2025, 2026, 2523, 3141, 5005, 5045, 6716).
From this it is clear that the Lord’s human was not like the human of any other man, in that it was conceived from the Divine itself (n. 10125, 10825, 10826).
His union with the Father, from whom was his soul, was not as between two persons, but as between soul and body (n. 3737, 10824).
[7] The most ancient people could not worship the Divine being [esse], but could worship only the Divine outgo [existere], which is the Divine human; therefore the Lord came into the world in order to become the Divine Existere from the Divine Esse (n. 4687, 5321).
The ancients acknowledged the Divine because he appeared to them in a human form, and this was the Divine human (n. 5110, 5663, 6845, 10737).
The infinite being [esse] could flow into heaven with the angels and with men only by means of the Divine human (n. 1676, 1990, 2016, 2034).
In heaven no other Divine than the Divine human is perceived (n. 6475, 9303, 10067, 10267).
The Divine human from eternity was the Divine truth in heaven and the Divine passing through heaven; thus it was the Divine outgo [existere] which afterwards in the Lord became the Divine being [esse per se], from which is the Divine Existere in heaven (n. 3061, 6280, 6880, 10579).
What the state of heaven was before the Lord’s coming (n. 6371-6373).
The Divine was not perceptible except when it passed through heaven (n. 6982, 6996, 7004).
[8] The inhabitants of all the earth worship the Divine under a human form, that is, the Lord (n. 6700, 8541-8547, 10736-10738).
They rejoice when they hear that God actually became Man (n. 9361).
All who are in good and who worship the Divine under the human form, are received by the Lord (n. 9359).
God cannot be thought of except in human form; and what is incomprehensible does not fall into any idea, so neither into belief (n. 9359, 9972).
Man is able to worship that of which he has some idea, but not that of which he has no idea (n. 4733, 5110, 5663, 7211, 9356, 10067, 10267).
Therefore the Divine is worshiped under a human form by most of the inhabitants of the entire globe, and this is the effect of influx from heaven (n. 10159).
All who are in good in regard to their life, when they think of the Lord, think of the Divine human, and not of the human separate from the Divine; it is otherwise with those who are not in good in regard to their life (n. 2326, 4724, 4731, 4766, 8878, 9193, 9198).
In the church at this day those that are in evil in regard to their life, and those that are in faith separate from charity, think of the human of the Lord apart from the Divine, and do not even comprehend what the Divine human is—why they do not (n. 3212, 3241, 4689, 4692, 4724, 4731, 5321, 6872, 8878, 9193, 9198).
The Lord’s human is Divine because it is from the being [esse] of the Father, and this was his soul—illustrated by a father’s likeness in children (n. 10269, 10372, 10823).
Also because it was from the Divine love, which was the very being [esse] of his life from conception (n. 6872).
Every man is such as his love is, and is his love (n. 6872, 10177, 10284). The Lord made all his human, both internal and external, Divine (n. 1603, 1815, 1902, 1926, 2083, 2093).
Therefore, differently from any man, he rose again as to his whole body (n. 1729, 2083, 5078, 10825).
[9] That the Lord’s human is Divine is acknowledged from his omnipresence in the Holy Supper (n. 2343, 2359).
Also from his transfiguration before his three disciples (n. 3212).
Also from the Word of the Old Testament, in that he is called God (n. 10154); and is called Jehovah (n. 1603, 1736, 1815, 1902, 2921, 3035, 5110, 6281, 6303, 8864, 9194, 9315).
In the sense of the letter a distinction is made between the Father and the Son, that is, between Jehovah and the Lord, but not in the internal sense of the Word, in which the angels of heaven are (n. 3035).
In the Christian world the Lord’s human has been declared not to be Divine; this was done in a council for the pope’s sake, that he might be acknowledged as the Lord’s vicar (n. 4738).
[10] Christians were examined in the other life in regard to their idea of one God, and it was found they held an idea of three gods (n. 2329, 5256, 10736-10738, 10821).
A Divine trinity or trine in one person, constituting one God, is conceivable, but not in three persons (n. 10738, 10821, 10824).
A Divine trine in the Lord is acknowledged in heaven (n. 14, 15, 1729, 2004, 5256, 9303).
The trine in the Lord is the Divine itself, called the Father, the Divine human, called the Son, and the Divine going forth, called the Holy Spirit, and this Divine trine is a One (n. 2149, 2156, 2288, 2319, 2329, 2447, 3704, 6993, 7182, 10738, 10822, 10823).
The Lord himself teaches that the Father and he are One (n. 1729, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2751, 3704, 3736, 4766); also that the holy Divine goes forth from him and is his (n. 3969, 4673, 6788, 6993, 7499, 8127, 8302, 9199, 9228, 9229, 9264, 9407, 9818, 9820, 10330).
[11] The Divine human flows into heaven and makes heaven (n. 3038). The Lord is the all in heaven and is the life of heaven (n. 7211, 9128). In the angels the Lord dwells in what is his own (n. 9338, 10125, 10151, 10157).
Consequently those who are in heaven are in the Lord (n. 3637, 3638).
The Lord’s conjunction with angels is measured by their reception of the good of love and charity from him (n. 904, 4198, 4205, 4211, 4220, 6280, 6832, 7042, 8819, 9680, 9682, 9683, 10106, 10810).
The entire heaven has reference to the Lord (n. 551, 552). The Lord is the common center of heaven (n. 3633, 3641).
All in heaven turn themselves to the Lord, who is above the heavens (n. 9828, 10130, 10189).
Nevertheless angels do not turn themselves to the Lord, but the Lord turns them to himself (n. 10189).
It is not a presence of angels with the Lord, but the Lord’s presence with angels (n. 9415).
In heaven there is no conjunction with the Divine itself, but conjunction with the Divine human (n. 4211, 4724, 5663).
[12] Heaven corresponds to the Divine human of the Lord; consequently heaven in general is as a single man, and for this reason heaven is called the greatest man (n. 2996, 2998, 3624-3649, 3741-3745, 4625).
The Lord is the Only Man, and those only are men who receive the Divine from him (n. 1894).
So far as they receive are they men and images of him (n. 8547).
Therefore angels are forms of love and charity in human form, and this from the Lord (n. 3804, 4735, 4797, 4985, 5199, 5530, 9879, 10177).
[13] The whole heaven is the Lord’s (n. 2751, 7086).
He has all power in the heavens and on earth (n. 1607, 10089, 10827).
As the Lord rules the whole heaven he also rules all things depending thereon, thus all things in the world (n. 2025, 2026, 4523, 4524).
The Lord alone has the power to remove the hells, to withhold from evils, and to hold in good, thus to save (n. 10019).
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There Is a Correspondence of All Things of Heaven with All Things of Man
87. What correspondence is, is not known at the present day, for several reasons, the chief of which is that man has withdrawn himself from heaven by the love of self and love of the world. For he that loves self and the world above all things gives heed only to worldly things, since these appeal to the external senses and gratify the natural longings; and he does not give heed to spiritual things, since these appeal to the internal senses and gratify the mind, therefore he casts them aside, saying that they are too high for his comprehension. This was not so with the ancient people. To them the knowledge of correspondences was the chief of knowledges. By means of it they acquired intelligence and wisdom; and by means of it those who were of the church had communication with heaven; for the knowledge of correspondences is angelic knowledge. The most ancient people, who were celestial men, thought from correspondence itself, as the angels do. And therefore they talked with angels, and the Lord frequently appeared to them, and they were taught by him. But at this day that knowledge has been so completely lost that no one knows what correspondence is.72
88. Since, then, without a perception of what correspondence is there can be no clear knowledge of the spiritual world or of its inflow into the natural world, neither of what the spiritual is in its relation to the natural, nor any clear knowledge of the spirit of man, which is called the soul, and its operation into the body, neither of man’s state after death, it is necessary to explain what correspondence is and the nature of it. This will prepare the way for what is to follow.
89. First, what correspondence is. The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world, and not merely the natural world in general, but also every particular of it; and as a consequence everything in the natural world that springs from the spiritual world is called a correspondent. It must be understood that the natural world springs from and has permanent existence from the spiritual world, precisely like an effect from its effecting cause. All that is spread out under the sun and that receives heat and light from the sun is what is called the natural world; and all things that derive their subsistence therefrom belong to that world. But the spiritual world is heaven; and all things in the heavens belong to that world.
90. Since man is both a heaven and a world in least form after the image of the greatest (see above, n. 57), there is in him both a spiritual and a natural world. The interior things that belong to his mind, and that have relation to understanding and will, constitute his spiritual world; while the exterior things that belong to his body, and that have relation to its senses and activities, constitute his natural world. Consequently, everything in his natural world (that is, in his body and its senses and activities), that has its existence from his spiritual world (that is, from his mind and its understanding and will) is called a correspondent.
91. From the human face it can be seen what correspondence is. In a face that has not been taught to dissemble, all the affections of the mind present themselves to view in a natural form, as in their type. This is why the face is called the index of the mind; that is, it is man’s spiritual world presented in his natural world. So, too, what pertains to the understanding is presented in speech, and what pertains to the will is presented in the movements of the body. So whatever effects are produced in the body, whether in the face, in speech, or in bodily movements, are called correspondences.
92. All this shows also what the internal man is and what the external, namely, that the internal is what is called the spiritual man, and the external what is called the natural man; also that the one is distinct from the other as heaven is from the world; also that all things that take place and come forth in the external or natural man take place and come forth from the internal or spiritual man.
93. This much has been said about the correspondence of man’s internal or spiritual with his external or natural; now the correspondence of the whole heaven with everything pertaining to man shall be treated of.
94. It has been shown that the entire heaven reflects a single man, and that it is in image a man and is therefore called the greatest man. It has also been shown that the angelic societies, of which heaven consists, are therefore arranged as the members, organs, and viscera are in man, that is, some are in the head, some in the breast, some in the arms, and some in each of their particulars (see above, n. 59-72); consequently the societies in any member there correspond to the like member in man; those in the head corresponding to the head in man, those in the breast to the breast in man, those in the arms to the arms in man; and so with all the rest. It is from this correspondence that man has permanent existence, for from heaven alone does man have permanent existence.
95. That heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom, may be seen above in its own chapter. The celestial kingdom corresponds in general to the heart and all things of the heart in the whole body, and the spiritual kingdom to the lungs and to all things of the lungs in the whole body. Likewise in man heart and lungs form two kingdoms, the heart ruling there through the arteries and veins, and the lungs through the tendinous and motor fibers, both together in every exertion and movement.
So in every man, in his spiritual world, which is called his spiritual man, there are two kingdoms, one of the will and the other of the understanding, the will ruling through affections for good, and the understanding through affections for truth; and these kingdoms correspond to the kingdoms of the heart and of the lungs in the body. It is the same in the heavens; the celestial kingdom is the voluntary part of heaven, and in it good of love reigns; the spiritual kingdom is the intellectual part of heaven, and in it truth reigns. These are what correspond to the functions of the heart and lungs in man. It is on account of this correspondence that in the Word the “heart” signifies the will and also good of love, and the “breath” of the lungs signifies the understanding and the truth of faith. For the same reason affections are ascribed to the heart, although they are neither in it nor from it.73
96. The correspondence of the two kingdoms of heaven with the heart and lungs is the general correspondence of heaven with man. There is a less general correspondence with each one of his members, organs, and viscera; and what this is shall also be explained. In the greatest man, which is heaven, those that are in the head excel all others in every good, being in love, peace, innocence, wisdom, intelligence, and consequent joy and happiness. These flow into the head of man and the things belonging to the head and corresponding thereto. In the greatest man, or heaven, those that are in the breast are in the good of charity and of faith, and these flow into the breast of man and correspond to it. In the greatest man, or heaven, those that are in the loins and the organs devoted to generation are in marriage love. Those in the feet are in the lowest good of heaven, which is called spiritual-natural good. Those in the arms and hands are in the power of truth from good. Those that are in the eyes are in understanding; those in the ears are in attention and obedience; those in the nostrils are in perception; those in the mouth and tongue are in the ability to converse from understanding and perception; those in the kidneys are in truths searching, separating, and correcting; those in the liver, pancreas, and spleen are in various purifications of good and truth; and so with the rest. All these flow into the like things of man and correspond to them. This inflow of heaven is into the functions and uses of the bodily members; and the uses, since they are from the spiritual world, take on a form by means of such things as are in the natural world, and thus present themselves in effect. From this is the correspondence.
97. For the same reason these same members, organs, and viscera have a like significance in the Word; for everything there has a meaning in accordance with correspondence. Thus the “head” signifies intelligence and wisdom; the “breast” charity; the “loins” marriage love; the “arms and hands” power of truth; the “feet” what is natural; the “eyes” understanding; the “nostrils” perception; the “ears” obedience, the “kidneys” the scrutiny of truth, and so on.74 So, too, in the common speech of man it is said of one who is intelligent and wise that he has a good head; of one who is charitable that he is a bosom friend; of one who has clear perception that he is keen scented; of one who is intelligent that he is sharp sighted; of one who is powerful that he is long handed; of one who exercises his will from love that it is done from the heart. These and many other expressions in the speech of men are from correspondence, for they are from the spiritual world, although man is ignorant of it.
98. That there is such a correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man has been made clear to me by much experience, by so much that I am as convinced of it as of any evident fact that admits of no doubt. But it is not necessary to describe all this experience here; nor would it be permissible on account of its abundance. It may be seen set forth in Arcana Coelestia, where correspondences, representations, the influx of the spiritual world into the natural world, and the interaction between soul and body, are treated of.75
99. But notwithstanding that all things of man’s body correspond to all things of heaven, it is not in respect to his external form that man is an image of heaven, but in respect to his internal form; for man’s interiors are what receive heaven, while his exteriors receive the world. So far, therefore, as his interiors receive heaven, man is in respect to them a heaven in least form, after the image of the greatest. But so far as his interiors do not receive heaven he is not a heaven and an image of the greatest, although his exteriors, which receive the world, may be in a form in accordance with the order of the world, and thus variously beautiful. For the source of outward beauty which pertains to the body is in parents and formation in the womb, and it is preserved afterwards by general influx from the world. For this reason the form of one’s natural man differs greatly from the form of his spiritual man. What the form of a man’s spirit is I have been shown occasionally; and in some who were beautiful and charming in appearance the spirit was seen to be so deformed, black and monstrous that it might be called an image of hell, not of heaven; while in others not beautiful there was a spirit beautifully formed, pure, and angelic. Moreover, the spirit of man appears after death such as it has been in the body while it lived therein in the world.
100. But correspondence applies far more widely than to man; for there is a correspondence of the heavens with one another. To the third or inmost heaven the second or middle heaven corresponds, and to the second or middle heaven the first or outmost heaven corresponds, and this corresponds to the bodily forms in man called his members, organs, and viscera. Thus it is the bodily part of man in which heaven finally terminates, and upon which it stands as upon its base. But this arcanum will be more fully unfolded elsewhere.
101. Especially it must be understood that all correspondence with heaven is with the Lord’s Divine human, because heaven is from him, and he is heaven, as has been shown in previous chapters. For if the Divine human did not flow into all things of heaven, and in accordance with correspondences into all things of the world, no angel or man could exist. From this again it is evident why the Lord became Man and clothed his Divine from first to last with a human. It was because the Divine human, from which heaven existed before the Lord’s coming, was no longer sufficient to sustain all things, for the reason that man, who is the foundation of the heavens, had subverted and destroyed order. What the Divine human was before the Lord’s coming, and what the condition of heaven was at that time may be seen in the extracts appended to the preceding chapter.
102. Angels are amazed when they hear that there are men who attribute all things to nature and nothing to the Divine, and who also believe that their body, into which so many wonders of heaven are gathered, is a product of nature. Still more are they amazed that the rational part of man is believed to be from nature, when, if men will but lift their minds a little, they can see that such effects are not from nature but from the Divine; and that nature has been created simply for clothing the spiritual and for presenting it in a correspondent form in the outmost of order. Such men they liken to owls, which see in darkness, but in light see nothing.
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There Is a Correspondence of Heaven with All Things of the Earth
103. What correspondence is has been told in the preceding chapter, and it has there been shown that each thing and all things of the animal body are correspondences. The next step is to show that all things of the earth, and in general all things of the universe, are correspondences.
104. All things of the earth are distinguished into three kinds, called kingdoms, namely, the animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. The things of the animal kingdom are correspondences in the first degree, because they live; the things of the vegetable kingdom are correspondences in the second degree, because they merely grow; the things of the mineral kingdom are correspondences in the third degree, because they neither live nor grow. Correspondences in the animal kingdom are living creatures of various kinds, both those that walk and creep on the ground and those that fly in the air; these need not be specially named, as they are well known. Correspondences in the vegetable kingdom are all things that grow and abound in gardens, forests, fields, and meadows; these, too, need not be named, because they are well known. Correspondences in the mineral kingdom are metals more and less noble, stones precious and not precious, earths of various kinds, and also the waters. Besides these the things prepared from them by human activity for use are correspondences, as foods of every kind, clothing, dwellings and other buildings, with many other things.
105. Also the things above the earth, as the sun, moon, and stars, and those in the atmosphere, as clouds, mists, rain, lightning and thunder, are likewise correspondences. Things resulting from the presence and absence of the sun, as light and shade, heat and cold, are also correspondences, as well as those that follow in succession therefrom, as the seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and the times of day, morning, noon, evening, and night.
106. In a word, all things that have existence in nature, from the least to the greatest thereof, are correspondences.76 They are correspondences because the natural world with all things in it springs forth and subsists from the spiritual world, and both worlds from the Divine. They are said to subsist also, because everything subsists from that from which it springs forth, subsistence being a permanent springing forth; also because nothing can subsist from itself, but only from that which is prior to itself, thus from a First, and if separated from that it would utterly perish and vanish.
107. Everything in nature that springs forth and subsists in accordance with Divine order is a correspondence. Divine order is caused by the Divine good that flows forth from the Lord. It begins in him, goes forth from him through the heavens in succession into the world, and is terminated there in outmosts; and everything there that is in accordance with order is a correspondence. Everything there is in accordance with order that is good and perfect for use, because everything good is good in the measure of its use; while its form has relation to truth, truth being the form of good. And for this reason everything in the whole world and of the nature thereof that is in Divine order has reference to good and truth.77
108. That all things in the world spring from the Divine, and are clothed with such things in nature as enable them to exist there and perform use, and thus to correspond, is clearly evident from the various things seen in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In both there are things that anyone who thinks interiorly can see to be from heaven. For illustration a few things out of a countless number may be mentioned; and first some things from the animal kingdom. Many are aware what knowledge there is engrafted as it were in every animal. Bees know how to gather honey from flowers, to build cells out of wax in which to store their honey, and thus provide food for themselves and their families, even for a coming winter. That a new generation may be born their queen lays eggs, and the rest take care of them and cover them. They live under a sort of government which all know by instinct. They preserve the working bees and cast out the drones, depriving them of their wings; besides other wonderful things implanted in them from heaven for the sake of their use, their wax everywhere serving the human race for candles, their honey for adding sweetness to food.
[2] Again, what wonders do we see in worms, the meanest creatures in the animal kingdom! They know how to get food from the juice of the leaves suited to them, and afterward at the appointed time to invest themselves with a covering and enter as it were into a womb, and thus hatch offspring of their own kind. Some are first turned into nymphs and chrysalides, spinning threads about themselves; and this travail being over they come forth clad with a different body, furnished with wings with which they fly in the air as in their heaven, and celebrate marriages and lay eggs and provide posterity for themselves.
[3] Besides these special instances all creatures in general that fly in the air know the proper food for their nourishment, not only what it is but where to find it; they know how to build nests for themselves, one kind in one way and another kind in another way; how to lay their eggs in the nests, how to sit upon them, how to hatch their young and feed them, and to turn them out of their home when they are able to shift for themselves. They know, too, their enemies that they must avoid and their friends with whom they may associate, and this from early infancy; not to mention the wonders in the eggs themselves, in which all things lie ready in their order for the formation and nourishment of the chicks; besides numberless other things.
[4] Who that thinks from any wisdom of reason will ever say that these instincts are from any other source than the spiritual world, which the natural serves in clothing what is from it with a body, or in presenting in effect what is spiritual in the cause? The beasts of the earth and the birds of the air are born into all this knowledge, while man, who is far superior to them, is not; for the reason that animals are in the order of their life, and have not been able to destroy what is in them from the spiritual world, because they have no rational faculty. Man, on the other hand, whose thought is from the spiritual world, having perverted what is in him from that world by a life contrary to order, which his rational faculty has favored, must needs be born into mere ignorance and afterwards be led back by Divine means into the order of heaven.
109. How the things in the vegetable kingdom correspond can be seen from many instances, as that little seeds grow into trees, put forth leaves, produce flowers, and then fruit, in which again they deposit seed, these things taking place in succession and existing together in an order so wonderful as to be indescribable in a few words. Volumes might be filled, and yet there would be still deeper arcana, relating more closely to their uses, which science would be unable to exhaust. Since these things, too, are from the spiritual world, that is, from heaven, which is in the human form (as has been shown above in its own chapter), so all the particulars in this kingdom have a certain relation to such things as are in man, as some in the learned world know. That all things in this kingdom also are correspondences has been made clear to me by much experience. Often when I have been in gardens and have been looking at the trees, fruits, flowers, and plants there, I have recognized their correspondences in heaven, and have spoken with those with whom these were, and have been taught whence and what they were.
110. But at the present day no one can know the spiritual things in heaven to which the natural things in the world correspond except from heaven, since the knowledge of correspondences is now wholly lost. But the nature of the correspondence of spiritual things with natural I shall be glad to illustrate by some examples. The animals of the earth correspond in general to affection, mild and useful animals to good affections, fierce and useless ones to evil affections. In particular, cattle and their young correspond to the affections of the natural mind, sheep and lambs to the affections of the spiritual mind; while birds correspond, according to their species, to the intellectual things of the natural or the spiritual mind.78 For this reason various animals, as cattle and their young, rams, sheep, he-goats, and she-goats, he-lambs and she-lambs, also pigeons and turtledoves, were devoted to a sacred use in the Israelitish church, which was a representative church, and sacrifices and burnt offerings were made of them. For they correspond in that use to spiritual things, and in heaven these were understood in accordance with the correspondences. Moreover, animals according to their kinds and species, because they have life, are affections; and the life of each one is solely from affection and in accordance with affection; consequently every animal has an innate knowledge that is in accord with its life’s affection. Man is like an animal so far as his natural man is concerned, and is therefore likened to animals in common speech; for example, if he is gentle he is called a sheep or lamb, if fierce a bear or wolf, if cunning a fox or serpent, and so on.
111. There is a like correspondence with things in the vegetable kingdom. In general, a garden corresponds to the intelligence and wisdom of heaven; and for this reason heaven is called the Garden of God, and Paradise;79 and men call it the heavenly paradise. Trees, according to their species, correspond to the perceptions and knowledges of good and truth which are the source of intelligence and wisdom. For this reason the ancient people, who were acquainted with correspondences, held their sacred worship in groves;80 and for the same reason trees are so often mentioned in the Word, and heaven, the church, and man are compared to them; as the vine, the olive, the cedar, and others, and the good works done by men are compared to fruits. Also the food derived from trees, and more especially from the grain harvests of the field, corresponds to affections for good and truth, because these affections feed the spiritual life, as the food of the earth does the natural life;81 and bread from grain, in a general sense, because it is the food that specially sustains life, and because it stands for all food, corresponds to an affection for all good. It is on account of this correspondence that the Lord calls himself the bread of life; and that loaves of bread had a holy use in the Israelitish church, being placed on the table in the tabernacle and called “the bread of faces”; also the Divine worship that was performed by sacrifices and burnt offerings was called “bread.” Moreover, because of this correspondence the most holy act of worship in the Christian church is the Holy Supper, in which bread is given, and wine.82 From these few examples the nature of correspondence can be seen.
112. How conjunction of heaven with the world is effected by means of correspondences shall also be told in a few words. The Lord’s kingdom is a kingdom of ends, which are uses; or what is the same thing, a kingdom of uses which are ends. For this reason the universe has been so created and formed by the Divine that uses may be everywhere clothed in such a way as to be presented in act, or in effect, first in heaven and afterwards in the world, thus by degrees and successively, down to the outmost things of nature. Evidently, then, the correspondence of natural things with spiritual things, or of the world with heaven, is through uses, and uses are what conjoin; and the form in which uses are clothed are correspondences and are conjunctions just to the extent that they are forms of uses. In the nature of the world in its threefold kingdom, all things that exist in accordance with order are forms of uses, or effects formed from use for use, and this is why the things in nature are correspondences. But in the case of man, so far as he is in accordance with Divine order, that is, so far as he is in love to the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, are his acts uses in form, and correspondences, and through these he is conjoined to heaven. To love the Lord and the neighbor means in general to perform uses.83 Furthermore, it must be understood that man is the means by which the natural world and the spiritual world are conjoined, that is, man is the medium of conjunction, because in him there is a natural world and there is a spiritual world (see above, n. 57); consequently to the extent that man is spiritual he is the medium of conjunction; but to the extent that a man is natural, and not spiritual, he is not a medium of conjunction. Nevertheless, apart from this mediumship of man, a Divine influx into the world and into the things pertaining to man that are of the world goes on, but not into man’s rational faculty.
113. As all things that are in accord with Divine order correspond to heaven, so all things contrary to Divine order correspond to hell. All things that correspond to heaven have relation to good and truth; but those that correspond to hell have relation to evil and falsity.
114. Something shall now be said about the knowledge of correspondences and its use. It has been said above that the spiritual world, which is heaven, is conjoined with the natural world by means of correspondences; therefore by means of correspondences communication with heaven is granted to man. For the angels of heaven do not think from natural things, as man does; but when man has acquired a knowledge of correspondences he is able, in respect to the thoughts of his mind, to be associated with the angels, and thus in respect to his spiritual or internal man to be conjoined with them. That there might be such a conjunction of heaven with man the Word was written wholly by correspondences, each thing and all things in it being correspondent.84 If man, therefore, had a knowledge of correspondences he would understand the spiritual sense of the Word, and from that it would be given him to know arcana of which he sees nothing in the sense of the letter. For there is a literal sense and there is a spiritual sense in the Word, the literal sense made up of such things as are in the world, and the spiritual sense of such things as are in heaven. And such a Word, in which everything down to the least jot is a correspondence, was given to men because the conjunction of heaven with the world is effected by means of correspondences.85
115. I have been taught from heaven that the most ancient men on our earth, who were celestial men, thought from corre spondences themselves, the natural things of the world before their eyes serving them as means of thinking in this way; and that they could be in fellowship with angels and talk with them because they so thought, and that thus through them heaven was conjoined to the world. For this reason that period was called the Golden Age, of which it is said by ancient writers that the inhabitants of heaven dwelt with men and associated with them as friends with friends. But after this there followed a period when men thought, not from correspondences themselves, but from a knowledge of correspondences, and there was then also a conjunction of heaven with man, but less intimate. This period was called the Silver Age. After this there followed men who had a knowledge of correspondences but did not think from that knowledge, because they were in natural good, and not, like those before them, in spiritual good. This period was called the Copper Age. After this man gradually became external, and finally corporeal, and then the knowledge of correspondences was wholly lost, and with it a knowledge of heaven and of the many things pertaining to heaven. It was from correspondence that these ages were named from gold, silver, and copper,86 and for the reason that from correspondence gold signifies celestial good in which were the most ancient people, silver spiritual good in which were the ancient people that followed, and copper natural good in which were the next posterity; while iron, from which the last age takes its name, signifies hard truth apart from good.
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The Sun in Heaven
116. In heaven neither the sun of the world, nor anything from that sun, is seen, because it is wholly natural. For nature has its beginning from that sun, and whatever is produced by means of it is called natural. But the spiritual, to which heaven belongs, is above nature and wholly distinct from what is natural; and there is no communication between the two except by correspondences. What the distinction between them is may be understood from what has been already said about degrees (n. 38), and what the communication is from what has been said in the two preceding chapters about correspondences.
117. Although the sun of the world is not seen in heaven, nor anything from that sun, there is nevertheless a sun there, and light and heat, and all things that are in the world, with innumerable others, but not from a like origin; since the things in heaven are spiritual, and those in the world are natural. The sun of heaven is the Lord; the light there is the Divine truth and the heat the Divine good that go forth from the Lord as a sun. From this origin are all things that spring forth and are seen in the heavens. This light and heat and things existing therefrom in heaven will be treated of in the following chapters; in this chapter we will speak only of the sun there. In heaven the Lord is seen as a sun, for the reason that he is Divine love, from which all spiritual things, and by means of the sun of the world all natural things, have their existence. That love is what shines as a sun.
118. That the Lord is actually seen in heaven as a sun I have not only been told by angels, but it has occasionally been granted me to see it; and therefore what I have heard and seen respecting the Lord as a sun I shall be glad to tell in a few words. The Lord is seen as a sun, not in heaven, but high above the heavens; and not directly overhead or in the zenith, but before the faces of the angels at a middle height. He is seen at a considerable distance, in two places, one before the right eye and the other before the left eye. Before the right eye he is seen exactly like a sun, as it were, with a glow and size like that of the sun of the world. But before the left eye he is not seen as a sun, but as a moon, glowing white like the moon of our earth, and of like size, but more brilliant, and surrounded with many little moons, as it were, each of them of similar whiteness and splendor. The Lord is seen so differently in two places because every person sees the Lord in accordance with the quality of his reception of the Lord, thus he is seen in one way by those that receive him with the good of love, and in another by those that receive him with the good of faith. Those that receive him with the good of love see him as a sun, fiery and flaming, in accordance with their reception of him; these are in his celestial kingdom; while those that receive him with the good of faith see him as a moon, white and brilliant in accordance with their reception of him, and these are in his spiritual kingdom.87
This is so because the good of love corresponds to fire; therefore in the spiritual sense fire is love; and the good of faith corresponds to light, and in the spiritual sense light is faith.88 And the Lord appears before the eyes because the interiors, which belong to the mind, see through the eyes, from good of love through the right eye, and from good of faith through the left eye;89 since with angels and also with men all things at the right correspond to good from which truth is derived, and all at the left to truth that is from good.90 Good of faith is in its essence truth from good.
119. This is why in the Word the Lord in respect to love is likened to the sun, and in respect to faith to the moon; also that the “sun” signifies love from the Lord to the Lord, and the “moon” signifies faith from the Lord in the Lord, as in the following passages:
The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days (Isa. 30:26).
And when I shall extinguish thee I will cover the heavens and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not make her light to shine. All luminaries of light in the heavens will I make dark over thee, and I will set darkness upon thy land (Ezek. 32:7, 8).
I will darken the sun in his going forth, and the moon shall not make her light to shine (Isa. 13:10).
The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood (Joel 2:2, 10, 31; 3:15).
The sun became black as sackcloth and hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars fell unto the earth (Rev. 6:12, 13).
Immediately after the affliction of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven (Matt. 24:29).
And elsewhere. In these passages the “sun” signifies love, and the “moon” faith, and the “stars” knowledges of good and truth.91 These are said to be darkened, to lose their light, and to fall from heaven, when they are no more. That the Lord is seen as a sun in heaven is evident also from his appearance when transfigured before Peter, James, and John:
That his face did shine as the sun (Matt. 17:2).
These disciples thus saw the Lord when they were withdrawn from the body, and were in the light of heaven. It was because of this correspondence that the ancient people, with whom was a representative church, turned the face to the sun in the east when they were in Divine worship; and for the same reason they gave to their temples an eastern aspect.
120. How great the Divine love is and what it is can be seen by comparison with the sun of the world, that it is most ardent, if you will believe it, much more ardent than that sun. For this reason the Lord as a sun does not flow without mediums into the heavens, but the ardor of his love is gradually tempered on the way. These temperings appear as radiant belts about the sun; furthermore, the angels are veiled with a thin adapting cloud to prevent their being harmed by the influx.92 For this reason the heavens are more or less near in accordance with reception. As the higher heavens are in good of love they are nearest to the Lord as the sun; and as the lower heavens are in good of faith they are farther away from him. But those that are in no good, like those in hell, are farthest away, at different distances in accordance with their opposition to good.93
121. When, however, the Lord appears in heaven, which often occurs, he does not appear encompassed with a sun, but in the form of an angel, yet distinguished from angels by the Divine shining through from his face, since he is not there in person, for in person the Lord is constantly encompassed by the sun, but he is present by look. For it is a common occurrence in heaven for persons to appear to be present in a place where their look is fixed or is terminated, even when this place is far away from where they really are. This presence is called the presence of internal sight, which will be treated of further on. I have also seen the Lord out of the sun in an angelic form, at a height a little below the sun; also nearby in a like form, with shining face, and once in the midst of angels as a flamelike radiance.
122. To the angels the sun of the world appears like a dense darkness opposite to the sun of heaven, and the moon like a darkness opposite to the moon of heaven, and this constantly; and for the reason that the world’s fieriness corresponds to the love of self, and the light from it corresponds to what is false from that love; and the love of self is the direct opposite of the Divine love; and what is false from that love is the direct opposite of the Divine truth; and the opposite of the Divine love and the Divine truth is to the angels thick darkness. Therefore, in the Word, to worship the sun and moon of this world and bow down to them, signifies to love self and the falsities that spring from the love of self, and it is said that such would be cut off (Deut. 4:19; 16:3-5; Jer. 8:1, 2; Ezek. 8:15, 16, 18; Rev. 16:8; Matt. 13:6).94
123. As it is from the Divine love that is in and from him that the Lord appears in heaven like a sun, so all in the heavens are turned constantly to him—those in the celestial kingdom to him as a sun and those in the spiritual kingdom to him as a moon. But those that are in hell turn themselves to an opposite darkness and dense darkness, that is, they turn backwards, away from the Lord; and for the reason that all in the hells are in love of self and the world, thus antagonistic to the Lord.
Those who turn themselves to the dense darkness that is in the place where this world’s sun is are in the hells behind, and are called genii; while those that turn themselves to the darkness that is in the place of the moon are in the hells more in front, and are called spirits. This is why those in the hells are said to be in darkness, and those in the heavens in light, “darkness” signifying falsity from evil, and “light” truth from good. They so turn themselves because all in the other life look toward what rules in their interiors, thus to their loves; and with angels and spirits the interiors determine the face; and in the spiritual world quarters are not fixed, as in the natural world, but are determined by the face. In respect to his spirit man turns himself in like manner as a spirit does, backwards from the Lord if he is in love of self and the world, and toward the Lord if he is in love to the Lord and the neighbor. But of this man is ignorant, because he is in the natural world where quarters are determined by the rising and setting of the sun. But as this cannot be easily comprehended by men it will be elucidated hereafter when quarters, space, and time in heaven are treated of.
124. Because the Lord is the sun of heaven and everything that is from him looks to him, he is also the common center, the source of all direction and determination.95 So, too, all things beneath are in his presence and under his auspices, both in the heavens and on the earths.
125. From all this what has been said and shown in previous chapters about the Lord may now be seen in clearer light, namely: That he is the God of heaven (n. 2-6). That it is his Divine that makes heaven (n. 7-12). That the Lord’s Divine in heaven is love to him and charity toward the neighbor (n. 13-19). That there is a correspondence of all things of the world with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord (n. 87-115). Also that the sun and moon of the world are correspondences (n. 105).
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Light and Heat in Heaven
126. That there is light in the heavens those who think from nature alone cannot comprehend; and yet such is the light in the heavens that it exceeds by many degrees the noonday light of the world. That light I have often seen, even during the evening and night. At first I wondered when I heard the angels say that the light of this world is little more than a shadow in comparison with the light of heaven; but having seen it I can testify that it is so. The brightness and splendor of the light of heaven are such as cannot be described. All things that I have seen in the heavens have been seen in that light, thus more clearly and distinctly than things in this world.
127. The light of heaven is not a natural light, like the light of the world, but a spiritual light, because it is from the Lord as a sun, and that sun is the Divine love (as has been shown in the foregoing chapter). That which goes forth from the Lord as a sun is called in the heavens Divine truth, but in its essence it is Divine good united to Divine truth. From this the angels have light and heat, light from Divine truth, and heat from Divine good. As the light of heaven, and the heat also, are from such a source, it is evident that they are spiritual and not natural.96
128. The Divine truth is light to the angels because the angels are spiritual and not natural. Spiritual beings see from their sun, and natural beings from theirs. It is from Divine truth that angels have understanding, and their understanding is their inner sight, which flows into and produces their outer sight; therefore in heaven whatever is seen from the Lord as the sun is seen in light.97 This being the source of light in heaven the light is varied there in accordance with the reception of Divine truth from the Lord; or what is the same, in accordance with the intelligence and wisdom in which the angels are, thus differently in the celestial kingdom and in the spiritual kingdom, and differently in each society. In the celestial kingdom the light appears flaming because the angels there receive light from the Lord as a sun; but in the spiritual kingdom the light is shining white, because the angels there receive light from the Lord as a moon (see above, n. 118). So, too, the light differs in different societies, and again in each society, those that are at the center being in greater light and those in the circumference in less light (see n. 43). In a word, the angels have light in the same degree in which they are recipients of Divine truth, that is, are in intelligence and wisdom from the Lord;98 and this is why the angels of heaven are called angels of light.
129. As the Lord in the heavens is Divine truth, and the Divine truth there is light, so in the Word he is called Light, likewise all truth is from him, as in the following passages:
Jesus said, I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (John 8:12).
As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world (John 9:5).
Jesus said, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness overtake you. While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light. I have come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in Me may not abide in darkness (John 12:35, 36, 46).
Light has come into the world, but men have loved the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19).
John says of the Lord:
This is the true light which lighteneth every man (John 1:9).
The people that sit in darkness have seen a great light, and to them that were sitting in the shadow of death light is sprung up (Matt. 4:16).
I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles (Isa. 42:6).
I have established Thee for a light of the Gentiles that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth (Isa. 49:6).
The nations of them that are saved shall walk in his light (Rev. 21:24).
Send out Thy light and Thy truth; let them lead me (Ps. 43:3).
In these and other passages the Lord is called light from Divine truth, which is from him; and the truth itself is likewise called light. As light in the heavens is from the Lord as a sun, so when he was transfigured before Peter, James, and John:
His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light (Matt. 17:2).
And his garments became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them (Mark 9:3; Matt. 17:2).
The Lord’s garments had this appearance because they represented Divine truth which is from him in the heavens, “garments” also in the Word signifying truths,99 consequently it is said in David:
O Jehovah, Thou coverest Thyself with light as with a garment (Ps. 104:2).
130. That light in the heavens is spiritual and that this light is Divine truth may be inferred also from the fact that men as well as angels have spiritual light, and have enlightenment from that light so far as they are in intelligence and wisdom from Divine truth. Man’s spiritual light is the light of his understanding, and the objects of that light are truths, which he arranges analytically into groups, forms into reason, and from them draws conclusions in series.100 The natural man does not know that the light from which the understanding sees such things is a real light, for he neither sees it with his eyes nor perceives it by thought. And yet there are many who recognize this light, and distinguish it from the natural light in which those are who think naturally and not spiritually. Those think naturally who take account of the world only, and attribute all things to nature; while those think spiritually who take account of heaven and attribute all things to the Divine. It has often been granted me to perceive and also to see that there is a true light that enlightens the mind, wholly distinct from the light that is called natural light [lumen]. I have been raised up interiorly into that light by degrees; and as I was raised up my understanding became so enlightened as to enable me to perceive what I did not perceive before, and finally such things as I could not even comprehend by thought from natural light. Sometimes I felt indignant that I could not comprehend these things when they were so clearly and plainly perceived in the light of heaven.101 Because there is a light that belongs to the understanding, the same things are said of it as of the eye, as that it sees and is in light when it perceives, and is in obscurity and shade when it does not perceive, and so on.
131. As the light of heaven is Divine truth, that light is also Divine wisdom and intelligence; therefore to be raised up into the light of heaven means the same as to be raised up into intelligence and wisdom and enlightened. For this reason the angels have light in just the same degree as they have intelligence and wisdom. Because the light of heaven is Divine wisdom, in that light the character of everyone is recognized. The interiors of everyone lie open to view in his face just as they are, with not the least thing hidden. And interior angels love to have all things that pertain to them lying open, since they will nothing but good. It is otherwise with those beneath heaven, who do not will what is good, and for that reason fear greatly to be seen in the light of heaven. And wonderful to tell, while those in hell appear to one another as men, in the light of heaven they appear as monsters, with a horrid face and body, the exact form of their own evil.102 In respect to his spirit man appears, when seen by angels, in a like way; if good as a man, beautiful in accord with his good; if evil as a monster, ugly in accord with his evil. From this it is clear that in the light of heaven all things are made manifest, and for the reason that the light of heaven is Divine truth.
132. As Divine truth is light in the heavens, so all truths wherever they are, whether within an angel or outside of him, or whether within the heavens or outside of them, emit light. Nevertheless, truths outside of the heavens do not shine as truths within the heavens do. Truths outside of the heavens shine coldly, like something snowy, without heat, because they do not draw their essence from good, as truths within the heavens do; therefore that cold light vanishes as soon as the light of heaven falls on it, and if there is evil underneath it, it is turned into darkness. This I have occasionally seen, with many other noteworthy things about the shining of truth, which must be omitted here.
133. Something shall now be said about the heat of heaven. That heat in its essence is love. It goes forth from the Lord as a sun, which is Divine love in the Lord and from the Lord, as has been shown in the preceding chapter. It is evident, therefore, that the heat of heaven, like the light of heaven, is spiritual, because from the same source.103 There are two things that go forth from the Lord as a sun, Divine truth and Divine good; Divine truth is manifested in the heavens as light, and Divine good as heat; and yet Divine truth and Divine good are so united that they are not two, but one. Nevertheless, with angels they are separate, for there are angels that receive more of Divine good than of Divine truth, and there are those that receive more of Divine truth than of Divine good. Those who receive more of Divine good are in the Lord’s celestial kingdom, and those who receive more of Divine truth are in his spiritual kingdom. Those that receive both in a like degree are the most perfect angels.
134. The heat of heaven, like the light of heaven, is everywhere different. It is different in the celestial kingdom from what it is in the spiritual kingdom, and it is different in each society therein. It differs both in degree and in quality. It is more intense and more pure in the Lord’s celestial kingdom, because the angels there receive more of Divine good; and it is less intense and pure in his spiritual kingdom, because the angels there receive more of Divine truth. Also in each society the heat differs in accordance with reception. There is heat in the hells, but it is unclean heat.104 The heat in heaven is what is meant by holy and heavenly fire, and the heat of hell by profane and infernal fire. Both mean love—heavenly fire meaning love to the Lord and love to the neighbor and every affection of those loves, and infernal fire meaning love of self and love of the world and every lust of those loves. That love is heat from a spiritual source is shown from one’s growing warm with love; for in accordance with the strength and nature of his love a man is inflamed and grows warm; and the heat of his love is made manifest when it is opposed. From this also it is customary to speak of being inflamed, growing hot, burning, boiling, being on fire, both in regard to the affections of the love of good and the lusts of the love of evil.
135. Love going forth from the Lord as a sun is felt in heaven as heat, because the interiors of the angels are in a state of love from the Divine good that is from the Lord; and in consequence their exteriors which grow warm therefrom are in a state of heat. For this reason heat and love so correspond to each other in heaven that everyone there is in heat such as his love is, according to what has been said just above. This world’s heat does not enter heaven at all, because it is too gross, and is natural, and not spiritual; but with men it is otherwise, because they are in both the spiritual world and the natural world. As to their spirits they grow warm in exact accordance with their loves; but as to the body they grow warm both from the heat of their spirit and from the heat of the world. The former flows into the latter, because they correspond. The nature of the correspondence of the two kinds of heat can be seen from animal life, in that the love of animals—the chief of which is the love of propagating offspring of their kind—bursts forth and becomes active in accordance with the presence and influence of heat from the sun of the world, which is the heat of the spring and the summer seasons. Those who believe that the world’s heat flows in and excites these loves are greatly mistaken, for there can be no influx from the natural into the spiritual, but only from the spiritual into the natural. This influx is of Divine order, but the other would be contrary to Divine order.105
136. Angels, like men, have understanding and will. The light of heaven constitutes the life of their understanding, because that light is Divine truth and Divine wisdom therefrom; and the heat of heaven constitutes the life of their will, because that heat is Divine good and Divine love therefrom. The veriest life of the angels is from heat, and from light only so far as heat is in it. That life is from heat is shown by the fact that when heat is taken away life perishes. The same is true of faith without love or of truth without good; since the truth that is called truth of faith is light, and the good that is called good of love is heat.106 This is more clearly shown by the heat and light of the world, to which the heat and light of heaven correspond. By the world’s heat when conjoined with light, as in spring and summer, all things on the earth are quickened and grow, but by light separate from heat nothing is quickened or grows, but everything lies torpid and dies. They are not conjoined in winter, when heat is absent though light remains. From this correspondence heaven is called paradise, since truth is there joined with good, or faith with love, as light is with heat in springtime on the earth. All this makes more clear the truth set forth in its own chapter (n. 13-19), that the Divine of the Lord in Heaven is love to him and charity toward the neighbor.
137. It is said in John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. He was in the world, and the world was made through him. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory (John 1:1-14).
Evidently the Lord is here meant by “the Word,” for it is said that “the Word became flesh.” But what is specifically meant by “the Word” is not known and shall therefore be explained. Here “the Word” means the Divine truth which is in the Lord and from the Lord;107 and this is why it is also called “the Light,” which is the Divine truth, as has been already shown in this chapter. That it was by means of Divine truth that all things were created and made shall now be explained.
[2] In heaven Divine truth has all power, and apart from it there is no power whatever.108 From the Divine truth angels are called powers, and are powers to the extent that they are recipients or receptacles of it. By means of it they prevail over the hells and over all that oppose them. A thousand enemies there cannot stand against a single ray of the light of heaven, which is Divine truth. As angels are angels by their reception of Divine truth it follows that the entire heaven is from no other source, since heaven consists of angels.
[3] That there is such power in Divine truth those cannot believe that have no other idea of truth than that it is thought or speech, which has in it no power except as others do it from obedience. But Divine truth has power in itself, and such power that by means of it heaven was created and the world with all things therein. That there is such power in Divine truth may be shown by two comparisons—by the power of truth and good in man, and by the power of light and heat from the sun in the world. By the power of good and truth in man, in that everything that a man does he does from his understanding and will—from his will by means of good and from his understanding by means of truth; for all things in the will have relation to good and all things in the understanding have relation to truth.109 Therefore it is from good and truth that man moves his whole body, and a thousand things therein rush with one accord to do their will and pleasure. This makes clear that the whole body is formed for subservience to good and truth, consequently is formed by good and truth.
[4] By the power of heat and light from the sun in the world, in that all things that grow in the world, as trees, cereals, flowers, grasses, fruits, and seeds, come into existence wholly by means of the heat and light of the sun; which shows what power of producing there is in them. What, then, must be the power in Divine light, which is Divine truth, and in Divine heat, which is Divine good? Because heaven has its existence from these, so does the world have its existence therefrom, since the world has its existence by means of heaven, as has been already shown. From all this the meaning of these words can be seen that “all things were made through the Word, and without the Word was not anything made that has been made”; also that “the world was made through him,” that is, through Divine truth from the Lord.110 For the same reason, in the book of Genesis, light is first spoken of, and then the things that are from light (Gen. 1:3, 4). For this reason also all things in the universe, both in heaven and in the world, have relation to good and truth and to their conjunction, in order to be anything.
139.111 It must be understood that the Divine good and the Divine truth that are from the Lord as a sun in the heavens are not in the Lord, but are from the Lord. In the Lord there is only Divine love, which is the being [esse] from which the Divine good and the Divine truth spring. Outgo [existere] from being [esse] is meant by going forth [procedere]. This, too, can be made clear by comparison with the world’s sun. The heat and light that are in the world are not in the sun, but are from the sun. In the sun there is fire only, and it is from this that heat and light spring and go forth.
140. Since the Lord as a sun is Divine love, and Divine love is Divine good itself, the Divine that goes forth from the Lord, which is his Divine in heaven, is called, for the sake of distinction, Divine truth, although it is in fact Divine good united to Divine truth. This Divine truth is what is called the holy that goes forth from him.
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The Four Quarters in Heaven
141. Both in heaven and in the world there are four quarters, east, south, west, and north, determined in each world by its own sun; in heaven by the sun of heaven, which is the Lord, in the world by the sun of the world. And yet there are great differences between them. In the first place, in the world that is called the south where the sun is in its greatest altitude above the earth, north where it is in its opposite position beneath the earth, east where it rises at an equinox, and west where it then sets. Thus in the world it is from the south that all the quarters are determined. But in heaven that is called the east where the Lord is seen as a sun, opposite to this is the west, at the right is the south in heaven, and at the left the north; and this in whatever direction the face and the body are turned. Thus in heaven it is from the east that all the quarters are determined. That is called the east [oriens] where the Lord is seen as a sun, because all origin [origo] of life is from him as a sun; moreover, so far as angels receive heat and light or love and intelligence from the Lord he is said to arise [exoriri] upon them. For the same reason the Lord is called the east [oriens] in the Word.112
142. Another difference is that to the angels the east is always before the face, the west behind, the south to the right, and the north to the left. But since this cannot be easily comprehended in the world, for the reason that men turn the face to every quarter, it shall be explained. The entire heaven turns itself to the Lord as to its common center; to that center do all the angels turn themselves. Also on the earth, as is well known, there is a directing of all things toward a common center; but there is this difference between this directing in the world and that in heaven, that in heaven the front parts are turned to the common center, but in the world the lower parts of the body. In the world this directing is called centripetal force, also gravitation. The interiors of angels are actually turned forwards; and since interiors manifest themselves in the face it is the face that determines the quarters.113
143. It is still more difficult to comprehend in the world that in every turning of their face and body the angels have the east before the face, since man according as he turns, has every quarter before his face. This shall also be explained. Although angels, like men, turn and direct their faces and bodies in every direction, they nevertheless have the east always before their eyes. But the turnings of angels are unlike the turnings of men, because they are from a different origin. They appear alike, but they are not. The origin of these turnings is their ruling love, and from this all directions with angels and spirits are determined, for, as just said, their interiors are actually turned toward their common center, which in heaven is the Lord as a sun; consequently their ruling love is always before their face, because their love is always before their interiors, and the face has existence from the interiors, for it is their outward form; and in the heavens this love is the Lord as a sun because it is from him that they have their love.114 And as the Lord himself is in angels in his love, it is the Lord who causes them to look to him whithersoever they turn. This cannot be explained any further now; but it will be made clearer to the understanding in subsequent chapters, especially where representations and appearances, and time and space in heaven, are treated of. That the angels have the Lord constantly before their faces it has been granted me to know and also to perceive from much experience; for whenever I have been in company with angels I have noticed the Lord’s presence before my face, not actually seen, and yet perceptible in a light; and angels have often testified that this is so. As the Lord is constantly before the faces of the angels, so it is said in the world of those who believe in the Lord and love him that they have God before their eyes and their face, and that they look to God, and see God. These expressions have their origin in the spiritual world, from which are many things in human speech, although their source is unknown to men.
144. This turning to the Lord is among the wonderful things in heaven. There may be many together in one place, some turning the face and body one way and some another, and yet all see the Lord before them, and everyone has the south at his right, the north at his left, and the west behind him. Another wonderful thing is that, although the angels look only to the east they have also a look toward the other three quarters; but the look to these is from their interior sight, which pertains to their thought. And it is yet another wonderful thing that in heaven no one is ever permitted to stand behind another and look at the back of his head, for this would disturb the influx of good and truth from the Lord.
145. The Lord is seen by the angels, and the angels are seen by the Lord in another way. Angels see the Lord through their eyes; but the Lord sees the angels in the forehead, and this for the reason that the forehead corresponds to love, and it is through love that the Lord flows into their will, while it is through the understanding, to which the eyes correspond, that he causes himself to be seen.115
146. The quarters in the heavens that give form to the Lord’s celestial kingdom differ from the quarters in the heavens that give form to his spiritual kingdom, for the reason that he is seen by the angels in his celestial kingdom as a sun, but by the angels in his spiritual kingdom as a moon; and where the Lord is seen is the east. The distance there between the position of the sun and that of the moon is thirty degrees, and there is a like difference in the position of the quarters. That heaven is divided into two kingdoms, called the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom, may be seen in its own chapter (n. 20-28); and that the Lord is seen in the celestial kingdom as a sun, and in the spiritual kingdom as a moon (n. 118). But it does not follow that the quarters of heaven become confused on this account, for neither can the spiritual angels ascend among the celestial angels, nor the celestial descend among the spiritual, as may be seen above (n. 35).
147. This makes clear the nature of the Lord’s presence in the heavens, that he is everywhere and with everyone in the good and truth that go forth from him; consequently he is with angels in what is his own, as has been said above (n. 12). The perception of the Lord’s presence is in their interiors; and it is from these that their eyes see, and it is by this continuity that they see the Lord outside of themselves. This shows what is meant by the Lord’s being in them and they in him, according to his own words:
Abide in Me and I in you (John 15:4).
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him (John 6:56).
“The Lord’s flesh” signifies Divine good and “his blood” Divine truth.116
148. All in the heavens have their own places of abode in accordance with the quarters. Those who are in the good of love dwell toward the east and west, those who are in clear perception of it toward the east, and those who are in obscure perception of it toward the west. Those who are in wisdom from the good of love dwell toward the south and north—those who are in the clear light of wisdom toward the south, and those who are in obscure light of it toward the north. The angels of the Lord’s spiritual kingdom and those of his celestial kingdom dwell in a like order, but differently as their good of love and light of truth from good differ; for in the celestial kingdom the love is love to the Lord, and the light of truth therefrom is wisdom; while in the spiritual kingdom there is love toward the neighbor, which is called charity, and the light of truth therefrom is intelligence, which is also called faith (see above, n. 23). The quarters differ also in the two kingdoms by thirty degrees, as has been said just above (n. 146).
149. In like order the angels in each society in heaven dwell in relation to one another—toward the east there those who are in greater degree of love and charity, toward the west those who are in less degree; toward the south those who are in greater light of wisdom and intelligence, and toward the north those who are in less. This arrangement prevails because each society represents heaven, and is a heaven in a smaller form (see above, n. 51-58). The same arrangement prevails in their assemblies. They are brought into this order by virtue of the form of heaven, from which everyone knows his own place. The Lord also provides that there be in each society those of every kind, for the reason that in form heaven is everywhere like itself; and yet the arrangement of the whole heaven differs from the arrangement of a society as what is general from its parts, since the societies toward the east surpass those toward the west, and those toward the south surpass those toward the north.
150. Because of this the quarters in the heavens signify such things as pertain to those that dwell in them—the east signifying love and its good clearly perceived, the west the same obscurely perceived, the south wisdom and intelligence in clear light, and the north the same in obscure light. And because of this signification of the quarters in heaven they have a like signification in the internal or spiritual sense of the Word,117 since the internal or spiritual sense of the Word is in entire accord with what is in heaven.
151. The reverse is true of those in the hells. Those who are there do not look to the Lord as a sun nor as a moon; but they look backward away from the Lord to that dense darkness that is in the place of the sun of the world, and to the darkness that is in the place of the earth’s moon. Those that are called genii look to that dense darkness that is in the place of the world’s sun, and those called spirits look to the darkness that is in the place of the earth’s moon.118 It has been shown above (n. 122) that the world’s sun and the earth’s moon are not seen in the spiritual world, but in place of that sun a dense darkness over against the sun of heaven, and in place of that moon a darkness over against the moon of heaven. For this reason the quarters with those in the hells are opposite to the quarters of heaven. The east to them is where that dense darkness and darkness are, the west is where the sun of heaven is, the south is to their right, and the north to their left, and this also in every turning of their bodies. Nor can they face otherwise, because the whole bent and consequent determination of their interiors tends and strives that way. It has been shown above (n. 143) that the bent and consequent actual determination of the interiors of all in the other life are in harmony with their love. The love of those in the hells is the love of self and the world, and these loves are what are signified by the world’s sun and the earth’s moon (see n. 122); and these loves are opposite to love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor;119 and this is the cause of their turning themselves backwards away from the Lord to this dense darkness. Moreover, those in the hells dwell likewise in accordance with their quarters, those who are in evil from love of self dwelling from their east to their west, and those who are in the falsities of evil from their south to their north. But more will be said about this below, where the hells are treated of.
152. When an evil spirit comes among good spirits the quarters are usually so confused that the good scarcely know where their east is. This I have sometimes seen take place, and have also heard about it from spirits who complained of it.
153. Evil spirits are sometimes seen turned toward the quarters of heaven; and they then have intelligence and perception of truth, but no affection for good; but as soon as they turn back to their own quarters they have no intelligence or perception of truth; and then they declare that the truths they heard and perceived are falsities and not truths, and they wish falsities to be truths. In respect to this turning I have been told that with the evil the intellectual part of the mind can be so turned, but not the voluntary part; and that this is provided by the Lord to the end that everyone may have the ability to see and acknowledge truths, but that no one can receive truths unless he is in good, since it is good, and never evil, that receives them; also that man has a like ability to the end that he may be made better by means of truths. Nevertheless, he is made better only so far as he is in good; consequently a man can in like manner be turned to the Lord; but if his life is evil he immediately turns himself back and confirms in himself the falsities of his evil, which are contrary to the truths he had understood and seen; and this takes place when he thinks in himself from his interior states.
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Changes of State of the Angels in Heaven
154. By changes of state of angels their changes in respect to love and faith, and wisdom and intelligence therefrom, are meant, thus their changes in respect to states of life. States are predicated of life and of what belongs to life; and as angelic life is a life of love and faith, and of wisdom and intelligence therefrom, states are predicated of these and are called states of love and faith, and states of wisdom and intelligence. How with angels these states are changed shall now be told.
155. Angels are not constantly in the same state in respect to love, and in consequence in the same state in respect to wisdom; for all their wisdom is from their love and in accordance with their love. Sometimes they are in a state of intense love, sometimes in a state of love not so intense. The state decreases by degrees from its greatest degree to its least. When in their greatest degree of love they are in the light and warmth of their life, or in a clear and delightful state; but in their least degree they are in shade and cold, or in an obscure and undelightful state. From this last state they return again to the first, and so on, these alternations following one after another with variety. There is a sequence of these states like the varied states of light and shade, or of heat and cold, or like morning, noon, evening, and night, day after day in the world, with unceasing variety throughout the year. There is also a correspondence, morning corresponding to the state of their love in its clearness, noon to the state of their wisdom in its clearness, evening to the state of their wisdom in its obscurity, and night to a state of no love or wisdom. But it must be understood that there is no correspondence of night with the states of life of those in heaven, although there is what corresponds to the dawn that precedes morning; what corresponds to night is with those in hell.120 From this correspondence “day” and “year” signify in the Word states of life in general; “heat” and “light” signify love and wisdom; “morning” the first and highest degree of love; “noon” wisdom in its light; “evening” wisdom in its shade; “dawn” the obscurity that precedes the morning; and “night” the absence of love and wisdom.121
156. Together with the state of the angels’ interiors which pertain to their love and wisdom, the states of various things that are outside of them and that they see with their eyes are changed; for the things outside of them take on an appearance that is in accord with the things within them. But what things these are, and what kind of things they are, shall be told presently in the chapter on representatives and appearances in heaven.
157. Every angel undergoes and passes through such changes of state, and also every society in general, and yet each one differently, for the reason that they differ in love and wisdom, those in the middle being in a more perfect state than those round about even to the circumference (see above, n. 43, 128). But it would be tedious to specify the differences, since the changes each one undergoes are in accord with the quality of his love and faith. From this it happens that while one may be in clearness and delight another may be in obscurity and lack of delight, and this at the same time within the same society. So, too, the state differs in different societies; it is different in the societies of the celestial kingdom from what it is in those of the spiritual kingdom. These differences in the changes of state are in general like the variations of the states of days in different climates on the earth, for with some it is morning when with others it is evening, and with some it is hot when with others it is cold.
158. I have been taught from heaven why there are such changes of state there. The angels said that there are many reasons—first, the delight of life and of heaven, which they have from love and wisdom from the Lord, would gradually lose its value if they were in it continually, as happens with those that are in allurements and pleasures without variety. A second reason is that angels, as well as men, have what is their own [proprium], which is loving self; and all that are in heaven are withheld from what is their own, and so far as they are withheld from it by the Lord are in love and wisdom; but so far as they are not withheld they are in the love of self; and because everyone loves what is his own and is drawn by it122 they have changes of state or successive alternations. A third reason is that they are in this way perfected, for they thus become accustomed to being held in love to the Lord and withheld from love of self; also that by alternations between delight and lack of delight the perception and sense of good becomes more exquisite.123 The angels added that their changes of state are not caused by the Lord, since the Lord as a sun is unceasingly flowing in with heat and light, that is, with love and wisdom; but the cause is in themselves, in that they love what is their own, and this continually leads them away. This was illustrated by comparison with the sun of the world, that the cause of the changes of state of heat and cold and of light and shade, year by year and day by day, is not in that sun, since it stands unchanged, but the cause is in the earth.
159. I have been shown how the Lord as a sun appears to the angels of the celestial kingdom in their first state, in their second state, and in their third state. I saw the Lord as a sun, at first glowing and brilliant with a splendor that cannot be described; and I was told that such is the appearance of the Lord as a sun to the angels in their first state. Afterwards there appeared a great obscure belt about the sun, and by this its first glow and brilliancy, which gave it such splendor, began to be dulled, and I was told that such is the appearance of the sun to them in their second state. Then the belt seemed by degrees to grow darker, and the sun to appear less glowing, and this by degrees until at length it took on a shining whiteness; and I was told that such is the appearance of the sun to them in their third state. After this, that shining whiteness was seen to move to the left toward the moon of heaven, and to add itself to her light; and in consequence the moon shone forth with unwonted splendor; and I was told that such is the fourth state of those in the celestial kingdom and the first state of those in the spiritual kingdom, and that in both kingdoms changes of state have such alternations; yet not in the whole kingdom at once, but in one society after another. Furthermore, I was told that these alternations are not fixed, but come upon them sooner or later without their knowledge. And it was added that the sun in itself is not thus changed or moved; but it takes on this appearance in accord with their successive progressions of state, since the Lord appears to everyone in accord with what his state is, thus glowing when one is in intense love and less glowing and finally shining white as his love subsides; and the quality of each one’s state was represented by the obscure belt that induced upon the sun these apparent variations in its glow and light.
160. When angels are in the last of these states, which is when they are in what is their own, they begin to be sad. I have talked with them when they were in that state and have seen their sadness; but they said that they hoped to return soon to their former state, and thus into heaven again, as it were; for to them it is heaven to be withheld from what is their own.
161. There are also changes of state in the hells, but these will be described later when hell is treated of.
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Time in Heaven
162. Although there is a succession and a progression of all things in heaven, as in the world, yet angels have no notion or idea of time and space; and this so completely that they do not even know at all what time and space are. Time in heaven will here be considered, and space in its own chapter.
163. Angels do not know what time is, although with them there is a successive progression of all things, as there is in the world, and this so completely that there is no difference whatever; and the reason is that in heaven instead of years and days there are changes of state; and where there are years and days there are times, but where there are changes of state there are states.
164. In the world there are times because the sun of the world seemingly advances in succession from one degree to another, producing times that are called seasons of the year; and besides, it revolves about the earth, producing times that are called times of day; both of these by fixed alternations. With the sun of heaven it is different. This does not mark years and days by successive progressions and revolutions, but in its appearance it marks changes of state; and this, as has been shown in the preceding chapter, is not done by fixed alternations. Consequently no idea of time is possible to angels; but in its place they have an idea of state (see above n. 154).
165. As angels have no idea derived from time, such as men in the world have, so neither do they have any idea about time and what pertains to it. They do not even know what is meant by the terms of time, such as year, month, week, day, hour, today, tomorrow, yesterday. When angels hear these terms used by man (for angels are always associated with man by the Lord) in place of them they perceive state and what pertains to states. Thus the natural thought of man is turned into spiritual thought with angels. This is why times in the Word signify states, and the terms of time, as enumerated above, signify corresponding spiritual things.124
166. The like is true of all things that exist from time, as the four seasons of the year, called spring, summer, autumn, and winter; the four periods of the day, morning, noon, evening, and night; and the four ages of man, infancy, youth, manhood, and old age; and all other things that either exist from time or have a succession in accordance with time. In thinking of these a man thinks from time, but an angel from state; and in consequence what there is in them from time with man is with the angels turned into an idea of state. Spring and morning are turned into an idea of the state of love and wisdom such as they are in angels in their first state; summer and noon are turned into an idea of love and wisdom such as they are in the second state; autumn and evening such as they are in the third state; night and winter into an idea of such a state as exists in hell. This is why these periods have a like significance in the Word (see above, n. 155). This makes clear how natural things in the thought of man become spiritual with the angels who are with man.
167. As angels have no notion of time so they have an idea of eternity different from that which men on the earth have.
Eternity means to the angels infinite state, not infinite time.125 I was once thinking about eternity, and was able, with the idea of time, to perceive what “to eternity” means, namely, without end, but not what “from eternity” means, thus not what God did from eternity before creation. When anxiety on this account arose in my mind I was raised up into the sphere of heaven, and thus into the perception that angels have in respect to eternity; and it was then made clear to me that eternity must be thought of, not from time but from state; and then the meaning of “from eternity” can be seen. This then happened to me.
168. When angels speak with men they never express themselves in natural ideas proper to man, all of which are from time, space, matter, and things analogous thereto, but in spiritual ideas, all of which are from states and their various changes within the angels and outside of them. Nevertheless, when these angelic ideas, which are spiritual, flow into men, they are turned in a moment and of themselves into natural ideas proper to man, that correspond perfectly to the spiritual ideas. Neither angels nor men know that this takes place; but such is all influx of heaven into man. Certain angels were permitted to enter more nearly into my thoughts, even into the natural thoughts in which there were many things from time and space; but as they then understood nothing they suddenly withdrew; and after they had withdrawn I heard them talking, and saying that they had been in darkness.
[2] It has been granted me to know by experience how ignorant the angels are about time. There was a certain one from heaven who was able to enter into natural ideas, such as man has; and after he had done this I talked with him as man with man. At first he did not know what it was that I called time, and I was therefore obliged to tell him all about it, how the sun appears to be carried about our earth, and to produce years and days, and how years are thereby divided into four seasons, and also into months and weeks, and days into twenty-four hours; and how these times recur by fixed alternations, and how this is the source of times. On hearing this he was surprised, saying that he knew nothing about such things, but only what states are.
[3] In speaking with him I added that it is known in the world, for men speak as if they knew that there is no time in heaven, saying of those who die that they “leave the things of time,” and that they “pass out of time,” meaning by this out of the world. I said also that some know that times in their origin are states, for they know that times are in exact accord with the states of their affections, short to those who are in pleasant and joyous states, long to those who are in unpleasant and sorrowful states, and various in a state of hope and expectation; and this therefore leads learned men to inquire what time and space are, and some know that time belongs to the natural man.
169. The natural man might think that he would be deprived of all thought if the ideas of time, space, and material things were taken away; for upon these all the thought of man rests.126 But let him know that so far as thoughts partake of time, space, and matter they are limited and confined, but are unlimited and extended so far as they do not partake of these, since the mind is in that measure raised above bodily and worldly things. This is the source of wisdom to the angels; and such wisdom as is called incomprehensible, because it does not fall into ideas that are wholly made up of what is material.
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Representatives and Appearances in Heaven
170. The man who thinks from natural light alone is unable to comprehend that there is anything in heaven like what is in the world; and for the reason that from natural light he has previously thought, and established himself in the idea, that angels are nothing but minds, and that minds are like ethereal breaths, having no senses like those of men, thus no eyes, and if no eyes no objects of sight; and yet the angels have every sense that a man has, and far more exquisite senses; and the light by which angels see is far brighter than the light by which man sees. That angels are men in the most complete form, and enjoy every sense, may be seen above (n. 73-77); and that the light in heaven is far brighter than the light in the world (n. 126-132).
171. The nature of the objects that are visible to angels in heaven cannot be described in a few words. For the most part they are like things on earth, but in form far more perfect, and in number more abundant. That such things exist in the heavens is evident from things seen by the prophets—as by Ezekiel in relation to the new temple and the new earth (as described from chap. 40 to 48); by Daniel (from chap. 7 to 12); by John (from the first chapter of Revelation to the last); and by others, as described both in the historic and the prophetic part of the Word. These things were seen by them when heaven was open to them, and heaven is said to be opened when the interior sight, which is the sight of man’s spirit, is opened. For what is in the heavens cannot be seen by the eyes of a man’s body, but are seen by the eyes of his spirit; and when it seems good to the Lord these are opened, and man is then withdrawn from the natural light that he is in from the bodily senses and is raised up into spiritual light, which he is in from his spirit. In that light the things in heaven have been seen by me.
172. But although the things seen in heaven are in large part like those on the earth, in essence they are unlike them; for the things in heaven come forth from the sun of heaven, and those on the earth from the sun of the world. The things that come forth from the sun of heaven are called spiritual; those that come forth from the sun of the world are called natural.
173. The things that come forth in heaven do not come forth in the same manner as those on the earth. All things in heaven come forth from the Lord in correspondence with the interiors of the angels. For angels have both interiors and exteriors. All things in their interiors have relation to love and faith, thus to the will and understanding, since the will and understanding are their receptacles; while their exteriors correspond to their interiors. That exterior things correspond to interior things may be seen above (n. 87-115). This is illustrated by what has been said above about the heat and light of heaven—that angels have heat in accordance with the quality of their love, and light in accordance with the quality of their wisdom (n. 128-134). The like is true of all other things that present themselves to the senses of angels.
174. When I have been permitted to be in company with angels, the things there appeared precisely the same as those in the world; and so plainly that I would not have known that I was not in the world and in a king’s palace. I also talked with the angels as man with man.
175. As all things that correspond to interiors also represent them they are called “representatives”; and as they differ in each case in accordance with the state of the interiors they are called “appearances.” Nevertheless, the things that appear before the eyes of angels in heaven and are perceived by their senses appear to their eyes and senses as fully living as things on earth appear to man, and even much more clearly, distinctly and perceptibly. Appearances from this source in heaven are called real appearances, because they have real existence. There are appearances also that are not real, which are things that become visible, but do not correspond to interiors.127 These will be treated of further on.
176. To show what the things are that appear to the angels in accordance with correspondences, I will here mention one only for the sake of illustration. By those who are intelligent, gardens and parks full of trees and flowers of every kind are seen. The trees are planted in a most beautiful order, combined to form arbors with arched approaches and encircling walks, all more beautiful than words can describe. There the intelligent walk, and gather flowers and weave garlands with which they adorn little children. Moreover, there are kinds of trees and flowers there that are never seen and cannot exist on earth. The trees bear fruit that are in accordance with the good of love, in which the intelligent are. These things are seen by them because a garden or park and fruit trees and flowers correspond to intelligence and wisdom.128 That there are such things in heaven is known also on the earth, but only to those who are in good, and who have not extinguished in themselves the light of heaven by means of natural light and its fallacies; for when such think about heaven they think and say that there are such things there as ear hath not heard and eye hath not seen.
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The Garments with Which Angels Appear Clothed
177. Since angels are men, and live among themselves as men do on the earth, they have garments and dwellings and other such things, with the difference, however, that as they are in a more perfect state all things with them are in greater perfection. For as angelic wisdom surpasses human wisdom to such a degree as to be called ineffable, so is it with all things that are perceived and seen by angels, inasmuch as all things perceived and seen by them correspond to their wisdom (see above, n. 173).
178. The garments with which angels are clothed, like all other things with them, correspond; and because they correspond they have real existence (see above, n. 175). Their garments correspond to their intelligence, and therefore all in the heavens appear clothed in accordance with their intelligence; and as one is more intelligent than another so the garments of one surpass those of another. The most intelligent have garments that blaze as if with flame, others have garments that glisten as if with light; the less intelligent have garments that are glistening white or white without the effulgence; and the still less intelligent have garments of various colors. But the angels of the inmost heaven are not clothed.
179. As the garments of angels correspond to their intelligence they correspond also to truth, since all intelligence is from Divine truth; and therefore it is the same thing whether you say that angels are clothed in accordance with intelligence or in accordance with Divine truth. The garments of some blaze as if with flame, and those of others glisten as if with light, because flame corresponds to good, and light corresponds to truth from good.129 Some have garments that are glistening white and white without the effulgence, and others garments of various colors, because with the less intelligent the Divine good and truth are less effulgent, and are also received in various ways,130 glistening white and white corresponding to truth,131 and colors to its varieties.132 Those in the inmost heaven are not clothed, because they are in innocence, and innocence corresponds to nakedness.133
180. As in heaven the angels are clothed with garments, so when seen in the world they have appeared clothed with garments, as those seen by the prophets and those seen at the Lord’s sepulcher:
Whose appearance was as lightning, and their garments glistening and white (Matt. 28:3; Mark 16:5; Luke 24:4; John 20:12, 13).
And those seen in heaven by John:
Who had garments of fine linen and white (Rev. 4:4; 19:14).
And because intelligence is from Divine truth:
The garments of the Lord, when he was transfigured, were radiant and glistening white like the light (Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:3; Luke 9:29).
As light is Divine truth going forth from the Lord (see above, n. 129), so in the Word garments signify truths and intelligence from truths, as in Revelation:
Those that have not defiled their garments shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh shall be clothed in white garments (Rev. 3:4, 5);
Blessed is he that is awake and keepeth his garments (Rev. 16:15).
And of Jerusalem, which means a church that is in truth,134 it is written in Isaiah:
Awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on the garments of thy beauty, O Jerusalem (Isa. 52:1).
And in Ezekiel:
Jerusalem, I girded thee about with fine linen, and covered thee with silk. Thy garments were of fine linen and silk (Ezek. 16:10, 13).
Besides many other passages. But he who is not in truths is said “not to be clothed with a wedding garment,” as in Matthew:
When the king came in he saw a man that had not on a wedding garment; and he said unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? Wherefore he was cast out into the outer darkness (Matt. 22:11-13).
The house of the wedding feast means heaven and the church because of the conjunction of the Lord with heaven and the church by means of his Divine truth; and for this reason the Lord is called in the Word the bridegroom and husband; and heaven, with the church, is called the bride and the wife.
181. That the garments of angels do not merely appear as garments, but are real garments, is evident from the fact that angels both see them and feel them, that they have many garments, and that they put them off and put them on, that they care for those that are not in use, and put them on again when they need them. That they are clothed with a variety of garments I have seen a thousand times. When I asked where they got their garments, they said from the Lord, and that they receive them as gifts, and sometimes they are clothed with them unconsciously. They said also that their garments are changed in accordance with their changes of state, that in the first and second state their garments are shining and glistening white, and in the third and fourth state a little less bright; and this likewise from correspondence, because their changes of state have respect to intelligence and wisdom (of which see above, n. 154-161).
182. As everyone in the spiritual world has garments in accordance with his intelligence, that is, in accordance with truths which are the source of intelligence, so those in the hells, because they have no truths, appear clothed in garments, but in ragged, squalid, and filthy garments, each one in accordance with his insanity; and they can be clothed in no others. It is granted them by the Lord to be clothed, lest they be seen naked.
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The Places of Abode and Dwellings of Angels
183. As there are societies in heaven and the angels live as men, they have also places of abode, and these differ in accordance with each one’s state of life. They are magnificent for those in higher dignity, and less magnificent for those in lower condition. I have frequently talked with angels about the places of abode in heaven, saying that scarcely anyone will believe at the present day that they have places of abode and dwellings; some because they do not see them, some because they do not know that angels are men, and some because they believe that the angelic heaven is the heaven that they see with their eyes around them, and as this appears empty and they suppose that angels are ethereal forms, they conclude that they live in ether. Moreover, they do not comprehend how there can be such things in the spiritual world as there are in the natural world, because they know nothing about the spiritual.
[2] The angels replied that they are aware that such ignorance prevails at this day in the world, and to their astonishment, chiefly within the church, and more with the intelligent than with those whom they call simple. They said also that it might be known from the Word that angels are men, since those that have been seen have been seen as men; and the Lord, who took all his human with him, appeared in like manner. It might be known also that as angels are men they have dwellings and places of abode, and do not fly about in air, as some think in their ignorance, which the angels call insanity, and that although they are called spirits they are not winds.
This they said might be apprehended if men would only think independently of their acquired notions about angels and spirits, as they do when they are not bringing into question and submitting to direct thought whether it is so. For everyone has a general idea that angels are in the human form, and have homes which are called the mansions of heaven, which surpass in magnificence earthly dwellings; but this general idea, which flows in from heaven, at once falls to nothing when it is brought under direct scrutiny and inquiry whether it is so, as happens especially with the learned, who by their own intelligence have closed up heaven to themselves and the entrance of heavenly light.
[3] The like is true of the belief in the life of man after death. When one speaks of it, not thinking at the same time about the soul from the light of worldly learning or from the doctrine of its reunion with the body, he believes that after death he is to live a man, and among angels if he has lived well, and that he will then see magnificent things and perceive joys; but as soon as he turns his thoughts to the doctrine of reunion with the body, or to his theory about the soul, and the question arises whether the soul be such, and thus whether this can be true, his former idea is dissipated.
184. But it is better to present the evidence of experience. Whenever I have talked with angels face to face, I have been with them in their abodes. These abodes are precisely like abodes on the earth which we call houses, but more beautiful. In them there are chambers, parlors, and bedrooms in great number; there are also courts, and there are gardens and flower beds and lawns round about. Where they live together their houses are near each other, arranged one next to the other in the form of a city, with avenues, streets, and public squares, exactly like cities on the earth. I have been permitted to pass through them, looking about on every side, and sometimes entering the houses. This occurred when my inner sight was opened, and I was fully awake.135
185. I have seen palaces in heaven of such magnificence as cannot be described. Above they glittered as if made of pure gold, and below as if made of precious stones, some more splendid than others. It was the same within. Both words and knowledge are inadequate to describe the decorations that adorned the rooms. On the side looking to the south there were parks, where, too, everything shone, in some places the leaves glistening as if made of silver, and fruit as if made of gold; while the flowers in their beds formed rainbows with their colors. Beyond the borders, where the view terminated, were seen other palaces. Such is the architecture of heaven that you would say that art there is in its art; and no wonder, because the art itself is from heaven. The angels said that such things and innumerable others still more perfect are presented before their eyes by the Lord; and yet these things are more pleasing to their minds than to their eyes, because in every one of them they see a correspondence, and through the correspondences what is Divine.
186. As to these correspondences I have also been told that not only the palaces and houses, but all things and each thing, both inside and outside of them, correspond to the interior things which they have from the Lord, the house itself in general corresponding to their good, the particular things inside of a house to the various things of which their good consists,136 and the things outside to truths derived from good, and also to their perceptions and knowledges (see note, n. 176); and as these things correspond to the goods and truths they have from the Lord they correspond to their love, and to their wisdom and intelligence from love, since love belongs to good, wisdom to good and truth together, and intelligence to truth from good. These are what the angels perceive when they behold what is around them, and thus their minds are more delighted and moved by them than their eyes.
187. This makes clear why the Lord called himself the temple at Jerusalem (John 2:19, 21),137 namely, because the temple represented his Divine human; also why the New Jerusalem was seen to be of pure gold, its gates of pearls, and its foundations of precious stones (Rev. 21), namely, because the New Jerusalem signifies the church which was afterwards to be established, the twelve gates its truths leading to good, and the foundations the truths on which the church is founded.138
188. The angels of whom the Lord’s celestial kingdom consists dwell for the most part in elevated places that appear as mountains of soil; the angels of whom the Lord’s spiritual kingdom consists dwell in less elevated places that appear like hills; while the angels in the lowest parts of heaven dwell in places that appear like ledges of stone. These things spring from correspondence, for interior things correspond to higher things, and exterior things to lower things;139 and this is why in the Word “mountains” signify celestial love, “hills” spiritual love, and “rocks” faith.140
189. There are also angels who do not live associated together, but apart, house by house. These dwell in the midst of heaven, since they are the best of angels.
190. The houses in which angels dwell are not erected, as houses in the world are, but are given to them gratuitously by the Lord, to everyone in accordance with his reception of good and truth. They also change a little in accordance with changes of the state of interiors of the angels (of which above, n. 154-160). Everything whatsoever that the angels possess they hold as received from the Lord; and everything they have need of is given them.
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