Heaven and its Wonders and Hell - Emanuel Swedenborg

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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.{1} 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.

      {Footnote 1} Unless man is raised above the sense-conceptions of the external man he has very little wisdom (n. 5089). The wise man thinks above these sense-conceptions (n. 5089, 5094). When man is raised above these, he comes into clearer light, and finally into heavenly light (n. 6183, 6313, 6315, 9407, 9730, 9922). Elevation and withdrawal from these was known to the ancients (n. 6313).

      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,{1} 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. 9:8; 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).

      {Footnote 1} In respect to his interiors man is a spirit (n. 1594). And that spirit is the man himself, and it is from that spirit that the body lived (n. 447, 4622, 6054).

      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.{1}

      {Footnote 1} Inasmuch as each angel is a recipient of Divine order from the Lord, he is in a human form, perfect and beautiful in the measure of his reception (n. 322, 1880, 1881, 3633, 3804, 4622, 4735, 4797, 4985, 5199, 5530, 6054, 9879, 10177, 10594). It is by means of Divine truth that order exists; and Divine good is the essential of order (n. 2451, 3166, 4390, 4409, 5232, 7256, 10122, 10555).

       Table of Contents

      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: (i) That the God of heaven is the Lord. (ii) It is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven. (iii) Heaven consists of innumerable societies; and each society is a heaven in a smaller form, and each angel in the smallest form. (iv) All heaven in the aggregate reflects a single man. (v) Each society in the heavens reflects a single man. (vi) 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 the 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 with in 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

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