Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 6319

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

6319. As regards the influx of angels with a man, it is not an influx of such thoughts as the man then has, but is according to correspondences; for the angels are thinking spiritually, whereas the man perceives this naturally; thus with the man the spiritual things fall into their correspondents, consequently into their representatives. For example, when a man speaks of bread, of seedtime, of harvest, of fatness, and the like, the thought of the angels is then about the goods of love and of charity; and so forth. I once dreamed a common dream, and when I awoke, I related all from beginning to end. The angels said that all things coincided exactly with those which they had spoken of among themselves; not that these were the same as I had dreamed, but things corresponding and representative, and it is the same in every single thing. I afterward talked with them about influx. Objects, however, such as a man sees with his eyes, do not appear before the spirits who are with the man, neither are words heard such as the man hears with the ear, but such as the man is thinking. That thought is wholly different from speech, is evident from the fact that man thinks in a moment more than he can utter in half an hour, because he thinks abstractedly from the words of language. From this may in some measure be known the nature of the interaction of the soul with the body, namely, that it is such as is the influx of the spiritual world into the natural world; for the soul or spirit of man is in the spiritual world, and his body is in the natural world: thus it is according to correspondences.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church