When the problem about the soul had been debated in the high-school and solved, I saw them leaving in due order. The headmaster came first, after him the elders with in their midst the five juniors who had given answers, and then the rest. When they had emerged, they began to go apart to the sides around the building, where there were walks surrounded by shrubs. When gathered there they split up into small groups, each being a party of juniors talking about matters to do with wisdom, and in each group there was one wise man who had been in the gallery.

When I saw all this from my inn, I passed into the spirit, and in that I went out to meet them, approaching the headmaster who just before had set the problem about the soul. On seeing me he said, 'Who are you? I was surprised when I watched you on your way here and saw you at one time becoming visible to me, at another dropping out of sight; now I saw you, now you suddenly vanished. You must surely not be in the same state of life as the people in our country.'

I replied to this with a smile, 'I am no actor, or Vertumnus,* but I am by turns sometimes in light and sometimes in shade to your eyes. So here I am both a stranger and a native.'

[2] At this the headmaster looked at me and said, 'What you say is unusual and strange. Tell me who you are.' 'I am,' I said, 'in the world in which you once were and which you have left, what is called the natural world. I am also in the world to which you have come and where you now are, what is called the spiritual world. Consequently I am in the natural state and at the same time in the spiritual state; in the natural state when with people on earth, in the spiritual state when with you. When I am in the natural state, I am invisible to you, but when in the spiritual state visible. I have been granted by the Lord the ability to be like this. You as an enlightened man are well aware that a person who belongs to the natural world cannot see one who belongs to the spiritual world, and vice versa. Therefore when I plunge my spirit into the body, you do not see me, but when I release it from the body, you do. You also taught in the school that you are all souls, and souls can see souls, because they are human forms. You know that you could not see yourselves, that is, your souls, when they were in your bodies in the natural world. But this happens because of the difference between the spiritual and the natural.'

[3] When he heard me mention the difference between the spiritual and the natural, he said, 'What difference is that? Is it not like that between what is purer and what is less pure? So what is the spiritual but a purer kind of natural?'

'It is not that sort of distinction,' I replied, 'but rather the sort of distinction there is between what is prior and what is posterior, which can have no finite relationship. For the prior is in the posterior, as the cause is in its effect; and the posterior derives from the prior, as the effect derives from its cause. That is why one is not visible to the other.'

[4] To this the headmaster said, 'I have pondered this distinction and chewed it over, but up to now in vain. I only wish I could grasp it.' 'You will,' I said, 'not only grasp the distinction between the spiritual and the natural, but actually see it.' Then I went on, 'You are in the spiritual state when you are with your people, but in the natural state with me. For you talk with your people in the spiritual language, which is shared by every spirit and angel, but you talk with me in my native language. For every spirit or angel who talks with a man speaks his own language, French with a Frenchman, English with an Englishman, Greek with a Greek, Arabic with an Arab, and so on. So in order to be aware of the distinction between the spiritual and the natural as it applies to languages, do this: go inside to your people, say something there, and memorise the words. Then come back keeping them in mind, and pronounce them in my presence.'

He did so, and came back to me with those words on his tongue, and uttered them, and did not understand any.** They were completely strange and foreign words, not to be found in any language of the natural world. Repeating the experiment several times showed clearly that all in the spiritual world have a spiritual language, which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world. Everyone automatically comes into possession of that language after his death. At the same time he discovered that the actual sound of the spiritual language is so different from that of natural language, that even a loud spiritual sound is inaudible to a natural person, and so is a natural sound to a spiritual person.

[5] Later I asked the headmaster and the bystanders to go inside to their own people, and write a sentence on a piece of paper, and then to bring the paper out and read it to me. They did so, and came back with the paper in their hands, but when they went to read it, they could not understand it at all, since the script was merely composed of a few letters of the alphabet with curly lines over them, and every single letter stood for some particular meaning. Since each letter of the alphabet there conveys a meaning, it is obvious why the Lord is called 'alpha and omega.' When they went in again and again, wrote and came back, they discovered that the script entailed and comprehended countless things, which no natural script can ever express. They were told that this was because the thoughts of the spiritual man were incomprehensible and inexpressible to the natural man, and they cannot be transferred or copied into another script or another language.

[6] Then, since the bystanders were unwilling to grasp that spiritual thought is so far beyond natural thought that it is relatively inexpressible, I said to them, 'Carry out an experiment. Go inside to your spiritual community, think of an idea, keep it in mind, and come back and expound it in my presence.'

They went inside and thought, and, keeping the thought in mind, came out; but when they went to expound what they had thought, they were unable to do so. For they could not find any idea of natural thought capable of matching an idea of spiritual thought; neither could they find any words to express those ideas, for what is an idea in thought becomes words in speech.

[7] Thereupon they went back inside, came back and convinced themselves that spiritual ideas were far above natural ones, inexpressible, unutterable and incomprehensible to the natural man. Because spiritual ideas so far excelled natural ones, they said that spiritual ideas or thoughts, as compared to natural ones, were ideas of ideas and thoughts of thoughts, and could therefore express qualities of qualities and affections of affections. It followed that spiritual thoughts were the beginnings and origins of natural thoughts. They also showed that spiritual wisdom is the wisdom of wisdom, and so incapable of being perceived by any wise men in the natural world. Then they were told from the third heaven that there is a still more inward or higher wisdom, called celestial, which stands in the same relationship to spiritual wisdom as this does to natural wisdom. These forms of wisdom flow in, one after the other, depending upon which heaven is concerned, from the Lord's Divine wisdom, which is infinite. * A Roman god, believed constantly to change shape. ** Perhaps a misprint for 'and I did not understand any.' The phrase is missing from the repetition of this account in TCR 280.