Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 10709

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10709. They went on to say that when they are talking among themselves they advance for the most part to the ninth degree of use, and that in the universe there are people who when they speak advance to the fifth, seventh, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, even up to the fiftieth degree of use. This, as they explained to me when I wondered what they meant by it, means speaking on a level removed a given number of times from the matter that is being discussed; and they used the following examples to throw some light on this. When someone is in a place of worship and they are asked where is he, they do not say he is in a place of worship but either that he is not at home or that he has gone out, and so on. When they say this others take it to mean that the person is with God, thus in a place of worship; for one who is in a place of worship is with God, and insofar as he is with God he is not at home or has gone out. They also take not having gone out to mean being at home. Another example they gave was that when someone places another under obligation to him through things that touch this other's heart, they say to him, You know what to do, or Now you are in [knowledge of] it, or Now [knowledge of] it is in you, or some other phrase, provided that this is an indirect or remote way of expressing that obligation. This is called speaking in accord with the fifth, ninth, fifteenth, twentieth, even up to the fiftieth degree of use. Speaking in accord with a degree of use is a customary and accepted expression in heaven, which is used to designate the degree of remoteness from the matter that is being discussed. And what is astonishing, when someone uses this indirect or remote way to refer to something, others know instantly, without stopping to count, which degree he has advanced to. Those who use non-verbal speech include, in addition to the inhabitants of that planet, very many others who in like manner communicate with one another through facial expressions and movements of the lips, and also through the emission of sound varying in accord with the ideas belonging to thought. All who communicate in this way discern immediately whatever is being conveyed. For their actual thought is transmitted and makes itself known more fully by this way of communicating than by vocal speech, which in comparison is material.


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