Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3345

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3345. From this one can see that a range of interior forms of communication exists, yet these are such that one form springs from another in that range of them and one exists within another next to it. The nature of the communication used by man is well known, as also is his thought in which that form of communication originates and whose analytical workings are such as cannot possibly be examined closely. The communication, and the thought in which it originates, of the good spirits, or the angels of the first heaven, are more interior, containing things yet more wonderful and unexaminable. The communication, and again the thought in which it originates, of the angels of the second heaven are still more interior, containing yet more perfect and indescribable things, while the communication, and yet again the thought in which it originates, of the angels of the third heaven are inmost, containing things totally indescribable. And although all these forms of communication are such that they appear to be different and diverse, they nevertheless make a single whole since one gives form to the next and one is present within the next. But that which occurs in a more external form is representative of that which is interior to it. Anyone who does not think beyond worldly and bodily things cannot believe these things, and therefore he imagines that the interior things with him are nothing, when in fact the interior things with him constitute everything, while those that are exterior, that is, worldly and bodily, in which he makes everything to consist, are by contrast scarcely anything.


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