185. HOW MAN IS WITHDRAWN FROM THE COMPANY OF ANGELS I have sometimes fallen into thoughts about mundane affairs and the cares connected with them, and just so often have I fallen away from the company of spirits. I perceived the cause of this to be that the more interior corresponding things were then separated, and the mind only inhered in external things without any correspondence. This is why the sons of the Ancient Church throughout their life spoke with angels and had continual interaction with them, for in the externals the corresponding internals were represented to them. But so long as man indulges only in external things, he is removed from manifest interaction with angels. Man is ruled by spirits, and these by angels, and in this manner, he is ruled by God Messiah by His permitting, and this in all things and in the very least things; and thus men are guarded from evil spirits every single moment.* * This paragraph is thus entered in the Index (s.v. Ecclesia):
"When I was let down into worldly things, I was removed from consociation with the angels; whence it could be concluded that the sons of the Ancient Church were in spiritual vision and with angels, by intuition, because not in earthly things; and that the men of the present day are in earthly things."
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