4343. CONCERNING THE INTERNAL SENSE OF THE WORD. How the case is with the internal sense of the Word, in which are celestial truths themselves, they appear from the fact - concerning which I have conversed with spirits - that if the thought is held fixedly on any subject, and the Word meanwhile is read, then all and singular things therein will apply themselves to the universal of thought and its affection, while confirmations [from various sources] coincide, showing that that which is understood is the true sense, so that scarcely anything is wanting [to establish the point]. With the angels there is the thought only of celestial truths and goods, in which they are held by the Lord, and for this reason everything in the Word is bent to a conformity with their ideas, and everything in the sense of the letter perishes, and entirely another sense is developed, which is the internal, and which is clearly seen so that the sense of the letter becomes, as it were, none. In like manner, a man who is in a celestial idea, and then reads the Word, sees celestial things in his celestial idea, and nothing of the letter, yea, even the historical facts disappear. This may be illustrated in a variety of ways. - 1749, August 8.