Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 182
into heaven, yet the state of man is now such that there can no
longer be such conjunction with angels, but only with spirits
who are not in heaven.
[3] When I talked about this with spirits also they were
unwilling to believe that it is the man that speaks, insisting that
they spoke in man, also that man’s knowledge is their
knowledge and not the man’s knowledge, consequently that
everything that man knows is from them. I tried to convince
them by many proofs that this is not true, but in vain. Who are
meant by spirits and who are meant by angels will be told
further on when the world of spirits is treated of.
247. There is another reason why angels and spirits conjoin
themselves so closely with man as not to know but that what is
man’s is their own, namely, that there is such conjunction
between the spiritual world and the natural world in man that
the two are seemingly one. But inasmuch as man has separated
himself from heaven the Lord has provided that there should
be angels and spirits with each individual, and that man should
be ruled by the Lord through these. This is the reason for such
close conjunction. It would have been otherwise if man had
not separated himself; for in that case he might have been ruled
by the Lord through the general influx from heaven, without
spirits and angels being adjoined to him. But this subject will
be specially considered in what follows, when the conjunction
of heaven with man is treated of.
248. The speech of an angel or spirit with man is heard by
him as audibly as the speech of man with man, yet by himself
only, and not by others who stand near; and for the reason that
the speech of an angel or spirit flows first into a man’s thought,
and by an inner way into his organ of hearing, and thus moves
it from within; while the speech of man with man flows first
into the air and by an outward way into his organ of hearing,
and moves it from without. Evidently, then, the speech of an
angel or spirit with man is heard within him; but as the organs
of hearing are thus equally moved, the speech is equally