Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 186
earth, and for this reason their times were called the Golden
Age. Because this race acknowledged the Divine under a
human form, that is, the Lord, they talked with the angels of
heaven as with their friends, and angels of heaven talked with
them as with their friends; and in them heaven and the world
made one. But after those times man gradually separated
himself from heaven by loving himself more than the Lord and
the world more than heaven, and in consequence began to feel
the delights of the love of self and the world as separate from
the delights of heaven, and finally to such an extent as to be
ignorant of any other delight. Then his interiors that had been
open into heaven were closed up, while his exteriors were open
to the world; and when this takes place man is in light in
regard to all things of the world, but in thick darkness in
regard to all things of heaven.
253. Since those times it is only rarely that anyone has talked
with the angels of heaven; but some have talked with spirits
who are not in heaven. This is so because man’s interior and
exterior faculties are such that they are turned either toward the
Lord as their common center (n. 124), or toward self, that is,
backwards from the Lord. Those that are turned toward the
Lord are also turned toward heaven. But those that are turned
toward self, are turned also toward the world. And to elevate
these is a difficult matter; nevertheless the Lord elevates them
as much as is possible, by turning the love about; which is done
by means of truths from the Word.
254. I have been told how the Lord spoke with the prophets
through whom the Word was given. He did not speak with
them as he did with the ancients, by an influx into their
interiors, but through spirits who were sent to them, whom he
filled with his look, and thus inspired with the words which
they dictated to the prophets; so that it was not influx but
dictation. And as the words came forth directly from the Lord,
each one of them was filled with the Divine and contains
within it an internal sense, which is such that the angels of
heaven understand the words in a heavenly and spiritual sense,