Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its Wonders - Swedenborg ...

Heaven
inward light and the common idea native to everyone,
they cannot help constructing images like this, because
the sensory faculties of the external person grasp only
matters that are within the bounds of nature and not
things that are higher. So they do not grasp anything at all
about the spiritual world. From these eminent people as
leaders, false thoughts about angels spread to people who
did not think independently but relied on others; and
people who let their thinking rely primarily on others and
then form their faith, and later look into these matters
with their minds, have a hard time giving these ideas up.
As a result, many of them cooperate in confirming these
false notions.
Angels have also told me that people of simple faith and
heart are not caught up in this concept of angels, but have
an image of them as people in heaven. This is because they
have not let erudition snuff out the image implanted in
them from heaven and because they do not grasp any -
thing unless it has some form. This is why the angels we
see sculpted and painted in churches are invariably repre -
sented as human. As for this “image implanted in them
from heaven,” angels tell me that it is something divine
that flows into people who are intent on goodness of faith
and life.
On the grounds of all my experience, which has lasted
for several years now, I can say with full confidence that in
their form, angels are completely human. They have
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