§212 form & communication 109
not turn back to what is behind them: remember Lot’s wife. (Luke
17 : 31 – 32 )There is no infl ow from lower heavens into higher ones because this 209
goes against the design. Rather, infl ow is from the higher ones into the
lower. The wisdom of angels of a higher heaven surpasses the wisdom of
angels of a lower one by a ratio of thousands to one. This is also why
angels of a lower heaven cannot talk with angels of a higher one. In fact,
when they look in their direction they do not see them; their heaven
looks like something cloudy overhead. However, angels of a higher
heaven can see people who are in a lower heaven, though they are not
allowed to carry on conversations with them, to prevent them from los-
ing their wisdom, as already mentioned.
The thoughts, the affections, and the conversations of angels of the 210
inmost heaven are wholly beyond the perception of angels in the inter-
mediate heaven because they are so transcendent; but when it pleases the
Lord, they are visible in the lower heavens as something fl amelike from
the higher one, while conversations in the intermediate heaven are seen as
something shining in the outmost heaven—sometimes as a bright, irides-
cent cloud. The lower angels can to some extent tell what the higher ones
are saying from the way the cloud rises and descends and from its form.
This enables us to conclude what heaven’s form is like, namely, that 211
it is most perfect of all in the inmost heaven, perfect in the intermediate
heaven but less so, and still less so in the heaven below that. We can also
conclude that the form of one heaven is maintained by another through
the infl ow from the Lord.
However, there is no way to understand what communication by
infl ow is like without knowing what vertical levels are like and what the
difference is between these levels and degrees of length and breadth. The
nature of both kinds of levels may be seen in § 38.
As to heaven’s form and how it works and fl ows, this is incompre- 212
hensible even to angels. It can be brought to some measure of conceptu-
alization by comparison with the form of all the elements of the human
body as explored and examined by someone who is both wise and experi-
enced; for as explained above in the relevant chapters, heaven as a whole
resembles a single person (§§ 59 – 72 ) and everything in the human [body]
corresponds to the heavens (§§ 87 – 102 ). We can see in a general way how
incomprehensible and intricate this form is simply by looking at our
nerve fi bers, which serve to weave absolutely everything [in us] together.
There is no way their nature and how they work and fl ow in the brain