130 HEAVEN and HELL §251
c. Spirits cannot see, through us, anything that is in this subsolar world; but they have seen
through my eyes, and why: 1880.whole region that covers the cerebrum, because this area corresponds to
our intelligence. In contrast, the infl ow of heavenly angels is into the part
of the head that covers the cerebellum and is called the occiput, from one
ear to the other and down to the neck, since this area corresponds to our
wisdom.
All the speech of angels comes into our thoughts by these two paths.
This has enabled me to notice just which angels were talking with me.252 People who talk with heaven’s angels also see the things that are in
heaven, because they are seeing in that light of heaven that surrounds
their inner levels. Not only that, through them angels see things that are
on our earth.c For people who talk with angels, heaven is actually united
to our world and our world to heaven; for as already noted (§ 246 ), when
angels turn toward us they unite themselves with us so completely that it
seems to them exactly as though whatever is ours is actually theirs. This
applies not only to elements of our language but to what is involved in
our sight and hearing. In addition, it seems to us exactly as though the
things that are fl owing in through the angels are really ours.
The earliest humans on our planet enjoyed this kind of union with
heaven’s angels, which is why their times are called the Golden Age.
Because they acknowledged the Divine in human form and therefore were
acknowledging the Lord, they talked with heaven’s angels as they did with
members of their own family, and heaven’s angels talked with them in the
same way; and in them heaven and this world were a single whole.
But after those times, people moved step by step away from heaven by
loving themselves more than the Lord and the world more than heaven.
So they began to feel the pleasures of self-love and love of the world sepa-
rately from the pleasures of heaven, ultimately to the point where they did
not know there was any other kind of pleasure. Then their deeper levels
were closed, the levels that open into heaven, while their outer levels were
open to the world. Once this has happened, we are in the light in respect
to everything in this world and in darkness in respect to everything in
heaven.
253 Since those times people have seldom talked with heaven’s angels,
though some have talked with spirits who are not in heaven. Our inner
and outer levels can by their nature be turned toward the Lord as their