§74 angels are human 39
c. Twelve refers to all true and good things taken together: 577 , 2089 , 2129 , 2130 , 3272 , 3858 , 3913.
The same holds for seventy-two and for a hundred and forty-four, because a hundred and forty-
four is twelve multiplied by itself: 7973. All the numbers in the Word mean something: 482 , 487 ,
647 , 648 , 755 , 813 , 1963 , 1988 , 2075 , 2252 , 3252 , 4264 , 4495 , 5265. Multiples have the same mean-
ing as the simple numbers that produce them: 5291 , 5335 , 5708 , 7973.
d. Measurement in the Word means the quality of an entity in regard to truth and good:
3104 , 9603.
e. On the spiritual or inner meaning of the Word, see the expository work The White Horse in the
Book of Revelation, and the appendix to The [New Jerusalem and Its] Heavenly Teachings.
things as a whole.c “Measure” refers to its quality.d The human being
is where all these things are found, in general and in specifi c, and there-
fore where heaven is found; and since an angel is a person as well because
of these characteristics, it says “the measure of an individual, that is, of
the angel.” This is the spiritual meaning of these words. Apart from this
meaning, who would understand that the measure of the wall of the holy
Jerusalem would be the measure of an individual, which was the measure
of the angel?e
But let us turn to experience now. As for angels being human forms, 74
or people, this I have seen thousands of times. I have talked with them
face to face, sometimes with just one, sometimes with several in a group,
and as far as their form is concerned, I have seen in them nothing differ-
ent from that of a human being. At times I have felt surprised that they
were like this; and to prevent it being said that this was some illusion or
hallucination, I have been allowed to see them while I was fully awake, or
while I was in full possession of my physical senses and in a state of clear
perception.
I have often told them that people in the Christian world are in such
blind ignorance about angels and spirits that they think of them as minds
without form, as mere thoughts, and can conceive of them only as some-
thing airy with something alive within it. Further, since they attribute to
them nothing human except a capacity for thought, they believe angels
cannot see because they have no eyes, cannot hear because they have no
ears, and cannot talk because they have no mouths or tongues.
[ 2 ] Angels have replied that they know many people on earth have
this kind of belief and that it is prevalent among the learned and—
strangely!—among the clergy. They have told me that it is because some
of the learned who were particularly eminent and who came up with this
kind of concept of angels and spirits thought about them on the basis of
the sensory faculties of the external person. If people think on this basis