earth turns away from the sun. When we turn away from wisdom’s true
perspective we are like the earth turning away from the sun by night.
When we turn away from the goodness of love we are like the earth
turning away from the sun in winter. The useful effects of the sun in the
physical world correspond in this way to the useful effects of the sun in
the spiritual world.71 To these points I will add three memorable occurrences.
The first memorable occurrence.Once I heard beneath me the sound
of ocean waves. I asked what it was. Someone told me it was a riot that
had broken out among the people gathered in the lower earth, a place
just above hell. Soon the ground under our feet, which served as a roof
over the people there, began to yawn wide. Then I was stunned to see
huge flocks of night birds soaring out of the chasm. As they flew on they
fanned out to the left. Immediately after them, locusts sprang up onto
the grass and turned it all into a desert. A little later I began to hear night
birds screeching back and forth to one another, and over to the side an
incoherent wailing as if there were ghosts in the woods.
Afterward I saw beautiful birds from heaven fanning out to the right.
The distinguishing features of those birds were their golden wings, which
were irregularly streaked and spotted with something like silver. On the
heads of some were crown-shaped crests.
As I was watching all this with amazement, suddenly a spirit flew up
from the lower earth where the riot was going on. He possessed the
power to change his form into that of an angel of light. He was shouting,
“Where is the person who is talking and writing about the design God
Almighty restricted himself to in relation to humankind? Down below
we heard these things through the roof.”
When he reached the ground he hurried along a paved road. As at last
he drew near me, he suddenly disguised himself as an angel of heaven.
Addressing me in a tone that was not his own he said, “Are you the
one who is thinking and talking about the divine design? Tell me briefly
what the divine design is, and say a few things about it.”
[ 2 ] “I’ll give you a summary,” I answered, “but I won’t go into details,
because you wouldn’t understand.”
Then I said, “One: God is the divine design itself. Two: He created
humankind on the basis of his design and in keeping with it, and built