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The Word Exists throughout the Heavens;
It Is the Source of Angelic Wisdom240 Up until now people have not known that the Word exists in the heav-
ens. They had no way of knowing this as long as the church remained
unaware that angels and spirits are people who have faces and bodies just
as people do in our world. Angels and spirits also have things that are like
the things people have, with one difference: the things angels have are
spiritual. All the things around them have a spiritual origin, while we
here in the physical world, and all the things around us, have a physical
origin. As long as this piece of information was still hidden there was no
way to know that the Word does in fact exist in the heavens and that it is
read by the angels there and by the spirits below the heavens.
To prevent this point from staying hidden forever, I have been
allowed to have interaction with angels and spirits, to talk to them and
see the things they have, and afterward to pass on many of the things I
have heard and seen. This I have done in the work Heaven and Hell,
published in London in 1758. That work shows that angels and spirits
are people and that they have in great abundance all the things we have
in this world. For angels and spirits being people, see §§ 73 – 77 , 453 – 456
in that work. For their possession of things similar to those we have in
this world, see §§ 170 – 190. For their having divine worship and sermons
in church buildings, see §§ 221 – 227. For their possession of writing and
books, see §§ 258 – 264. For their possession of the Word, see § 259.
241 As for the Word in heaven, it has a spiritual style of writing that is
completely different from our earthly style of writing. This spiritual writ-
ing style consists entirely of letters that have individual meanings. There
are also little lines, curves, and dots above, between, and inside the letters
to heighten the meaning.
Among angels in the spiritual kingdom, the lettering is like printed
lettering in our world. Among angels in the heavenly kingdom, some
copies of the Word have lettering like Arabic script, while others have let-
tering like the script of ancient Hebrew (except that the letters are curved
at the top and bottom) with diacritical marks above, between, and inside
the letters. Each mark contains an entire meaning of its own.