§184 angels’ homes 97
and houses—some because they do not see them, some because they do
not realize that angels are people, some because they believe that the
angelic heaven is the sky they see about them with their eyes. Since this
appears to be empty and they think that angels are ethereal forms, they
come to the conclusion that angels live in the ether. Further, they do not
grasp the fact that the same kinds of thing exist in the spiritual world as
in the natural, because they know nothing about the spiritual.
[ 2 ] Angels have told me that they were aware that this kind of igno-
rance was prevalent in the world nowadays and, remarkably enough,
mainly within the church, and more among the intellectuals there than
among the ones labeled simple. They have also said that people could
know from the Word that angels are people because the ones that have
been seen have been seen as people. So too was the Lord, who took on
his full humanity. People could then realize that since angels are people,
they have houses and homes and do not fl y around in the air, that even
though they are called “spirits” they are not breezes, as the ignorance
(which angels call insanity) of some would have it. They could also grasp
this if when they thought about angels and spirits they would step out-
side their preconceptions, which happens when they are not constantly
questioning and consciously pondering whether this is so. Everyone actu-
ally has a general notion that angels are in human form and that they
have homes that are called heavenly dwellings, which are more splendid
than earthly houses. But this general notion (which comes from an
infl ow from heaven), the angels said, promptly collapses into nothing
when it becomes the center of conscious attention and is faced with the
question whether it is so. This happens particularly among scholars who
have used their self-generated intelligence to shut off from themselves
both heaven and the passage of light from it.
[ 3 ] Much the same happens in regard to faith in our life after death.
People who talk about it without thinking at the same time from schol-
arly concepts of the soul or the doctrine of reunion with our physical
bodies believe that after death we will live as people—among angels if we
have lived well—and that then we will see magnifi cent sights and experi-
ence raptures. But the moment they focus on the doctrine of reunion
with our bodies or some hypothesis about “the soul,” and therefore begin
to wonder whether the soul is really like this, whether it is all true, their
former notion vanishes.
But it would be better to present some experiential evidence at this 184
point. Whenever I have talked with angels face to face, I have been with
them in their houses. Their houses were just like the houses on earth that