28 HEAVEN and HELL §51
a. In the Word, the Lord is called an angel: 6280 , 6831 , 8192 , 9303. A whole community is called
an angel, and Michael and Raphael are angelic communities so named because of their functions:
8192. Angelic communities and individual angels do not have particular names, but are identifi ed
by the quality of their goodness and by some concept of it: 1705 , 1754.It is rather like the situation of offi cials and functionaries and ser-
vants in a royal palace or court. Even though they live individually in
their dwellings or in their rooms, some higher than others, still they are
in a single palace or a single court, each one involved in a particular func-
tion in the service of the king. We can see from this what is meant by the
Lord’s saying that “in my Father’s house there are many dwellings” (John
14 : 2 ) and by “the stories of heaven” and the “heavens of heavens” in the
prophets.52 We may also gather that a community is a heaven in lesser form from
the fact that the heavenly form in each community is of the same nature
as it is in heaven overall. In heaven overall (as noted above in § 43 ), the
most outstanding individuals are in the center, and around them, in
decreasing order all the way to the circumference, are those who are less
outstanding. It follows also from the fact that the Lord leads all the peo-
ple in the whole of heaven as though they were a single angel, and does
the same for those who are in any particular community. As a result,
sometimes a whole angelic community appears as a single entity in the
form of an angel, a sight that the Lord has allowed me to see. Further,
when the Lord appears in the midst of angels, he does not appear sur-
rounded by a crowd but as a lone individual in angelic form. This is why
the Lord is called an angel in the Word, as is also a whole community:
Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are nothing but angelic communities that
are given these names because of their functions.a53 Just as a whole community is a heaven in lesser form, so too an angel
is a heaven in least form. For heaven is not outside angels but within
them. Their deeper levels, the levels of their minds, are arranged in the
form of heaven and therefore are arranged to accept all the elements of
heaven that are outside them. These elements they accept according to
the quality of the goodness that is within them from the Lord. As a result,
an angel is also a heaven.54 It can never be said that heaven is outside anyone. It is within;
because every angel accepts the heaven that is outside in keeping with the
heaven that is within. We can see, then, how mistaken people are who