§110 earth corresponds to heaven 59
c. By reason of correspondence, animals refer to affections; mild and useful animals to good affec-
tions, fi erce and useless ones to evil affections: 45 , 46 , 142 , 143 , 246 , 714 , 716 , 719 , 2179 , 2180 , 3519 ,
9280 ; illustrated by experience drawn from the spiritual world: 3218 , 5198 , 9090. On the infl ow of
the spiritual world into the lives of animals: 1633 , 3646. By reason of correspondence, cattle and
calves refer to affections of the natural mind: 2180 , 2566 , 9391 , 10132 , 10407. What birds mean:
4169 , 4809. What lambs mean: 3994 , 10132. Flying creatures mean cognitive activities: 40 , 745 ,
776 , 778 , 866 , 988 , 993 [ 991 ], 5149 , 7441 ; varied as indicated by their genera and species, based on
experience in the spiritual world: 3219.
ignorance, so that we can be led from there, by divine means, back into
the pattern of heaven.
We can deduce how members of the plant kingdom correspond from 109
a multitude of instances—for example, from the fact that tiny seeds grow
into trees, beget leaves, produce fl owers and then fruits in which they
place another generation of seeds, and that these things happen in a
sequence and emerge all together in such a wondrous design that there is
no way to describe it briefl y. It would take volumes, and still there would
be deeper mysteries suited to their uses that our knowledge could not
compass.
Because these things stem from the spiritual world or heaven, which
is in a human form (as was explained in the appropriate chapter above
[§§ 78 – 86 ]), it is also true that the details of that kingdom have a kind of
relationship to human characteristics—a fact that is recognized by some
individuals in the learned world.
It has become clear to me from a great deal of experience that every-
thing in that kingdom is also a correspondence. Very often, when I have
looked over trees and fruits and fl owers and vegetables in gardens, I have
become aware of corresponding things in heaven. Then I have talked
with nearby people there and have learned where these plants were from
and what their characteristics were.
Nowadays, though, no one can know about the spiritual things in 110
heaven to which natural things in the world correspond except from
heaven, because the knowledge of correspondence has now been com-
pletely lost. I should like to present a few examples to show what the cor-
respondence of spiritual things with natural ones is like.
In general, earth’s living creatures correspond to affections, the mild
and useful ones to good affections, the fi erce and useless ones to evil
affections. Specifi cally, cattle and calves correspond to affections of the
natural mind, sheep and lambs to affections of the spiritual mind. Flying
creatures, species by species, correspond to cognitive activities of either
level of the mind.c This is why various animals such as cattle, calves,