XVII.
ANGELIC AND INFERNAL SPIRITS.
HE man who becomes an angel after death, posseses intelligence and wisdom ineffable as compared with that which he possessed when he lived in the world. For when he lived in the world his spirit was bound to the body, and by the body was in the natural world. Therefore what he then thought spiritually, flowed into natural ideas which are respectively general, gross and obscure, and incapable of receiving the innumerable things which belong to spiritual thought, and which also involve them in the dense shades arising from worldly cares.
It is otherwise when the spirit is released from the body, and comes into its spiritual state, as is the case when it passes out of the natural into the spiritual world which is its peculiar realm. That its state then, as to thoughts and affections, immensely excels its former state, is evident from what has now been said. Hence it is, that the angels think things that are ineffable and inexpressible, consequently such as cannot enter into the natural thoughts of man; although every angel was born a man and lived as a
