destruction.' Moreover, they can distinguish beings concealed under
forms which to ignorant eyes would seem fantastic. When a man is
disposed to receive the prophetic afflation of Correspondences, it
rouses within him a perception of the Word; he comprehends that the
creations are transformations only; his intellect is sharpened, a
burning thirst takes possession of him which only Heaven can quench.
He conceives, according to the greater or lesser perfection of his
inner being, the power of the Angelic Spirits; and he advances, led by
Desire (the least imperfect state of unregenerated man) towards Hope,
the gateway to the world of Spirits, whence he reaches Prayer, which
gives him the Key of Heaven.

"What being here below would not desire to render himself worthy of
entrance into the sphere of those who live in secret by Love and
Wisdom? Here on earth, during their lifetime, such spirits remain
pure; they neither see, nor think, nor speak like other men. There are
two ways by which perception comes,--one internal, the other external.
Man is wholly external, the Angelic Spirit wholly internal. The Spirit
goes to the depth of Numbers, possesses a full sense of them, knows
their significances. It controls Motion, and by reason of its ubiquity
it shares in all things. 'An Angel,' says Swedenborg, 'is ever present
to a man when desired' ('Angelic Wisdom'); for the Angel has the gift
of detaching himself from his body, and he sees into heaven as the
prophets and as Swedenborg himself saw into it. 'In this state,'
writes Swedenborg ('True Religion,' 136), 'the spirit of a man may
move from one place to another, his body remaining where it is,--a
condition in which I lived for over twenty-six years.' It is thus that
we should interpret all Biblical statements which begin, 'The Spirit
led me.' Angelic Wisdom is to human wisdom what the innumerable forces
of nature are to its action, which is one. All things live again, and