174. As regards the atmospheres, which are called ethers and airs, they
are alike in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, with the
difference only that they are spiritual in the spiritual world, and
natural in the natural world. The former are spiritual, because they
have their form from the sun which is the first proceeding of the Divine
Love and Divine Wisdom of the Lord, and from Him receive within them the
Divine fire which is love, and the Divine light which is wisdom, and
carry these down to the heavens where the angels dwell, and cause the
presence of that sun there in things greatest and least. The spiritual
atmospheres are divided substances, that is, least forms, originating
from the sun. As these each singly receive the sun, its fire, distributed
among so many substances, that is, so many forms, and as it were enveloped
by them, and tempered by these envelopments, becomes heat, adapted finally
to the love of angels in heaven and of spirits under heaven. The same is
true of the light of that sun. In this the natural atmospheres are like
spiritual atmospheres, that they also are divided substances or least
forms originating from the sun of the natural world; these also each
singly receive the sun and store up its fire in themselves, and temper
it, and carry it down as heat to the earth, where men dwell. The same is
true of natural light.

175. The difference between spiritual and natural atmospheres is that
spiritual atmospheres are receptacles of Divine fire and Divine light,
thus of love and wisdom, for they contain these interiorly within them;
while natural atmospheres are receptacles, not of Divine fire and Divine
light, but of the fire and light of their own sun, which in itself is
dead, as was shown above; consequently there is nothing interiorly in
them from the sun of the spiritual world, although they are environed
by spiritual atmospheres from that sun. That this is the difference