manifested to me by much experience in the spiritual world; especially
from this, that angels of the lower heavens are not able to breathe in
the region of higher angels, and appear to themselves to gasp for
breath, as living creatures do when they are raised out of air into
ether, or out of water into air. Moreover, spirits below the heavens
appear in a kind of cloud. That there are several atmospheres, and that
they are distinct from each other by means of degrees, may be seen
above (n. 176).

184. DEGREES ARE OF A TWOFOLD KIND, DEGREES OF HEIGHT AND DEGREES OF
BREADTH.

A knowledge of degrees is like a key to lay open the causes of things,
and to give entrance into them. Without this knowledge, scarcely
anything of cause can be known; for without it, the objects and
subjects of both worlds seem to have but a single meaning, as if there
were nothing in them beyond that which meets the eye; when yet compared
to the things which lie hidden within, what is thus seen is as one to
thousands, yea, to tens of thousands. The interiors which are not open
to view can in no way be discovered except through a knowledge of
degrees. For things exterior advance to things interior and through
these to things inmost, by means of degrees; not by continuous degrees
but by discrete degrees. "Continuous degrees" is a term applied to the
gradual lessenings or decreasings from grosser to finer, or from denser
to rarer; or rather, to growths and increasings from finer to grosser,
or from rarer to denser; precisely like the gradations of light to shade,
or of heat to cold. But discrete degrees are entirely different: they
are like things prior, subsequent and final; or like end, cause, and
effect. These degrees are called discrete, because the prior is by
itself; the subsequent by itself; and the final by itself; and yet