that place. It is comparatively like civil and military officers and
attendants in a royal palace or castle, who, although dwelling apart
in their own quarters or chambers above and below, are yet in the
same palace or castle, each in his own position in the royal service.
This makes evident the meaning of the Lord's words, that:

In His Father's house are many abiding places (John 14:2);

also what is meant by the dwelling-places of heaven, and the heavens
of heavens, in the prophets.


52. That each society is a heaven in a smaller form can be seen from
this also, that each society there has a heavenly form like that of
heaven as a whole. In the whole heavens those who are superior to the
rest are in the middle, with the less excellent round about in a
decreasing order even to the borders (as stated in a preceding
chapter, n. 43). It can be seen also from this, that the Lord directs
all in the whole heaven as if they were a single angel; and the same
is true of all in each society; and as a consequence an entire
angelic society sometimes appears in angelic form like a single
angel, as I have been permitted by the Lord to see. Moreover, when
the Lord appears in the midst of the angels He does not appear as one
surrounded by many, but the appearance is as a one, in an angelic
form. This is why the Lord is called "an angel" in the Word, and why
an entire society is so called. "Michael," "Gabriel," and "Raphael"
are no other than angelic societies so named from their function.{1}

{Footnote 1} In the Word the Lord is called an angel (n. 6280,
6831, 8192, 9303). A whole angelic society is called an angel,