and Michael and Raphael are angelic societies, so called from
their functions (n. 8192). The societies of heaven and the
angels have no names, but are distinguished by the quality of
their good, and by the idea of it (n. 1705, 1754).


53. As an entire society is a heaven in a smaller form, so an angel
is a heaven in the smallest form. For heaven is not outside of the
angel, but is within him, since the interior things which belong to
his mind are arranged into the form of heaven, thus for the reception
of all things of heaven that are outside of him. These also he
receives according to the quality of the good that is in him from the
Lord. It is from this that an angel is a heaven.


54. It can in no sense be said that heaven is outside of any one; it
is within him. For it is in accordance with the heaven that is within
him that each angel receives the heaven that is outside of him. This
makes clear how greatly misled is he who believes that to come into
heaven is simply to be taken up among angels, without regard to what
one's interior life may be, thus that heaven is granted to each one
by mercy apart from means;{1} when, in fact, unless heaven is within
one, nothing of the heaven that is outside can flow in and be
received. There are many spirits who have this idea. Because of this
belief they have been taken up into heaven; but when they came there,
because their interior life was contrary to the angelic life, their
intellectual faculties began to be blinded until they became like
fools; and they began to be tortured in their voluntary faculties
until they became like madmen. In a word, if those that have lived
wickedly come into heaven they gasp for breath and writhe about, like