is the spiritual sense of these words. Without that sense, who could understand what is meant by the wall of the holy Jerusalem being the measure of a man, which is that of an angel?
THIS TRUTH LEARNED FROM EXPERIENCE.
But to proceed now to experience. I have seen a thousand times that angels are human forms, or men; for I have conversed with them as man with man, sometimes with one alone, sometimes with many in company; nor did I discover in their form anything different from the form of man. And I have repeatedly wondered that they were such. And lest it should be said that it was a fallacy or a visionary fancy, I have been permitted to see them in a state of full wakefulness, when I was in the exercise of every bodily sense, and in a state of clear perception.
I have also frequently told them that men in the Christian world are in such blind ignorance concerning angels and spirits, as to believe them to be minds without form, and mere thoughts, concerning which they have no other idea than as of something ethereal in which there is somewhat vital. And because they thus ascribe to them nothing human except a thinking principle, they imagine that they cannot see, because they have no eyes; nor hear, because they have no ears; nor speak, because they have neither mouth nor tongue.
The angels said in reply, that they knew such a belief exists with many in the world, and that it is the
