h the Divine of the Lord first or most directly
flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that
succeed in accordance with the degrees of order. This inmost or
highest degree may be called the entrance of the Lord to the angel or
man, and His veriest dwelling-place in them. It is by virtue of this
inmost or highest that a man is a man, and distinguished from the
animals, which do not have it. From this it is that man, unlike the
animals, is capable, in respect to all his interiors which pertain to
his mind and disposition, of being raised up by the Lord to Himself,
of believing in the Lord, of being moved by love to the Lord, and
thereby beholding Him, and of receiving intelligence and wisdom, and
speaking from reason. Also it is by virtue of this that he lives to
eternity. But what is arranged and provided by the Lord in this
inmost does not distinctly fall into the perception of any angel,
because it is above his thought and transcends his wisdom.

436. That in respect to his interiors man is a spirit I have been
permitted to learn from much experience, which, to employ a common
saying, would fill volumes if I were to describe it all. I have
talked with spirits as a spirit, and I have talked with them as a man
in the body; and when I talked with them as a spirit they knew no
otherwise than that I myself was a spirit and in a human form as they
were. Thus did my interiors appear before them, for when talking with
them as a spirit my material body was not seen.

437. That in respect to his interiors man is a spirit can be seen
from the fact that after his separation from the body, which takes
place when he dies, man goes on living as a man just as before. That
I might be convinced of this I have been permitted to talk with
nearly everyone I had ever known in their life in the body; with some
for hours, with some for weeks and months, and with some for years,
and this chiefly that I might be sure of it and might testify to it.

438. To this may be added that every man in respect to his spirit,
even while he is living in the body, is in some society with spirits,
although he does not know it; if a good man he is by means of spirits
in some angelic society; if an evil man in some infernal society; and
after death he comes into that same society. This has been often told
and shown to those who after death have come among spirits. Man, to
be sure, does not appear in that society as a spirit while he