d him the way, and he ascended: after he was
admitted he was led first into the paradisiacal garden, where were
fruit-trees and flowers, which from their beauty, pleasantness and
fragrance, tilled the mind with the delights of life. When he saw these
things, he admired them exceedingly; but he was then in external vision,
such as he had enjoyed in the world when he saw similar objects, and in
this vision he was rational; but in the internal vision, in which
adultery was the principal agent, and occupied every point of thought,
he was not rational; wherefore the external vision was closed, and the
internal opened; and when the latter was opened, he said, "What do I see
now? is it not straw and dry wood? and what do I smell now? is it not a
stench? What is become of those paradisiacal objects?" The angel said,
"They are near at hand and are present; but they do not appear before
your internal sight, which is adulterous, for it turns celestial things
into infernal, and sees only opposites. Every man has an internal and an
external mind, thus an internal and an external sight: with the wicked
the internal mind is insane, and the external wise; but with the good
the internal mind is wise, and from this also the external; and such as
the mind is, so a man in the spiritual world sees objects." After this
the angel, from the power which was given him, closed his internal
sight, and opened the external, and led him away through gates towards
the middle point of the habitations: there he saw magnificent palaces of
alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, and near them porticos,
and round about pillars overlaid and encompassed with wonderful
ornaments and decorations. When he saw these things, he was amazed, and
said, "What do I see? I see magnificent objects in their own real
magnificence, and architectonic objects in their own real art." At that
instant the angel again closed his external sight, and opened the
internal, which was evil because filthily adulterous: hereupon he
exclaimed, "What do I now see? Where am I? What is become of those
palaces and magnificent objects? I see only confused heaps, rubbish, and
places full of caverns." But presently he was brought back again to his
external sight, and introduced into one of the palaces; and he saw the
decorations of the gates, the windows, the walls, and the ceilings, and
especially of the utensils, over and round about which were celestial
forms of gold and precious stone