2268. 'Will You for five destroy the whole city?' means, Will mankind perish for the small amount that is lacking? This is clear from the meaning of 'five' as small, referred to immediately above, and from the meaning of 'a city' as truth, also dealt with already. The human mind as regards truths is in the Word compared to and also called 'a city', and as regards the goods that are present within truths is there compared to and also called 'the inhabitants'. For a similarity indeed exists, in that if the truths in a person's two memories ¹ and in the thoughts of his mind are devoid of goods, they are like a city that has no residents and so is vacant and empty. Indeed it can also be said of angels that they dwell so to speak in a person's truths and implant affections for good from the Lord when that person leads a life abiding in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbour, for they are delighted so to dwell, that is, to live, with such persons. It is different in the case of those with whom some truths exist but no goods that flow from charity.

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1634. CHAPTER 14

THE SPEECH OF SPIRITS AND ANGELS

It is well known from the Word of the Lord that many in former times spoke to spirits and angels, and that those people heard and saw many things that exist in the next life; but that after those times heaven was so to speak closed, so completely that at the present day there is scarcely any belief in the existence of spirits and angels, let alone in anyone being able to talk to them. For people today suppose that to talk to those who cannot be seen, and to those whose existence they deny in their hearts, is an impossibility. But since in the Lord's Divine mercy I have been allowed for some years now almost constantly to hold conversations with them and to enjoy their fellowship as one among them, let me now relate what I have been given to know about their speech with one another.