240. Because angels' language flows directly from their affection (since their individual ideas are various forms into which their affections are apportioned, as noted above in 236), angels can express in a minute more than we can say in half an hour, and can present in a few words things that would make many pages of writing. This too has been witnessed to me by a great deal of experience. 1
Angels' individual ideas and the words of their language form a single whole the way an efficient cause does with an effect; for what is presented in the words as an effect is what is resident in the ideas as a cause. This is why a single word contains so much within itself.
When the details of angels' thought and the consequent details of their language are presented in visual form, they look like a subtle wave or flowing atmosphere in which there are countless elements in their own pattern, elements of their wisdom that enter into thought at a higher level and stir the affections. The individual ideas of anyone - whether an angel or one of us - can be presented visually in heaven's light when it so pleases the Lord. 2
Footnotes:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] In their language, angels can express in a moment more than we can in half an hour in our language, and this includes things that by nature do not fit into the words of human language: 1641-1643, 1645, 4609, 7089.
2. [Swedenborg's footnote] There are countless things within a single concept: 1008, 1869, 4946, 6613-6615, 6617-6618. Our concepts are opened in the other life, with a vivid visual presentation of their quality: 1869, 3310, 5510. What they look like: 6201 [6200?], 8885. The concepts of angels of the inmost heaven look like the light of a flame: 6615. The concepts of angels of the outmost heaven look like faint, bright clouds: 6614. An angel's concept was seen from which rays went forth toward the Lord: 6620. Concepts of thought reach out far and wide on all sides in angelic communities: 6598-6613.
