171. There is no way to describe briefly how things look to angels in the heavens. To a considerable extent, they look like the things we see on earth, but they are more perfect in form and also more abundant.

We may conclude that there are things like this in the heavens because of what the prophets saw - for example what Ezekiel saw of the new temple and the new earth as described in chapters 40-48 [of his book], what Daniel describes in his chapters 7-12, what John saw as described from the first through the last chapter of Revelation, along with other visions presented in both the historical and the prophetic books of the Word. They saw things like this when heaven was opened to them, and heaven is said to be opened when our inner sight, the sight of our spirit, is opened. For the things that exist in heaven cannot be seen with our physical eyes, but only with the eyes of our spirit; and when it pleases the Lord, these are opened. At such times we are led out of the natural light that our physical senses are in and raised into the spiritual light in which we dwell because of our spirit. This is the light in which I have seen the things that exist in the heavens.

6275. 'And he blessed Joseph' means a foretelling about the truth belonging to the understanding and the good belonging to the will, both of which possess life from the internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'blessing' as a foretelling, dealt with in 6230, 6254; and from the representation of Ephraim and Manasseh, to whom the name 'Joseph' applies here, as truth belonging to the understanding and good belonging to the will within the natural, which are born from the internal, dealt with in 6234, 6249. The fact that the name 'Joseph' is used to mean his sons is evident from the actual blessing, which declares,

The angel redeeming me from every evil, may he bless the boys, and in them will my name be called.

And the reason why they are called 'Joseph' is that the goodness and truth within the natural, which are represented by 'Manasseh and Ephraim', exist there as the internal itself.

[2] Internal and external are, it is true, distinct and separate from each other; but within the natural, where they are both together, the internal resides as if within a form of its own, perfectly suited to it. That form does not at all act independently but under the direction of the internal within it, and so is merely an agent. It is like the efficient cause within an effect. The efficient cause and the effect are distinct and separate from each other; yet the efficient cause resides within the effect as if the effect were its own form, perfectly suited to it, and through that form it acts as the cause in the sphere where the effect is produced. Something similar to this goes on with goodness and truth in a person's natural, which are born from the internal. The internal clothes itself with such things as belong to the natural, so that it can reside there and lead its life there. But the things with which it clothes itself are nothing else than coverings, which do not act independently.