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.

240. 7. The Word Exists throughout the Heavens; It Is the Source of Angelic Wisdom

Up until now people have not known that the Word exists in the heavens. They had no way of knowing this as long as the church remained unaware that angels and spirits are people who have faces and bodies just as people do in our world. Angels and spirits also have things that are like the things people have, with one difference: the things angels have are spiritual. All the things around them have a spiritual origin, while we here in the physical world, and all the things around us, have a physical origin. As long as this piece of information was still hidden there was no way to know that the Word does in fact exist in the heavens and that it is read by the angels there and by the spirits below the heavens.

To prevent this point from staying hidden forever, I have been allowed to have interaction with angels and spirits, to talk to them and see the things they have, and afterward to pass on many of the things I have heard and seen. This I have done in the work Heaven and Hell, published in London in 1758. That work shows that angels and spirits are people and that they have in great abundance all the things we have in this world. For angels and spirits being people, see 73-77, 453-456 in that work. For their possession of things similar to those we have in this world, see 170-190. For their having divine worship and sermons in church buildings, see 221-227. For their possession of writing and books, see 258-264. For their possession of the Word, see 259.