143. Nowadays it may seem strange that 'beasts' and 'animals' in ancient times meant affections and similar things residing with man. But because people had heavenly ideas then, and because such things are also represented in the world of spirits by animals - by such animals in fact as resemble those affections - this alone is what they therefore understood when they spoke in this fashion. And this alone is what is meant in the Word whenever beasts are mentioned in general or in particular. The whole prophetical section of the Word is full of things such as these, and therefore anyone who does not know the particular meaning of any beast cannot possibly understand what the Word contains in the internal sense. But as slated already, there are two kinds of beasts - evil ones, because they are harmful, and good ones, because they are harmless. Good beasts, such as sheep, lambs, and doves, mean good affections. Here, because the subject is the celestial man, or the celestial-spiritual man, the same applies. The fact that 'beasts' in general means affections has been confirmed from several places in the Word quoted already in 45, 46. So there is no need of further confirmation.

5986. It is worth my mentioning that it has happened many times and thereby been proved to me that no one person's thought, speech, will, or action - either in heaven or in hell - originates in the person himself but comes from others, so that ultimately every individual is dependent on the all-embracing inflow of life from the Lord. When I have heard others saying that nothing of a subordinate's thought or speech originated in himself, yet the subordinate imagined that it did come solely from himself, I have been allowed on many occasions to talk to those entering the subordinate. Whenever they would argue that their own thought and speech originated in themselves unlike a subordinate's - and because they really thought this was so - I have also been allowed to tell them that their idea is false. I have told them that they, exactly like a subordinate, derived their thought and speech from others. To prove the point I was allowed to talk to the spirits entering them; and when these spirits professed much the same, I was allowed to talk in turn to the ones entering them, and so on in unbroken sequence. This proved that each individual's thought and speech came from others. The experience made the spirits highly indignant, for each of them wants his thought and speech to originate in himself. But because the experience served to teach them the truth of the matter, they were told that the whole of their thought, and of their will too, is something that comes into them, for the reason that there is but one life alone, which is the source of the life those mental powers possess. That life flows in from the Lord, employing an amazing form, the heavenly form; it flows not only into all people universally but also into each individual specifically. Variation occurs in every case, determined by the form each subordinate recipient possesses, in the measure that the form agrees or does not agree with the heavenly one. From all this one may also see what the situation is with man, who will be dealt with in what follows where influx is the subject.