3886. But it should be realized that variations in heartbeat and breathing from one heaven to another are manifold and that those variations are as many as the communities there. For those variations are determined by the differing states of thought and affection from one community to another, and those states are determined by the differing states of faith and love. But the general heartbeat and the general breathing of heaven is as has been described above. On yet another occasion I was allowed to observe the heartbeats of communities which belonged to the province of the back part of the head, to observe the heartbeat of each celestial community there and the heartbeat of each spiritual community. The heartbeats of the celestial communities were soundless and gentle whereas those of spiritual ones were strong and vibrating. There were five spiritual beats to every two celestial, for the heartbeat of the celestial communities flows into that of the spiritual, and in this ratio are emitted and pass into the natural creation. And marvel that it is, the speech of celestial angels is not something spiritual angels hear but something they perceive as a kind of heartbeat, the reason being that the speech of celestial angels is not intelligible to spiritual angels because it is produced through the affections which belong to love, whereas the speech of spiritual angels is produced through intellectual ideas, see 1647, 1759, 2157, 3343. And those affections belong to the province of the heart, but these ideas to that of the lungs.
