322. There is very solid ground for believing that there is a human image to the universe of the other world in the fact that everything listed in 321 is happening concretely around angels and around angelic communities. It is as though these things were being brought forth or created by them. They persist around them without fading away. You can tell that they are apparently brought forth or created by the angels because when an angel goes away or when a community relocates, these things are no longer visible. Then too, when other angels arrive to take their place, the appearance of everything around them changes. The trees and fruits of the parks change, the blossoms and seeds of the flower beds change, the herbs and grasses of the fields change, and so do the kinds of animals and birds.

The reason things occur and change like this is that everything occurs in response to the angels' feelings and consequent thoughts. They are responsive entities, and because the things that respond are integral aspects of that to which they respond, they are their visual images.

The actual image is not visible when the focus is on the forms of anything, but it is visible when the focus is on their functions. I have been allowed to see that when angels' eyes have been opened by the Lord so that they see these things as they answer to functions, the angels recognize and see themselves in their surroundings.

6598. INFLUX AND THE INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY - continued

It is well known that one person is endowed with a greater ability than another to understand and perceive what it is to behave honourably in private life, to be upright in public life, and to seek what is good in one's spiritual life. The reason why he has that greater ability lies in the fact that his thought has been raised towards the things of heaven and is consequently drawn away from the level of the external senses. For people whose thought does not rise above the level of the senses cannot begin to see what is honourable, upright, or good. They therefore rely on what others think, and base most of what they say on matters stored in the memory, and in doing this seem to themselves to be wiser than others. But those who can think on a level above the senses possess, if the contents of their memory are all in order, a greater ability than others to understand and perceive. Their ability depends on the height of the interior standpoint from which they look at things.