The Writings offer a tremendous amount of material on angels. The book "Heaven and Hell" offers detailed discussions as it describes heaven; "Conjugial Love" has much to say about marriage and romantic love in heaven; "Divine Love and Wisdom" offers insight into how angels in their nature reflect the nature of the Lord. So we'll offer some basics here and recommend those books to those who want more detail.

(References: Divine Love and Wisdom 231; Divine Providence 60-67)

Basically, the Writings say that if people in this life open themselves to the Lord, follow the Lord's teachings and let the Lord change their selfish desires into generous loves, they will go to heaven as angels after they die. If they don't, and instead embrace their selfishness, they will go to hell as evil spirits. The Writings also say that this is the only source of angels and evil spirits - they were all once people. There is no separately created race of angels, no fallen angel Lucifer who is now the Devil; that belief is based solely on a few lines of misinterpreted scripture.

This makes sense if you look at it logically. If the Lord could create beings that would live in love and harmony with him with no possibility of evil, why would He have bothered with us? Why not just make more of them? The fact is, such beings would not have any choice in their actions, making them no better than animals. And ultimately, if they were purely good then they would really just be extensions of the Lord, so in loving them He would be loving Himself. The reverse is true of the idea of Satan or "the" Devil. The Lord creates us from love so that he can love us, bring us to heaven and make us happy. For Satan to exist, the Lord would have had to create him, and it would be contrary to His essence to create something that was not intended for heaven, for joy, and for union with the Lord.

So angels were once people, who got to be angels by embracing the idea of being good and followed the Lord's teachings as best they could. The Writings make it clear these people can come from anywhere, from any religious background. Some churches may have doctrine that is closer to the truth than others, but the point of any religion is for people to desire to be good and try to be good using the tools they have.

When those people die, they go first to a place called the "world of spirits." There everyone who has recently died can learn about the Lord and spiritual life and prepare for heaven. There also, people's inner affections start showing on the surface; those who are ultimately evil start losing the ability to cover it up, and the love starts shining through for those who are ultimately good. As this continues and as people learn more, they naturally start congregating with others who have similar loves. This way evil people eventually take themselves to hell, where they can be with others who share their evil. Good people, on the other hand, can be prepared for heaven.

Two important things have to happen for us to truly enter fully into heaven. First, the Lord will push aside our remaining evil desires, so they cannot hurt us or tempt us anymore; angels are in a marvelous state of peace, with no active evil to trouble them. Second, we will each be led by the Lord to the perfect married partner, the one whose soul matches ours, the one we can love blissfully to eternity. All angels are married, because the marriage of a man and a woman represents the marriage of love and wisdom in the Lord, and also the marriage of the desire for good and understanding of truth in each of us. Because of this, we can only fully receive and return the Lord's love as married partners, and heaven is suffused with the sphere of marriage and the love of marriage.

The angelic couples will find their way to communities of other angels whose loves match their own, people with whom they can share the deepest friendships imaginable. They will have houses which reflect the character of their loves, and will be given work to do that springs from their loves and fills them with joy. Beyond that, their lives are much as life might be in this world, though free of sickness and aging and boredom and conflict. They have bodies that are human in form - no wings! - but a beauty in face and form that reflects the good loves they have inside. They eat and drink and laugh and sleep and have parties and games; all filled with the delight of mutual love.

The Writings tell us the work angels do is varied far beyond what we can imagine, though they only describe a few aspects. Among other things, angels care for people in this life, passing on to them true ideas and desires for good from the Lord. They also teach those in the World of Spirits, greet those who have just died, raise those who died as children, keep order in hell and do many other things.

We would finally note that there are three degrees of angelic life, based on the loves people embraced in this life. The first, lowest heaven, called the "natural heaven," is filled by those who are in the love of service. Angels there love to do what's right because they know it is right. The second, middle heaven, called the spiritual heaven, is filled by those who are in the love of the neighbor. Angels there love to engage their minds with spiritual questions to gain an ever-deeper understanding of how to be loving to one another. The third, highest heaven, known as celestial, is filled with those who are in love of the Lord Himself. From that love they have such innocence that they look like children, and they instantly perceive what is true, in all its variety, from the light of that love.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 818; Arcana Coelestia 228-233, 454, 1802, 2551, 2572 [3-4], 5470, 6872 [2-3], 8747, 9503 [1-3], 9814 [2], 10604 [2-4]; Conjugial Love 44 [6-10], 52; Divine Love and Wisdom 19, 63, 71, 115, 116, 202, Divine Love and Wisdom 321, 322, 334; Heaven and Hell 75, 133, 266, 267, 304, 311, 415)

267. The reason angels can accept so much wisdom is that their deeper levels are open, and wisdom, like any perfection, increases as one moves toward the deeper levels and as they are opened. ¹

In every angel there are three levels of life corresponding to the three heavens (see 29-40). People whose first level has been opened are in the first or most remote heaven. People whose second level has been opened are in the second or intermediate heaven. People whose third level has been opened are in the third or inmost heaven. The wisdom of angels in heaven is according to these levels; so the wisdom of angels of the third heaven vastly transcends the wisdom of angels of the intermediate heaven, and their wisdom in turn transcends that of angels of the farthest heaven (see above, 209-210, and on the nature of the levels, see 38).

The reason for these differences is that the elements of the higher levels are detailed, and those of the lower are general, the general ones being inclusive of the details. The ratio of details to generalizations is on the order of thousands or ten thousands to one, so this is the ratio between the wisdom of angels of a higher heaven and that of angels of a lower heaven.

However, the wisdom of these latter angels similarly transcends our wisdom, for we are engrossed in our bodies and their sensory operations, and these physical sensory faculties are on the lowest level of all. This fact enables us to see the nature of the wisdom of people who base their thinking on sensory information - that is, the ones we call sense-oriented people. Specifically, they have no access to wisdom, only to information. ² It is different, though, for people whose thoughts are raised above sensory matters, and even more for people whose deeper levels have been opened all the way into heaven's light.

Footnotes:

8148. 'And he took six hundred chosen chariots' means each and every doctrinal teaching that upholds falsity belonging to separated faith, in their own order. This is clear from the meaning of the number 'six hundred' as each and every aspect of the truth and good of faith taken all together, and so in the contrary sense as each and every aspect of the falsity and evil of faith separated from charity (this meaning of 'six hundred' may become clear from what has been shown regarding the number 'six hundred thousand' in 7973); and from the meaning of 'chariots' as doctrinal teachings upholding faith, in this instance separated faith, dealt with just above in 8146. 'Chosen chariots' means the chief doctrinal teachings that uphold that faith, to which all other teachings are subordinate. Those that are subordinate to them or serve them are meant by 'the chariots of Egypt', referred to immediately after the six hundred chosen ones.

[2] It should be recognized that these falsities - the ones that are meant here by Pharaoh, his army and people, and also his chariots, horses, and horsemen - are chiefly falsities present with people whose faith is no more than persuasion, that is, people who persuade themselves that the teachings of the Church they are in are true and who nevertheless lead a life of evil. This kind of faith, unlike saving faith, goes together with evil in life, because it is a faith in which people persuade themselves that everything the Church teaches is true, yet do so not for the sake of truth, or for the sake of life, or even for the sake of salvation (since they have scarcely any belief in this), only for their own advantage, that is, to acquire important positions and wealth, and reputation because of these. It is to gain such advantages that they imbibe religious teachings. Thus they do not learn them to the end that they may be of service to the Church and the salvation of souls, but to themselves and their dependents. Therefore it makes no difference to them whether those teachings are true or false. They do not care which they are, much less do they bother to find out; for they have no affection for truth because it is the truth. They endorse those teachings regardless of the character of them; and when they have endorsed them they tell themselves that they are true, without stopping to think that falsities can be endorsed just as much as truths, 4741, 5033, 6865, 7012, 7680, 7950.

[3] This is how faith that is no more than persuasion arises. And since it does not see the neighbour and the good of the neighbour, or therefore the Lord, as the end in view, only self and the world, that is, important positions and material gain, that kind of faith is linked to evil in life, and not to good in life. For faith, when linked to this good, is saving faith. This kind of faith is imparted by the Lord, but the other has its origin in people themselves. Faith imparted by the Lord remains forever, the other kind melts away in the next life. It even melts away in the world if they can gain nothing by it. As long as they can gain anything they fight for it as if for heaven itself, though in fact they do so not for that faith but for themselves. For the things that belong to faith, which are religious teachings, are for those people simply the means to an end, which is high position and wealth. People in the world with this type of faith are scarcely distinguishable from those possessing saving faith, since they speak and proclaim in favour of religious teachings with an ardour that seemingly belongs to true zeal, but is an ardour fired by selfish and worldly love.

[4] These are the people who are meant in particular by 'Pharaoh' and 'the Egyptians', who in the next life undergo vastation of that kind of faith. When that vastation is completed they are steeped in utter falsities arising from evil, for falsities now burst out of evil. Falsities do so because all evil has falsity present with it, since the two have been joined together. Those falsities make their appearance when such people are left exposed to the evil in their life. That evil is then like fire, and the falsities are like the light coming from a fire. This kind of evil, and the falsity arising from it, is altogether different from other kinds of evil and derivative falsities. It is more loathsome than all the rest, because it is contrary to the forms of good and the truths of faith, and that kind of evil consequently holds profanation within it. Profanation consists in acknowledging truth and good and yet living contrary to them, 593, 1008, 1010, 1059, 2051, 3398, 3898, 4289, 4601, 6959, 6963, 6971.