8479. 'And they did not hear Moses' means lack of faith and consequently lack of obedience. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearing' as perceiving, possessing faith, and obeying, dealt with in 5017, 7216, 8361.

4329. Some spirits arrived at a point fairly high up who, to judge by the sound they made, seemed to be many. I learnt from the ideas comprising their thought and speech which were channelled in my direction that they did not have a distinct idea of anything, only a general idea of many things. This led me to suppose that they were not capable of perceiving anything distinct and separate, but only something general and not distinct, and so something obscure; for I was of the opinion that something general could not be other than obscure. That their thought was general, that is, the thought of many things at one and the same time, I was able to recognize clearly from the ideas which were flowing into my thought from them.

[2] But they were provided with a spirit as an intermediary through whom they talked to me; for that kind of general thought could not be put into words without the help of others. And when I spoke to the spirits through the intermediary I said, as I supposed, that general things could not present a distinct and separate idea of any particular matter, only an idea so obscure as to be so to speak none at all. But after a quarter of an hour they showed that they had a distinct idea of things that were general, and of many aspects of those that were general. They showed this in particular by observing, so accurately and distinctly that no other spirits could do better, all the variations and changes in my thoughts and affections, and noting the smallest details in these. From these experiences I was able to deduce that a general idea which is obscure, as it is among people who have little knowledge and are therefore in obscurity about everything, is quite different from a general idea which is clear, as it is among those who have been taught about truths and forms of good. For those truths and forms of good have been introduced - in their own order and own connected series - into a general profile of them, and have been arranged in such a way that those people are able from that general profile to see them all distinctly.

[3] The spirits are those who in the next life constitute the general and voluntary sensory activity, and who by means of cognitions of goodness and truth have acquired to themselves the ability to look at things from what is general, and by doing that to contemplate things broadly and to discover instantly whether something is true. They see things, it is true, in obscurity so to speak, since they see them from the general profile to which they belong. Yet because they have been ordered and made distinct within the general profile, those things are therefore clear to them. This general sensory activity that is voluntary does not occur except in the wise. The fact that these spirits were such was another thing I learnt, for they could see in me every single detail of what I had concluded, and from this drew conclusions about the interior aspects of my thoughts and affections. Those conclusions were so accurate that I began to be afraid even to think anything more at all. For they uncovered things which I did not know to exist with me, and yet from the conclusions reached by them I had to admit to what they had uncovered. From this I perceived in myself a disinclination to talk to them, a disinclination which, when I became aware of it, took on the appearance of something hairy and of something in it speaking yet making no sound. I was told that this meant the general sensory awareness in the body that corresponds to those spirits. The next day I again spoke to them and once more discovered that they had a general perception that was not obscure but clear, and that as general things and the states that go with these varied so did particular ones and the states that go with them since the latter are related by their order and connected series to the former.

[4] I was told that general and voluntary sensory powers that are yet more perfect exist within the interior sphere of heaven and that when angels have a general or universal idea they have at the same time specific ideas which are ordered and made distinct by the Lord within the universal. General and universal wholes, I have been told, are not anything if they do not include within them the individual and the specific parts from which they exist and are so called, and that they exist just insofar as these individual and specific parts are present within them. From this it is also evident that without every most specific detail within it and from which it exists the Lord's Providence is nothing at all, and that it is quite stupid to think of the existence of something universal in the case of the Divine and to take specific details away from it.

3739. 'Will be God's house' means the Lord's kingdom as it exists in the ultimate degree of order where higher things are accommodated as in their own house. This too is clear from what has been stated above in 3720, where also the same words occur, and in addition from what has been stated in 3721. The implications of this - that higher things are accommodated in the ultimate degree of order as in their own house - are as follows: The Lord has so ordered things that higher ones flow into lower ones, where they present a general image of themselves. Those higher things are therefore present all together within a certain form that is a general one, and so exist there in an order that begins from what is Highest, that is, from the Lord. Consequently the closest image of the Lord is the inmost heaven, which is the heaven of innocence and peace where those who are celestial dwell. Being closest to the Lord, this heaven is called His likeness. The second heaven, that is to say, the one that comes below, and exists in a lower degree, is the Lord's image, for the things that exist in the higher heaven present themselves all together, in some general form, in that second heaven. And the last heaven, which in turn comes below the second, stands in a similar relationship to it, for the particular and the specific entities of the heaven directly above it flow into that heaven and there present themselves in a general form that corresponds to what is above it.

[2] A similar situation exists with man, in that he has been created and formed in such a way that he resembles the three heavens. That which is inmost in him flows in a similar way into that which is lower, and this in a similar way flows into what is lowest or last. The natural and bodily degree is established by such an influx and coming together of higher things within lower ones, and at length within those that are last ones. In this way the latter are linked to Him who is First, and but for this link with Him that which is last in order could not continue to exist for one single moment. This shows what is meant by the statement that higher things are accommodated in the ultimate degree of order as in their own house. Whether you speak of higher and lower or of interior and exterior things it amounts to the same, since by man interior things are seen as those that are higher; and this is why he places heaven on high when in fact it is something internal.