1384. Wat de eerste soort betreft, die de engelen eigen is, en daarin bestaat, dat zij innerlijk gewaarworden, wat waar en goed is, en gewaarworden wat van de Heer komt, en wat van henzelf, en verder ook van waar en hoedanig datgene is wat zij denken, spreken en doen, wanneer het uit henzelf komt. Het werd mij gegeven met de zonen van de Oudste Kerk te spreken over hun innerlijke gewaarwording; zij zeiden dat zij niets uit zichzelf denken of denken kunnen, en niets uit zichzelf willen, maar dat zij bij alles, wat zij in het algemeen en in het bijzonder denken en willen en gewaarworden, wat van de Heer en wat van elders komt, en dat zij niet alleen gewaarworden, hoeveel van de Heer en hoeveel als van henzelf komt, maar ook, wanneer iets als van henzelf komt, waar het dan vandaan komt, van welke engelen, en verder van welke aard die engelen zijn, van welke aard hun gedachten, met alle verscheidenheid, en zo dus welke invloed het is, en ontelbare andere dingen meer. De innerlijke gewaarwording van deze soort zijn van een grote verscheidenheid; bij de hemelse engelen, die in de liefde tot de Heer zijn, bestaat een innerlijke gewaarwording van het goede en vandaar van al wat tot het ware behoort, en omdat zij uit het goede het ware gewaarworden, laten zij niet toe dat er gesproken, nog minder dat er geredeneerd wordt over het ware, maar zij zeggen: zo is het of zo is het niet. De geestelijke engelen echter, die ook innerlijke gewaarwording hebben, maar niet van dien aard als de hemelse engelen, spreken over het ware en het goede; niettemin worden zij het ware en het goede gewaar, maar met onderscheid, want de verscheidenheden van deze innerlijke gewaarwording zijn ontelbaar. De verscheidenheden rusten hierop, dat zij gewaarworden of iets komt van de wil van de Heer, of dat Hij het vergunt, of dat Hij het toelaat, waartussen een scherp onderscheid ligt.

4626. When any spirit is approaching, even though still a long way off and out of sight, his presence is detected, as often as the Lord allows it to be, from a certain kind of spiritual sphere. From that sphere one recognizes what his life is like, what his affection is like, and what his faith is like. Angelic spirits with keener perception know from his sphere countless things about the state of his life and faith, as has been demonstrated to me many times. When it pleases the Lord these spheres are also converted into odours; one smells quite distinctly an actual odour. The reason those spheres are converted into odours is that odour corresponds to perception and that perception is so to speak spiritual odour, from which also [natural] odour descends. But see what has been brought forward already on these matters - regarding spheres, in 1048, 1053, 1316, 1504-1519, 1695, 2401, 2489, 4464; perception, in 483, 495, 503, 521, 536, 1383, 1384, 1388, 1391, 1397, 1398, 1504, 1640; and odours produced by these, in 1514, 1517-1519, 1631, 3577.

1008. 'Requiring the soul of man' is avenging profanation. This is clear from what has been stated in the previous verse and in the present one, for the subject is the eating of blood, which means profanation. Few know what profanation is, still less what the penalty for it may be in the next life. Profanation takes many forms. A person who totally denies the truths of faith does not profane them any more than gentiles do who live outside of the Church and outside of all knowledge of them. That person profanes however who does know the truths of faith, and still more one who acknowledges them, bears them on his lips, proclaims them, and persuades others of the truth of them, while at the same time he leads a life of hatred, revenge, cruelty, robbery, and adultery, and confirms such behaviour in himself by many statements which he scrapes together from the Word. He profanes by perverting the truths of faith, and so immerses them in those foul deeds. This is the person who profanes, and these are the things that above all else spell death to a person. That they spell death becomes clear from the fact that in the next life unholy things are completely separated from holy, the unholy being in hell, and the holy in heaven. When this type of person enters the next life, every idea within his thought contains holy things clinging to unholy, as it was during his lifetime. There he is unable to produce one idea of what is holy without the unholy that clings to it being seen clear as daylight; for such perception of another person's ideas exists in the next life. So in every detail of his thinking profanation manifests itself, and because heaven has such a horror of profanation he is inevitably forced down into hell.

[2] The nature of ideas is hardly known to anyone. People imagine that there is nothing complex about them, when in fact every idea within thought contains countless elements variously linked together so as to produce a certain form and consequent picture image of the person, the whole of which is perceived and even seen with the eyes in the next life. Take this merely as an example: When the idea of a place comes to mind - whether of a region, or a city, or a house - the idea and an image of all the things the person has ever done in that place crop up at the same time, and spirits and angels see them all. Or, if the idea of somebody whom he has hated presents itself, the idea of all he has thought, said, and done against that person arises at the same time. The same applies to ideas of all things, but when these present themselves every single detail that he has conceived of and impressed upon himself regarding a particular matter becomes apparent. For instance, if he has been an adulterer, when the idea of marriage crops up, all the muck and filth of adultery, even of thought about it, does so too, likewise all the arguments used to confirm adulterous practices, whether based on the evidence of the senses, or on rational grounds, or on the Word. And the way in which he has adulterated and perverted the truths of the Word crops up too.

[3] Furthermore, the idea of one thing merges into the idea of the next and colours it just as a tiny quantity of black placed in water darkens the whole volume of water. Consequently a spirit is recognized by his ideas, and what is remarkable, each one of his ideas bears his own image or likeness. When such an idea is presented visually it is so ugly that it is horrible to look at. All this makes clear the nature of the state of people who profane holy things, and the image they present in the next life. But people who in simplicity have believed statements made in the Word can never be said to profane holy things, not even if they have believed statements which are not literally true; for what is said in the Word is expressed in accordance with appearances, about which see 589.