17. All my experience in heaven bears witness to the fact that the divine nature that comes from the Lord, affects angels, and constitutes heaven, is love. In fact, all the people there are forms of love and thoughtfulness. They look indescribably beautiful. Love radiates from their faces, from their speech, from every detail of their behavior. ¹

Further, there are surrounding auras of spiritual life that emanate from every angel and from every spirit and envelop them. By means of these auras one can recognize even from a distance the quality of the affections of their loves, since these auras flow out from the life of their affection and consequent thought - that is, from the life of their love and consequent faith. The auras that emanate from angels are so full of love that they touch the deepest reaches of life of the people they meet. I have been aware of them a number of times, and they have moved me deeply. ²

I have been able to see that love was the source of angels' life because all the people in the other life turn in a direction determined by their own love. People engaged in a love for the Lord and a love for their neighbor are constantly turning toward the Lord, while people who are engaged in self-love are constantly turning their backs to the Lord. This holds true no matter which way they turn, since in the other life spatial relationships are determined by people's inner natures. These also determine geographical regions, whose boundaries are not drawn the way they are in the physical world but depend on which way people are facing. Actually, it is not angels who turn to the Lord but the Lord who turns toward himself the people who love to do whatever has its source in him. ³ , But there will be more on this subject below, when we discuss geographical regions in the other life.

Footnotes:

159.Because thou permittest that woman Jezebel. That this signifies the delight of the love of self and of the world is evident from the signification of that woman Jezebel, as denoting the church entirely perverted; for by woman in the Word is signified the church (see Arcana Coelestia 252, 253, 749, 770, 6014, 7337, 8994), in this case the church perverted. And because all perversion of the church exists from these two loves, - the love of self and the love of the world - by Jezebel is signified the delight of those loves; and the church in which those loves reign, is called the woman Jezebel from this fact, that by Jezebel the wife of Ahab, in the Word, was represented the delight of those loves, and thereby the perversion of the church; for all the things written in the Word, even in its historical parts, are representative of such things as pertain to the church (see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 249-266). The reason why all perversion of the church exists from these two loves when they obtain the ascendancy over heavenly love is, that they are entirely opposed to the two loves that constitute heaven and the church, these being love to the Lord and love to the neighbour, and that from those two opposite loves exist all evils and falsities therefrom (see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 59, 61, 65-83; and the work, Heaven and Hell 252, 396, 399, 400, 486, 551-565, 566-575).

[2] That Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, represented the things here mentioned will be seen presently; but something shall first be said concerning the delights of man's loves.

The quality of every man is according to his love, and all the delight of his life is from his love; for whatever favours his love he perceives to be delightful, and whatever is adverse to his love, undelightful. Hence, whether it be said that the quality of man is according to his love, or according to the delight of his life, it amounts to the same thing. Those therefore, who are loves of self and of the world, that is, in whom these loves reign, have no other delight of life, or no other life, than infernal life. For those loves, or the delights of life therefrom, which are perpetual, turn all their thoughts and intentions to self and the world, and in proportion as they do this, in the same proportion they immerse them in man's proprium, which he has from heredity, and thus at the same time in evils of every kind; and so far as man's thoughts and intentions are turned to his hereditary proprium, which in itself is nothing but evil, so far are they turned away from heaven.

For the interiors of man, which belong to his mind, that is, those of his thought and intention, or to his understanding and will, are actually turned downwards to his own loves, that is, to self, where the love of self and the delights thereof reign, and outwards, that is, from heaven to the world, where the love of the world reigns with its delights. But it is otherwise when a man loves God above all things, and his neighbour as himself; in this case the Lord turns the interiors of man's mind or of his thought and intention to Himself, and thus averts them from his proprium, and raises them up, and this in a manner altogether unknown to him. This is why man's spirit, which is the man himself, after its release from the body, is actually turned to its own love, because that constitutes the delight of his life, and indeed is his life. (That all spirits are actually turned to their own loves, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 17, 123, 142-145, 151, 153, 272, 510, 548, 552, 561; and above, n. 41.)

[3] What has been said may receive some degree of illustration from the fact, that all the most minute parts of the body turn themselves to the common centre of our earth, which is called the centre of gravity; this is why men, wherever they are, even those who are in the opposite direction, and are called antipodes, stand upon their feet. But this centre of gravity is only the centre of gravity in nature; but there is another centre of gravity in the spiritual world, and this, with man, is determined from the love in which he is; downwards if his love is infernal, and upwards if his love is heavenly. Wherever man's love is determined, there also his thoughts and intentions are determined; for these are in the spiritual world, and are actuated by the forces which are there. From these things it is now evident, that the perversion of the church, signified by the woman Jezebel, takes place with man solely from the loves of self and of the world, because these loves turn the interiors of his mind downwards, and thus avert them from heaven. It is said, the perversion of the church with man, because the church is in man, as heaven is in an angel; every church is constituted of those who belong to it, and not of others, although born where the church is. This can be clearly understood from the fact that love and faith constitute the church; and love and faith must be in man, therefore the church also must be in him. (That heaven is in an angel, and that the church is in man, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 33, 53, 54, 57, 454; and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 232, 233, 241, 245, 246.)