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.

(Референце: 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.

(Референце: 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)

6872. 'You shall worship God beside this mountain' means perception and acknowledgement of the Divine springing from love. This is clear from the meaning of 'worshipping God' as adoration of the Divine, but when the expression is used in reference to the Lord the perception and acknowledgement of the Divine in the Human is meant; and from the meaning of 'mountain' as the good of God's love, dealt with in 795, 796, 2722, 4210, 6435, 6829. From these meanings it is evident that the words 'you shall worship God beside this mountain', when used in reference to the Lord, mean a perception and acknowledgement of the Divine springing from love.

[2] What is meant by a perception and acknowledgement of the Divine springing from love must be stated. Everyone's character is recognized from his love. For the inner being (esse) of anyone's life is love; his very life emanates from it. Therefore the kind of love that reigns with a person determines the person's character. If self-love and a love of the world reign, and as a consequence the love of vengeance, hatred, cruelty, adultery, and the like, then that person is a devil so far as his spirit or interior man which lives after death is concerned, no matter what he may seem to be to outward appearance. But if a love of God and a love of the neighbour are what reign with a person, and consequently a love of what is good and true, and also of what is just and honourable, then he is an angel so far as his spirit which lives after death is concerned, no matter what he may seem to be to outward appearance. But when God's love reigns with someone - as it has done only in the Lord - that one is God. Thus the Lord's Human was made Divine when He received in His Human His Father's love, which was the inner Being (Esse) of His life. From all this one may see what is meant by a perception and acknowledgement of the Divine that springs from love.

[3] It is an unalterable truth that a person is entirely the same in character as his love. This is evident from angels in the next life who, when they are seen, look like forms of love. Love itself not only shines but also breathes out of them, so that you may say that they are in every respect embodiments of love. The reason for this is that all the interiors of an angel, like those of a person in this world, are nothing other than forms that receive life. And being forms that receive life they are forms that receive different kinds of love; for these constitute a person's life. Since therefore the love that flows in and the form that receives it are compatible with each other it follows that the character of an angel or a person in this world is determined by his love. This applies not only to the primary organic substances in the brain but also to the whole body, since the body is nothing other than an organism formed from its primary substances.

[4] From all this it becomes clear that a person is made completely new when he is being regenerated; for at that time every single part of him is being made fit to receive heavenly kinds of love. With man however the earlier forms are not destroyed but removed, whereas with the Lord the earlier forms which came from His mother were completely destroyed and rooted out, and Divine forms were received and replaced them. For God's love is incompatible with any form other than a Divine one; it casts all the rest totally aside. As a consequence of this the Lord was no longer Mary's son once He was glorified.

10181. 'And two cubits shall its height be' means degrees of the good and truth, and the joining together of them. This is clear from the meaning of 'two' as a joining together, dealt with in 1686, 5194, 8423; and from the meaning of 'height' as degrees of the good and consequently of the truth, dealt with in 9489, 9773. By degrees of height degrees from inner to outer levels, or from inmost to outermost ones should be understood. Regarding the nature of these degrees, see what has been shown and made clear in 3405, 3691, 4145, 4154, 5114, 5146, 8603, 8945, 10099.

[2] There are two kinds of degrees - degrees extending along the length and breadth, and degrees of height and depth. The second kind are very different from the first. Degrees of length and breadth are such as follow in succession from the middle to outlying parts, whereas degrees of height pass from inner to outer levels. The first kind of degrees - those of length and breadth - are ones that grow continuously less and less from the middle to the outlying parts, just as light gets weaker as it flows from its source all the way to where it fades, or just as what the eye sees diminishes as it looks from things nearby to those in the far distance, or just as what the understanding sees lessens as it turns from matters which are in the light to those which depart into the shade. But degrees of height, which pass from inmost to outermost, or from highest to lowest, are not continuous but discrete. They are like the inmost parts of a seed in relation to the outer parts of it, or like the inmost levels of a human being in relation to the outermost, or like the inmost part of the angelic heaven in relation to the outermost part of it. These degrees are separate and distinct from one another like producer and product.

[3] Things in an inner degree are more perfect than those in an outer one, bearing no resemblance to them except through correspondences. This explains why those who are in the inmost heaven are more perfect than those in the middle heaven, and these are more perfect than those in the lowest. The same applies to a person in whom heaven is present. The inmost level of that person exists in a more perfect condition than the middle, and this in a more perfect condition than the lowest; and these are linked to one another solely through correspondences, the nature of which has been shown extensively in explanations given before.

[4] Without gaining an understanding of these degrees no one can possibly see how the heavens are distinct from one another, nor how the inner capabilities of a human being are distinct from outer ones, nor thus how the soul is distinct from the body. There can be no grasp at all of what the internal sense of the Word is and how it is distinct from the external sense, nor indeed how the spiritual world is distinct from the natural world. There cannot be even any understanding, either, of the nature and origin of correspondences and representations, and scarcely any of what influx is. People whose thought does not rise above the level of the senses do not grasp any of these distinctions. They see any increase or decrease in accordance with these degrees as something continuous, so that to them these degrees are like those of length and breadth, which consequently causes them to stand in a position far removed from true intelligence.

[5] These degrees are degrees of height, and therefore 'high' in the Word is used to mean that which is more internal, 2148, 4210, 4599, and being what is more internal it is also more perfect. So it is that in the Word the Lord is spoken of as the Highest, for He is perfection itself, Intelligence and Wisdom themselves, and Goodness and Truth themselves. So it is also that heaven is spoken of as being on high, for it is preserved in its state of perfection, intelligence, wisdom, goodness, and truth by the Lord; and hell is spoken of as being deep down, for no perfection, intelligence, or wisdom, nor any goodness or truth exist there.