3225. Hieruit kan nu blijken, wat overeenstemming is en vanwaar die komt en verder wat uitbeelding is en vanwaar die komt; namelijk dat er overeenstemming is tussen de dingen die tot het licht van de hemel behoren, dat wil zeggen tussen de dingen die tot de innerlijke of geestelijke mens behoren en die welke tot de uiterlijke of natuurlijke mens behoren; en dat uitbeelding al datgene is, wat bestaat in de dingen die tot het licht van de wereld behoren, dat wil zeggen, al wat bestaat in de uiterlijke of natuurlijke mens ten opzichte van die dingen die tot het licht van de hemel behoren, dat wil zeggen, die uit de innerlijke of geestelijke mens zijn.

4939. Once when I had been raised up to heaven it seemed to me as though my head was there, but that my body was below it, and my feet even further below. From this I had a perception of how the higher and lower things present in the human being correspond to the same in the Grand Man, and how one flows into another; that is to say, how the celestial, which is the good of love and the first degree of order, flows into the spiritual, which is truth springing from that good and the second degree of order, and then into the natural, which is the third degree of order. From this it is evident that natural things are like the feet on which the higher things support themselves. What is more, things in the spiritual world and those in heaven are ringed about by the natural world. Consequently the whole natural system is a theatre representative of the Lord's kingdom, every individual part of it being representative, 2758, 3483. The natural system is kept in being by an influx conforming to that order, and without this influx it could not remain in being for even a single moment.