The Three Levels of Heaven and Their Angels | NCE Spotlight

Featured quotations from Emanuel Swedenborg's Secrets of Heaven:


3475 


There are three heavens. In the first heaven, they see the
superficial appearance of an object and perceive what it means on
an inner plane. In the second heaven, they see the object as it
is in its inner form and perceive what it is like on a still
deeper plane. In the third heaven, they see that still deeper
form, which is the inmost.


3475 cont’d


Each and every representation involves attributes of the Lord’s
kingdom, which involve attributes of the Lord himself.
Inhabitants of the first heaven see within their representations
the kinds of things that exist in a deeper realm of the kingdom,
within which they see those that exist in a still deeper realm.
In this way they see those that represent the Lord, but
distantly. Inhabitants of the second heaven see within their
representations the kinds of things that exist in the deepest
realm of the kingdom, within which they see those that represent
the Lord more directly. But inhabitants of the third heaven see
the Lord himself.


3346


In order for me to learn all this and know it for certain, the
Lord in his divine mercy has allowed me to talk with spirits and
angels almost continually for many years now. With spirits or
angels of the first heaven I have been granted to use their own
language, and sometimes with angels of the second heaven I have
been granted to use theirs. The speech of angels in the third
heaven, though, only presented itself to me as a burst of light
in which perception radiated from a blaze of goodness at its
core.