1625. On the knowledge of the angels
To speak only of the knowledge of the angels of the inward heaven, let just a single example suffice-their knowledge of the structures and forms of the body. For when one or another internal organ of the body is under consideration, they are able to find out not only that organ's whole structure and operation, but also whether any least answer that anatomical science has been able to detect experimentally is really true. They are also able to find out in an instant whether anything asserted regarding the individual internal organs, besides many other interior parts, is true-things which no one of the human race could ever possibly know, as I have experienced several times. They also know to which spiritual elements all these parts correspond. Their knowledge is so great that if mankind knew about it, they would be struck with amazement; and yet these angels had not studied these matters during their life in the body. For it comes almost spontaneously from knowing the arrangement of the greatest Human as a whole and in its parts, the understanding of which has been given them by the Lord. So this seems to them to be as it were inborn knowledge, which they would never possess if all of heaven did not reflect a complete human being, with all its individual parts, and if the Lord were not the life of that human being, thus life Itself, and the whole of heaven an instrument. Therefore the instrument is endowed with that knowledge by the Lord. 1748, 22 March. Thus they are in the beginnings [of things], and from beginnings, or inward and very inward regions, able to know everything outside, or below.