246. THE SPEECH OF ANGELS WITH MAN
Angels who talk with man do not talk in their own language, but in the man's own language and also in other languages with which he is well acquainted, but not in languages unknown to him. This is so because when angels speak with a man they turn themselves to him and conjoin themselves with him; and this conjunction of angel with man causes both to be in like thought; and as man's thought clings to his memory, and this is the source of his speech, each of them has the same language. Moreover, when an angel or a spirit comes to a man, and by turning to him is conjoined to him, he so enters into the entire memory of the man that he hardly knows otherwise than that he is aware, from himself of whatever the man knows, including his languages. [2] I have talked with angels about this, and have said that they probably supposed that they were addressing me in my mother tongue, because it is so perceived, when yet it was not they who spoke but I; and that this may be confirmed from the fact that angels cannot utter a single word of human language (see n. 237). Furthermore, human language is natural and they are spiritual, and spiritual beings cannot utter anything in the natural way. To this they replied that they are aware that their conjunction with the man with whom they are speaking is with his spiritual thought, but because his spiritual thought flows into his natural thought, and his natural thought clings to his memory, the language of the man and all his knowledge appear to them to be their own; and that this is so for this reason, that because it is the Lord's pleasure that there should be such a conjunction and, as it were, implantation of heaven with man, yet the state of man at this day is so different that this conjunction is no longer with angels, but with spirits who are not in heaven. [3] When I talked about this with spirits also they were unwilling to believe that it is the man who speaks, insisting that they spoke in man, also that man's knowledge is their knowledge and not the man's knowledge, consequently that everything that man knows is from them. I tried to convince them by many proofs that this is not true, but in vain. Who are meant by spirits and who are meant by angels will be told in pages following when the world of spirits is to be considered.