1885. These two types of visions are unusual, however. They were demonstrated to me simply for the purpose of teaching me what they are like. All the sights you find reported, by the Lord's divine mercy, at the beginning or end of each chapter in these first two volumes are ordinary ones. They are not visions but sights that I have seen for many years now in full physical consciousness.
Secrets of Heaven #1405
1405. The nature of the inner meaning, though, as has been transparently demonstrated already [§§64, 647, 813, 1143], requires that each and every particular be understood separately from the literal meaning, as if the literal meaning did not exist. The soul and life of the Word is in the inner meaning, and it does not reveal itself unless the literal meaning vanishes, so to speak.
That is how angels — enabled by the Lord — perceive the Word when we on earth are reading it. 1
Footnotes:
1. For more on angels' experience of the Word when people on earth read it, see note 2 in §813. [Editors]
