1887. To call the Word inspired is to say that everything in it, both the narratives and the other parts, contains heavenly qualities (which relate to love and goodness) and spiritual qualities (which relate to faith and truth). In other words, the contents are divine.

What the Lord inspires comes down from him through the heaven of angels and so through the world of spirits all the way to humankind. Among human beings it presents itself in its literal form, but in its first origins it is radically different. In heaven there is no such thing as a plain, ordinary narrative; instead, everything there represents something divine, and no one there perceives it any other way. This can be recognized from the fact that what it holds is inexpressible [2 Corinthians 12:4]. Consequently, unless the narratives represent divine matters and are therefore heavenly, they cannot possibly be divinely inspired.

Only the inner meaning reveals what the Word is like in the heavens, because that is what the Lord's Word in the heavens is.

1879. Once when I was lying in bed I was told that evil spirits were plotting against me, intending to suffocate me. The Lord was keeping me safe and sound, though, so I scoffed at the threat and went to sleep. Waking up in the middle of the night, however, I sensed that I was breathing not under my own power but heaven's. I had no respiration of my own, as I could plainly tell. Then I was told that the conspirators were nearby, and that they were the type that hate the deeper content of the Word, or in other words, genuine religious truth (since this is the deeper content of the Word). The reason they hate it is that it attacks their illusions, delusions, and desires, which the literal sense could be made to defend.

[2] Later, when their efforts had failed, the ringleaders tried to invade the inner organs of my body and penetrate right to my heart, where they were even let in. I sensed quite plainly what was happening the whole time, since anyone whose inner levels (those of the spirit) are opened receives also the ability to sense these kinds of things. I was then brought into a certain heavenly frame of mind, in which I did not attempt to rid myself of these guests, let alone avenge the wrong they had done. This calmed them down, they said at the time, but directly afterward they seemed to go berserk. Seeking revenge, they tried to finish off their efforts, but in vain. Eventually they scattered on their own.