Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 3885

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3885. Once also when I was withdrawn from the ideas derived from the sensuous things of the body, a heavenly light appeared to me, and that light itself withdrew me farther from them, for in the light of heaven there is spiritual life (see n. 1524, 2776, 3167, 3195, 3339, 3636, 3643). When I was in this light, corporeal and worldly things appeared as beneath me, and yet I still perceived them, but as more remote from me, and as not belonging to me. I then seemed to myself to be in heaven with my head, but not with my body. In this state it was likewise given me to observe the general respiration of heaven, and what was its nature; it was interior, easy, spontaneous, and corresponding to my respiration as three to one. It was also given me to observe the reciprocations of the pulsations of the heart; and I was then informed by angels that each and every creature on the earth has pulsations of the heart and the consequent respirations; and that the reason why they take place at dissimilar moments is that both the cardiac pulsation and the pulmonary respiration which are in the heavens pass off into something continuous, and thus into endeavor, which is of such a nature as to excite these motions variously in accordance with the state of every subject.


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