Often when I have been
in gardens and have been looking at the trees, fruits, flowers, and
plants there, I have recognized their correspondences in heaven, and
have spoken with those with whom these were, and have been taught
whence and what they were.
110. But at the present day no one can know the spiritual things in
heaven to which the natural things in the world correspond except
from heaven, since the knowledge of correspondences is now wholly
lost. But the nature of the correspondence of spiritual things with
natural I shall be glad to illustrate by some examples. The animals
of the earth correspond in general to affection, mild and useful
animals to good affections, fierce and useless ones to evil
affections. In particular, cattle and their young correspond to the
affections of the natural mind, sheep and lambs to the affections of
the spiritual mind; while birds correspond, according to their
species, to the intellectual things of the natural or the spiritual
mind.{1} For this reason various animals, as cattle and their young,
rams, sheep, he-goats, and she-goats, he-lambs and she-lambs, also
pigeons and turtledoves, were devoted to a sacred use in the
Israelitish Church, which was a representative church, and sacrifices
and burnt offerings were made of them.
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