[3] When I talked about
this with spirits also they were unwilling to believe that it is the
man that 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 further
on when the world of spirits is treated of.
247. There is another reason why angels and spirits conjoin
themselves so closely with man as not to know but that what is man's
is their own, namely, that there is such conjunction between the
spiritual world and the natural world in man that the two are
seemingly one. But inasmuch as man has separated himself from heaven
the Lord has provided that there should be angels and spirits with
each individual, and that man should be ruled by the Lord through
these. This is the reason for such close conjunction. It would have
been otherwise if man had not separated himself; for in that case he
might have been ruled by the Lord through the general influx from
heaven, without spirits and angels being adjoined to him.
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