For (as has been said above n. 246), when the angels turn
themselves to man they so conjoin themselves to him as to be wholly
unaware that what pertains to the man is not theirs--not only what
pertains to his speech but also to his sight and hearing; while man,
on the other hand, is wholly unaware that the things that flow in
through the angels are not his. Such was the conjunction that existed
between angels of heaven and the most ancient people on this earth,
and for this reason their times were called the Golden Age. Because
this race acknowledged the Divine under a human form, that is, the
Lord, they talked with the angels of heaven as with their friends,
and angels of heaven talked with them as with their friends; and in
them heaven and the world made one. But after those times man
gradually separated himself from heaven by loving himself more than
the Lord and the world more than heaven, and in consequence began to
feel the delights of the love of self and the world as separate from
the delights of heaven, and finally to such an extent as to be
ignorant of any other delight. Then his interiors that had been open
into heaven were closed up, while his exteriors were open to the
world; and when this takes place man is in light in regard to all
things of the world, but in thick darkness in regard to all things of
heaven.
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