67. We will also describe briefly how a person ascends, or how he is elevated, from the lowest degree to the highest. A person is born into the lowest degree of the natural world. He is afterward elevated by various forms of learning into the second degree. And as by his studies he perfects his intellect, he is elevated into the third degree, and he then becomes rational. The three ascending degrees in the spiritual world exist in a person above the three natural degrees, but these do not appear until he has put off his earthly body. When he has put this off, he has opened to him the first spiritual degree, after that the second spiritual degree, and finally the third-although the last is opened only in the case of people who become angels of the third heaven. These are the people who see God.* Those in whom the second degree can be opened become angels of the second heaven, and those in whom the lowest degree can be opened become angels of the lowest heaven. Each spiritual degree in a person is opened in accordance with his reception of Divine love and wisdom from the Lord. Those who receive some measure of these come into the first or lowest spiritual degree. Those who receive more come into the second or intermediate spiritual degree. And those who receive much come into the third or highest degree. On the other hand, those who receive nothing of these remain in the natural degrees and gain from the spiritual degrees no more than their ability to think and thus speak, and to will and thus act, though not intelligently. * Matthew 5:8.