332. [324] WONDERFUL THINGS [CONCERNING THE LANGUAGE OF SPIRITS]. Spirits and angels do not know otherwise than that they speak the same language they did in the world, write as they did in the world, and think as they did in the world, when yet they speak the spiritual language, in which there is no expression similar to any in the world; and they write by letters and characters; but it differs so much from writings in the world, that there is nothing whatever that is similar, except the letters and some points. Yea, they think altogether otherwise than in the world, so differently, that no thought is similar; but still they do not know otherwise than that all things are similar. That it is so I have often experienced by this, that spirits and angels when they are with me, are in my natural state; and it was said to them that in their spiritual state they should speak words and sentences, and retain the words with me in the natural state; and then there was not a single word alike, nor did they understand one of their words. They like-wise wrote a sentence in the spiritual state, and when it had been written it was shown in the natural state; there was nothing similar but the letters and points. Likewise when they thought in the spiritual state, they could not bring forth any idea of thought in the natural state. As for example, they say Rocky [scopulosum] and to wish life [vitam velle]. Scopulosum in the spiritual language signifies that he casts out of doors, and vitam velle, that it is afar off. When they retain these expressions in the natural state, they do not understand them, nor any expression in the natural state when they come into the spiritual state. When they write scopulosum, they write ---, and when they write vitam velle, they write ---, and they suppose that they have written it fully. They write the sense of the words by alphabetic letters, each one of which signifies a thing ---. They write also by many signs, so that the greater the angelic wisdom is, the more things of wisdom they understand in the writing; the Word is thus written.