I have spoken several times with spirits who did not want to know anything about the spiritual meaning of the Word, saying that the natural meaning is the Word's only meaning and that it is holy simply because it is from God. They said that if a spiritual meaning were to be accepted, the Word in its letter would become worthless.

Many of them kept insisting on this point, but they received a reply from heaven that without a spiritual meaning in it, the Word would not be Divine. It is because it has a spiritual meaning as its soul that the Word is Divine, and, in fact, living, for without that meaning the letter would be as though dead. The very holiness of the Word consists in its having a spiritual meaning. Thus the Word may be likened to a Divine Man, who is the Lord, in whom there is not only a Divinity on the natural plane, but a Divinity on the spiritual and celestial planes as well. It is because of this that the Lord calls Himself the Word. The angels said, moreover, that the real holiness of the Word resides in its literal meaning, and that the literal meaning is holier than the other meanings, which are internal, because it embraces and contains the others, being like a body alive from its soul. Thus the Word in its literal or natural meaning is in its fullness and also in its power, and by it a person has conjunction with the heavens, which without the literal meaning would be separated from mankind. Who does not know and acknowledge that the Word at its heart is spiritual? But where that spiritual nature lies hidden has so far gone undiscovered.

[2] But because the spirits who kept insisting on the literal meaning alone refused to be convinced by these arguments, the angels therefore presented many, many passages taken according to the natural meaning which could not possibly be understood apart from a spiritual meaning.

For example, the angels took passages in the Prophets where there are simply collections of names, where many kinds of animals are mentioned, such as lions, bears, bulls, calves, dogs, foxes, owls, iyyim,* dragons, and also mountains and forests, besides many other things, which would be meaningless apart from a spiritual sense.

The angels also asked, for instance, what was meant by the dragon, which is described as red, having seven heads and upon its heads seven jewels,** and what was meant by its drawing down a third part of the stars of heaven with its tail, by its wanting to devour the child which the woman was ready to deliver, and by the woman's being given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness, where the dragon spewed water out of its mouth like a flood after her. The angels said further that without the spiritual meaning it would not be known what was meant by the dragon's two beasts-by the one that rose up out of the sea, which was like a leopard, whose feet were like the feet of a bear and its mouth like the mouth of a lion, or by its other beast, which came up out of the earth. (All of which is described in Revelation, chapters 12 and 13.)

Again the angels asked, what is meant by the statement that, when the Lamb opened the seals of the book, horses went forth, first a white one, then a red one, next a black one, and finally a pale one (as described in Revelation, chapter 6)-besides what is meant by everything else in the same book. Again, what is meant in Zechariah by the four horns and the four craftsmen (chapter 1), by the lampstand and the two olive trees beside it (chapter 4), by the four chariots coming from between two mountains, which had red, black, white and dappled horses (chapter 6)? Or again, what is meant by the ram and the he-goat, and by their horns with which they fought together, as described in Daniel (chapter 8)? And what about the four beasts that came up from the sea in the previous chapter (chapter 7)? So the angels went on, taking passage after passage like these in place after place. To convince the spirits even more, the angels cited in addition the things the Lord said to His disciples in Matthew concerning the end of the age and His coming (chapter 24), nothing of which would be understood by anyone apart from a spiritual meaning.

[3] That there is a spiritual meaning in every single thing in the Word the angels further supported by certain other things the Lord said, things which would not be understood unless interpreted spiritually-such as that no one should call his father on earth father, or anyone teacher or master, because one is their Father, Teacher and Master (Matthew 23:8-10). Or again, that they were not to judge, that they be not judged (Matthew 7:1, 2). Or that husband and wife are not two but one flesh (Matthew 19:5, 6)-when in fact they are in a natural sense not one flesh. Nor is anyone forbidden to make judgments about his fellow man or neighbor in regard to his natural life, as this is important to human society. But what is forbidden is to make judgments about another in regard to his spiritual life, for this is known to the Lord alone. The Lord also did not forbid anyone's calling his father father, or a teacher teacher, or a master master in a natural sense, but in a spiritual sense. It is in this sense that there is but one Father, Teacher and Master. So it is with everything else in the Word.

[4] By these arguments the spirits were convinced that there is a spiritual meaning in the natural meaning of the Word, and yet that the real holiness of the Word still resides in its literal meaning, because all the inner meanings of the Word are there in their fullness. Moreover, they were led to see that the literal meaning clearly presents as well everything that teaches the way to salvation, thus everything that teaches how one is to live and believe; also that the doctrine of the church in its entirely is to be drawn from the literal meaning of the Word and verified by it, and not simply by the spiritual meaning alone. For conjunction with heaven and through heaven With the Lord is effected not by the spiritual meaning alone, but by the meaning of the letter. The reason is that the Lord's Divine influx through the Word takes place from first things through last things. * A Hebrew word appearing only three times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 13:22, 34:14; Jeremiah 50:39). The term seems to refer to howling or screeching creatures, perhaps bats (cf. Conjugial Love, no. 264:4), but the actual identity is unknown. It may not be a precise term. ** The Latin word here, as also the Greek one in Revelation, is diademata, which normally has the meaning of "crowns," but which the writer, from his usage of the term elsewhere, clearly took to mean jewels, gems, or precious stones.