5684. Let whoever chooses, think, if I tell him that angels are human forms, that they are dressed in splendid garments, that they live in magnificent dwellings; and let him at the same time think from the sensual, or from the body, or its senses; let him also think from his ideas about the soul: will he think anything else than whether it is so or not? Will he think beyond this? Will he not then stop there, and at length deny [it all]? But let him who can be withdrawn from sensuals and bodily things, and raised above them, think at that time, and then he will not think whether the thing is or is not, but that it is so and then, for the first time, is man able to come into wisdom. Otherwise, he will long stand outside the palace of wisdom, and not see the threshold. If he will enter, he will see numberless and ineffable things. I have spoken with angels about these matters, and it was shown that it is so. The ancients were not so sensual. They were able to be raised above the sensuals of the body. They, therefore, were able to be in interior wisdom, and also to converse with angels, because they were in a like light with them. This cannot happen at the present day.