672. CONCERNING THE HEAVENS It was told me that before the Lord's advent into the world, there was no other heaven than the interior heaven, for as yet no one on this planet could understand more interior, still less inmost things; and because cognitions must precede, therefore no other heaven could then exist. The interior heaven is such, that the natural is adjoined to the spiritual; wherefore in the case of the angels who formerly spoke with men and through the prophets, the Word could not but fall immediately into natural things. From this is the prophetic style which also, in part, the Lord was willing to use, for in no other way could men have understood interior spiritual things, and still less the more interior things. For the same reason the Lord also spoke by parables. I spoke about these things with those in heaven, who seemed to me to affirm this, namely, that there was such a heaven for the inhabitants of this planet, but that the more interior and inmost heavens were from other planets in the universe.