It was said [2138] that spirits speak through the very first mental images of words, for it is certainly known that every word has in it a certain image, and every combination of words a composite one expressed by several words. Such as our thought is without words, such is the speech of spirits among themselves. In fact, it is not only thought, for they also have thought, but it is a speaking between them that I have also been able to observe, and they told me that they had spoken among themselves, and I heard their murmur, which on coming to my inner sensation fell into distinct words. Sometimes the speech of spirits streamed unexpectedly into my mental imagery, and thus into words, when they were in conversation together, and they told that they were then conversing about me, or about such and such. But spirits cannot notice or tell that they are speaking a spiritual language, because they do not reflect on the fact, any more than people on earth realize what language they are speaking, and what words, if they do not reflect.

2142 1/2. But angelic language is still deeper. To make this understood, let me only mention what I have been enabled to learn by experience, that in one simple mental image there are countless particular elements [2062, 2085]. This can be plain only to those who pay attention. If one takes only one word, such as "heaven" or "earth," which are simple words and similar in idea, still there are a limitless number of elements in them, as is the case with all other words. The elements contained in one simple mental image of spirits become visible in the inward level, and indeed they are countless, which a spirit* cannot discern with any inner sight, but only see with the understanding, thus with a general, dull and very dim sight. A spirit senses them, if I may make a comparison, hardly differently than "hunger and thirst" is sensed, as a general feeling, and besides the hunger and the thirst, hardly anything is felt, when yet there are countless factors in the body-every member, each fiber, and each blood cell, and the inward parts-which all come together to cause hunger and thirst. The same applies to every sense, such as the sense of taste, which is only perceived as a general feeling, when yet innumerable factors make up that sense, both in the tongue and in the object. So in all other cases. * That is, in the world of spirits.