comes to a man, and by
turning to him is conjoined to him, he so enters into the entire
memory of the man that he is scarcely conscious that he does not
himself know whatever the man knows, including his languages. [2] I
have talked with angels about this, and have said that perhaps they
thought that they were addressing me in my mother tongue, since it is
so perceived; and yet it was I and not they that spoke; and that this
is evident from the fact that angels cannot utter a single word of
human language (see n. 237); furthermore, human language is natural
and they are spiritual, and spiritual beings cannot give expression
to any thing in a natural way. To this they replied that they are
aware that their conjunction with the man with whom they are speaking
is with his spiritual thought; but because his spiritual thought
flows into his natural thought, and his natural thought coheres to
his memory, the language of the man and all his knowledge appear to
them to be their own; and that this is so for this reason, that while
it is the Lord's pleasure that there should be such a conjunction
with and sort of insertion of man into heaven, yet the state of man
is now such that there can no longer be such conjunction with angels,
but only with spirits who are not in heaven. [3] When I talked about
this with spirits also they were unwilling to believe that it is the
man that speaks, insisting that they spoke in man, also that man's
knowledge is their knowledge and not the man's knowledge,
consequently that everything that man knows is from them. I tried to
convince them by many proofs that this is not true, but in vain. Who
are meant by spirits and who are meant by angels will be told further
on when the world of spirits is treated of.

247. There is another reason why angels and spirits conjoin
themselves so closely with man as not to know but that what is man's
is their own, namely, that there is such conjunction between the
spiritual world and the natural world in man that the two are
seemingly one. But inasmuch as man has separated himself from heaven
the Lord has provided that there should be angels and spirits with
each individual, and that man should be ruled by the Lord through
these. This is the reason for such close conjunction. It would have
been otherwise if man had not separated himself; for in that case he
might have been ruled by the Lord through the general influx from
heaven, without spirits and angels being