things he tells us about the human soul and the origin of angels:
"The soul which is said to live after death, is none other than the man himself who lives in the body; that is, it is the interior man who acts in the world by means of the body, and enables the body to live. This man when freed from the body, is called a spirit, and appears altogether in the human form; yet he cannot be seen with the eyes of the body but with those of the spirit, before which he appears as a man in the world, having the senses of touch, smell, hearing and seeing much more acute than in the world . . . together with all the members and organs that man possesses."—Ibid, n. 6054.
"From all my experience which is now of many years, I can declare that the form of the angels is in every respect human; that they have faces, eyes, ears, breasts, arms, hands and feet; that they see, hear and converse with each other; in a word, that they lack nothing which belongs to man, except the material body. I have seen them in a light which exceeds by many degrees the noon-day light of the world; and in that light I observed all parts of their faces more distinctly and clearly than ever I did the face of men on earth.
"I have often told the angels that men in the Christian world are in such blind ignorance concerning angels and spirits, as to believe them to be minds without form, and mere thoughts, concerning which they have no other idea than as of something ethereal in which there is somewhat vital. And because they thus ascribe