SD 4246-4249 - wandering minds & reading the Word

SD 4246 - 4249
. . . (angelic spirits) perceived the sense of what I read,
when I perceived almost nothing of it,
so that their perception of the interior sense of what was written
increased in proportion as mine decreased
 - a fact at which one may well wonder.
The case is similar with children when they read the Word,
as also with other pious people when they read.
The things are few which a person perceives,
but they are many which are perceived by the angels,
and they are all and singular in the interior and more interior sense;
thus they perceive things which have never come into the idea of the person,
since a person is in the literal sense,
which is comparatively obscure, and scarcely any sense at all;
but it was given to say to them
that it would be better if a person also were in light;
thus they would be one,
and the order would be complete.
It was also occasionally observed
that when angelic spirits desired to pray from me,
and to know what it was that I was reading,
they would surreptitiously take away my thought,
and direct my attention to surrounding objects,
so that my ideas would be obscured,
but when they were in light;
indeed they were in a greater light of intelligence
in proportion as I was in a less, and as it were in obscurity.
But the case is otherwise
with the angelic spirits who love the neighbor better than themselves,
for it is only the love of self,
of the existence of which in themselves they are ignorant,
that produces and makes clear the effects above described.
(April 30, 1749)