AC 1637 - The Speech of Spirits With a Person; AC 1645 - The Speech of Angels

AC 1637

Among the wonderful things in the other life
is the fact that the speech of spirits with a person
is in his native tongue,
which they speak as readily and skillfully
as if they had been born in the same land,
and had been brought up with the same language;
and this whether they are from Europe, from Asia,
or from any other part of the globe.
The case is the same with those
who lived thousands of years ago,
before the language in question had come into existence.
The spirits indeed know no otherwise
than that the language in which they speak with a person
is their own,
and that of their native land.
The case is the same with other languages
in which the person is skilled;
but beyond these languages,
the spirits cannot utter a syllable of any language,
unless to do this is given them by the Lord immediately.
Even little children who had died
before they had been taught any language,
speak in the same way.

But the reason is
that the language with which spirits are familiar
is not a language of words,
but is a language of ideas of thought;
and this language is the universal of all languages;
and when they are with a person,
their ideas of thought fall into the words
that are in the person,
and this in a manner so correspondent and fitting
that the spirits know no otherwise
than that the words themselves are theirs,
and that they are speaking in their own language;
when yet they are speaking in that of the person.

AC 1645

But the speech of angels is beyond description,
far above the speech of spirits,
for it is above that of angelic spirits,
and is not intelligible in any way to a person
so long as he lives in the body.
Nor can the spirits in the world of spirits
form any idea of it,
for it is above the perceptive power of their thought.
This speech of angels is not of things
represented by any ideas
like those of spirits and angelic spirits;
but it is a speech of ends
and of the derivative uses,
which are the primaries and the essentials of things.
Into these are angelic thoughts insinuated,
and are varied there with indefinite variety;
and in each and all things of that speech
there is an inward and happy delight
from the good of mutual love from the Lord,
and a beautiful and delightful one
from the truth of faith from that good.
Ends, and the uses from them,
are as it were most delicate recipients,
and are the delightful subjects
of unnumbered variations;
and this by means of celestial and spiritual forms
that are beyond comprehension.
In these they are kept by the Lord,
for the Lord's kingdom
is simply a kingdom of ends and uses;
and for this reason also
the angels who are with a person
attend to nothing else than the ends and uses,
and elaborate nothing else from the person's thought.
All other things, which are mental and material,
they care nothing for;
because these are far below their sphere.