5. 1. What the spiritual meaning is. The spiritual meaning is not the sense that shines from the literal one when one is studying the Word and interpreting it in order to confirm some dogma of the church. This sense is the Word’s literal sense. Rather its spiritual meaning is one not apparent in the literal one. The spiritual meaning lies within the literal one, like the soul within the body, like thought within the eyes, and affection within the face, which operate in concert, like cause and effect.

That spiritual meaning is what principally causes the Word to be spiritual, not only for people, but also for angels. Consequently that meaning is the means by which the Word communicates with the heavens.

113. Through a good deal of experience I have been given to know that the Word is the means by which a person has a communication with heaven. When I read the Word from the first chapter of Isaiah to the last chapter of Malachi, and the Psalms of David, I was given to clearly perceive that each verse communicated with some society in heaven, and so the whole Word with the whole of heaven.