18. That heaven is from the human race, is evident from this, that angelic and human minds are similar; both enjoying the faculty of understanding, of perceiving, and of willing; both being formed for receiving heaven. For the human mind possesses wisdom as well as the angelic; but it is not so wise in the world, because it is in a terrestrial body, in which its spiritual mind thinks naturally, for its spiritual thought, which it has in common with an angel, then flows down into the natural ideas corresponding with the spiritual, and is thus perceived in them. But it is otherwise when the mind of man is freed from its connection with the body; then it no longer thinks naturally but spiritually; and when spiritually it then thinks what is incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man, as an angel does. Hence it is evident, that man's internal, which is called his spirit, in its essence is an angel.# That an angel is in a perfect human form, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 73-77): but when man's internal is not opened above, but only below, then still, after its removal from the body, it is in a human form, but a direful and diabolical one, for it cannot look upwards to heaven, but only downwards to hell.
# There are as many degrees of life in man, as there are heavens, and they are opened after death according to his life (n. 3747, 9594). Heaven is in man (n. 3884). The men who are living a life of love and charity, have angelic wisdom in them, but that it is then latent, and that they come into it after death (n. 2494). In the Word, the man who receives the good of love and of faith from the Lord, is called an angel (n. 10528).