until they no longer knew what their own heaven was.  It is otherwise when, as is often done, angels are raised up by the Lord out of a lower heaven into a higher that they may behold its glory; for then they are prepared beforehand, and are encompassed by intermediate angels, through whom they have communication with those they come among.  From all this it is plain that the three heavens are entirely distinct from each other.

36.  Those, however, who are in the same heaven can affiliate with any who are there; but the delights of such affiliation are measured by the kinships of good they have come into; of which more will be said in the following chapters.

37.  But although the heavens are so distinct that there can be no companionship between the angels of one heaven and the angels of another, still the Lord joins all the heavens together by both direct and mediate influx-direct from Himself into all the heavens, and mediate from one heaven into another.{1} He thus makes the three heavens to be one, and all to be in such connection from the First to the Last that nothing unconnected is possible.  Whatever is not connected through intermediates with the First can have no permanent existence, but is dissipated and becomes nothing.{2}

{Footnote 1} Influx from the Lord is direct from Himself and also mediate through on heaven into another, and in like manner into man’s interiors (n. 6063, 6307, 6472, 9682, 9683).  Direct influx of the Divine from the Lord (n. 6058, 6474-6478, 8717, 8728).  Mediate influx through the spiritual world into the natural world (n. 4067, 6982, 6985, 6996).

{Footnote 2} All things spring from things prior to themselves, thus from a First, and in like inner subsist, because subsistence is unceasing springing forth; therefore nothing unconnected is possible (n. 3626-3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040, 6056).

38.  Only he who knows how degrees are related to Divine order can comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even what is meant by the internal and the external man.  Most men in the world have no other idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by continuity, from purer to grosser.  But the relation of what is interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous.  Degrees are of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not.  Continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of a light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top.  These degrees are determined by distance. [2] On the other hand, degrees that are not continuous, but discrete, are distinguished like prior and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what is produced.  Whoever looks into the matter will see that in each