1577. In like manner a mental image from the very inward heaven grows when it falls into the inward heaven. Those who are there are not aware of this, for in the inward heaven there are elements from nature, to which their mental images attach themselves, and which shape them. But in the heaven of spirits, or the spiritual world, these same elements take on a material quality, thus growing from the soul as it were into bodies. Thus their form, their qualities, and their conditions are augmented, according to the societies [they pass through].
1577. A similar process of growth or expansion takes place when an idea passes from a more interior [intimiori] to a more exterior [interius] heaven, 1although unconsciously to the recipients, for in the exterior [interiori] heaven are certain natural elements, to which their ideas adhere, and which govern their form. In the heaven of spirits, or the spiritual world, the same things become material, thus growing, as it were, from a soul into bodies; and these bodies enlarge themselves according to the forms, qualities, and states of the societies concerned.
Footnotes:
1. It is important to remark in reference to these terms that in this and many other passages of the Diary [now called Spiritual Experiences], Swedenborg uses interior, intimior, which, in order to be clearly intelligible to the English reader, we are obliged to express by exterior and interior; inasmuch as by the Latin interior, interius, he means that which is relatively or comparatively exterior. - TR
1577. Similiter crescit ab intimiori coelo, dum labitur in interius, quod nesciunt, nam in interiori sunt naturalia, quibus ideae illorum adhaerent, et sic formantur, in spirituum vero coelo, seu mundo spirituali, fiunt eadem materialia, sic ab anima crescunt quasi in corpora; seque adaugent secundum societates, eorum forma, qualitates, status {a}.