Chapter 9 Each Society in Heaven Reflects a Single Man. I have frequently been permitted to see that each society of heaven reflects a single man, and is in the likeness of a man. There was a society into which several had insinuated themselves who knew how to counterfeit angels of light. These were hypocrites. When these were being separated from the angels I saw that the entire society appeared at first like a single indistinct body, then by degrees in a human form, but still indistinctly, and at last clearly as a man.
Hypocrites are such as talk well and also do well, but have regard to themselves in everything.
They talk as angels do about the Lord, heaven, love, and heavenly life, and also act rightly, so that they may appear to be what they profess to be. Their doing good is for the sake of self, or if for the sake of others it is only for the appearance, and thus still for the sake of self. I have also been permitted to see that an entire angelic society, where the Lord is visibly present, appears as a one in the human form. The little stars round about the cloud were angels, who so appeared by virtue of light from the Lord. The societies of the inmost or highest heaven, and in the center there, are those that appear in the most perfect and beautiful human form.