228.  XXVI.  The power of the angels of heaven.

That the angels possess power cannot be comprehended by those who know nothing about the spiritual world and its influx into the natural world.  Such think that angels can have no power because they are spiritual and are even so pure and unsubstantial that no eye can see them.  But those who look more interiorly into the causes of things take a different view.  Such know that all the power that a man has is from his understanding and will (for apart from these he is powerless to move a particle of his body), and his understanding and will are his spiritual man.  This moves the body and its members at its pleasure; for whatever it thinks the mouth and tongue speak, and whatever it wills the body does; and it bestows its strength at pleasure.  As man’s will and understanding are ruled by the Lord through angels and spirits, so also are all things of his body, because these are from the will and understanding; and if you will believe it, without influx from heaven man cannot even move a step.  That this is so has been shown me by much experience.  Angels have been permitted to move my steps, my actions, and my tongue and speech, as they pleased, and this by influx into my will and thought; and I have learned thereby that of myself I could do nothing.  I was afterwards told by them that every man is so ruled, and that he can know this from the doctrine of the church and from the Word, for he prays that God may send His angels to lead him, direct his steps, teach him, and inspire in him what to think and what to say, and other like things; although he says and believes otherwise when he is thinking by himself apart from doctrine.  All this has been said to make known what power angels have with man.

229.  But so great is the power of angels in the spiritual world that if I should make known all that I have witnessed in regard to it it would exceed belief.  Any obstruction there that ought to be removed because it is contrary to Divine order the angels cast down or overthrow merely by an effort of the will and a look.  Thus I have seen mountains that were occupied by the evil cast down and overthrown, and sometimes shaken from end to end as in earthquakes; also rocks cleft asunder to their bottoms, and the evil who were upon them swallowed up.  I have seen also hundreds of thousands of evil spirits dispersed by angels and cast down into hell.  Numbers are of no avail against them; neither are devices, cunning, or combinations; for they see through them all, and disperse them in a moment. (But more may be seen on this subject in the account of The Destruction of Babylon.) Such power do angels have in the spiritual world.  It is evident from the Word that they have like power in the natural world also when it is permitted; for instance, that they have given to destruction entire armies; and that they brought on a pestilence from which seventy thousand men died.  Of this angel it is said: