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According to Swedenborg, the angels are not constantly in the same state. Sometimes their love is more intense than at others, and their perception of truth consequently more clear. When their love is most intense, they are in their most luminous and delightful state; but when it is least intense, they are comparatively "in shade and cold, or in their state of obscurity and undelight. From the latter state they return again to the former; and so on." And the various objects which appear before their eyes, "are also changed with the states of their interiors; for the things without them assume an appearance corresponding to those within them." Thus they have their morning, noon, and evening states; but "there is no correspondence of night with the states of those in heaven," only "of the twilight which precedes the morning,"—the correspondence of night being only with the states of those who are in hell.

Swedenborg sometimes speaks of the personal appearance of the angels, and says their beauty is indescribable; but some are more beautiful than others—their beauty depending on the degree of fulness with which they receive into their hearts