For example, a private is far inferior in rank to the commander-in-chief. He looks to his commander through the small sample of the commander’s rank he sees in his corporal, at a great distance and beyond many veils, as it were. To gain true proximity to his rank through his corporate personality, the private has to pass through many universal degrees or ranks, such as that of lieutenant, captain, and major. Whereas the commander-in-chief can be present with the private and seeing, in person as well as in meaning, through his commands, regulations, view, decree, and knowledge. This truth has been proved decisively in the Sixteenth Word, so deeming that sufficient, we cut short the discussion here.
Again it comes to mind that you are thinking of asking: “I deny the existence of the heavens and I do not believe in the angels, so how can I believe in someone travelling in the heavens and meeting with them?”
Yes, of course, it is difficult to demonstrate something and convince someone like you whose eyes are veiled and who sees only what is immediately apparent to them. But the truth is so brilliant that even the blind can see it, so we say what is unanimously agreed, that the depths of space are full of matter called ether. Subtle energies like light, electricity, and heat point to the existence of some subtle matter which fills space. For just as fruits clearly demonstrate the existence of the tree that bore them, flowers their flower bed, shoots their seedbed, and fishes the sea, the stars also thrust before the mind’s eye the necessary existence of their source, seedbed, sea, and flower bed.
Since there are different formations in the world above us and different precepts are seen to govern under different conditions, the heavens, which are the source of those precepts, also differ. And since just as within man are immaterial faculties apart from his body, such as the mind, heart, spirit, imagination, and memory, certainly in the world, which is the macroanthropos, and in the universe, which is the tree of which man is the fruit, there are other worlds besides the corporeal world. Moreover, each world has a heaven, from the world of the earth to the world of Paradise.
As far as the angels are concerned, we say this: on the globe of the earth, which is medium-sized among the planets and insignificant and dense among the stars, the most valuable and luminous among beings, that is, animate and conscious beings, are found in countless numbers. So surely the stars, which are like embellished castles and fine palaces compared to the earth, which is like a dark house, and the skies, which are like the seas of the stars, will be the dwelling-places of angels and spirit beings, which are conscious, animate, extremely numerous, and of various sorts.
In my commentary on the Holy Qur’an called Isharat al-I‘jaz (Signs of