The Third Round: In Logopraxis We Read the Text in Relation to Our States of Mind and Try to Avoid Projecting it Out onto the Outer World

From the work, Arcana Coelestia 2989

Things that belong to the mind are spiritual while those that belong to the body are natural. From this it is evident that a correspondence exists between spiritual things and natural, and that there is a representation of spiritual things within natural. Or what amounts to the same, when the things that belong to the internal man take shape in the external, the things which are visible in the external are representative of the internal, and those in the external which accord with those in the internal are correspondent.

From the work, Arcana Coelestia 3336

To grasp what is meant in the internal sense by these things that have been stated in this chapter regarding Esau and Jacob one’s thought has to be removed completely from historical events, and so from the persons Esau and Jacob, and to be focused instead on the things which they represent, that is to say, on the good of the natural and its truth, or what amounts to the same, on the spiritual man, who is regenerated by means of truth and good. For in the internal sense of the Word names mean nothing other than real things. When the good of the natural and its truth are held in mind instead of Esau and Jacob, the manner in which a person is regenerated by means of truth and good is then evident, that is to say, how at first truth residing with him apparently occupies the prior and also higher position, when in fact good in itself is the prior and higher.

From the work, Arcana Coelestia 2538

[2] The position with doctrine is that insofar as belief is rooted in what belongs to the human, that is, in sensory impressions, factual knowledge, and rational deductions, no doctrine exists; but insofar as sensory impressions, factual knowledge, and rational deductions are put aside, that is, insofar as belief is formed quite apart from these, doctrine comes into being because the Divine is able to flow in; whereas those properties possessed by the human prevent influx and reception. It is however one thing to rely for belief on rational deductions, factual knowledge, and sensory impressions, that is, to resort to them so as to arrive at belief, but quite another to confirm and strengthen belief by means of rational deductions, factual knowledge, and sensory impressions.

From the work, Arcana Coelestia 1876

1876. The names of men, kingdoms, or cities that occur in the Word, as with the expressions of human speech, disappear at the very threshold of their progress upwards; for those names are earthly, bodily, and material, being things of which souls entering the next life gradually divest themselves and of which those entering heaven do so altogether. Angels do not retain the least idea of any person, nor therefore of his name. What Abram is, what Isaac is, or Jacob, they do not know any longer. Instead they form an idea for themselves from the things that are represented and meant by those characters in the Word. Names and expressions are like dust or like scales that fall off when they enter heaven. From this it becomes clear that names in the Word mean nothing other than real things. On these matters I have spoken many times to angels, who have informed me fully regarding the truth. The speech that spirits employ among themselves does not consist of verbal expressions but of ideas, like those comprising human thought without words, and is therefore the universal language of all languages. But when they speak to man their speech falls into the expressions of human language, as stated in 1635, 1637, 1639.

[2] When discussing this matter with spirits I have been given to say that when they are conversing among themselves they are not able to utter one single word of human language, still less utter any name. Astonished by this some went away and tried to do so, but on returning they said that they had been unable to pronounce them because those words were so grossly material that they belonged below their own sphere, for such words were produced by an audible emission of air articulated by organs of the body, or else by means of an influx into the same organs by an internal route leading to the organ of hearing. From this it also became perfectly clear that no part of any expression which occurs in the Word was able to pass over to spirits. Still less could it pass over to angelic spirits, whose speech is even more universal, 1642. And least of all could it pass over to angels, 1643, with whom nothing remains of even the first ideas that spirits possess; instead angels have spiritual truths and celestial goods. Such truths and goods are varied in an indescribable manner in their least forms – which are continuous and knit together in a harmonious sequence – together with the first springs of representatives whose very great delightfulness and beauty flow from the happiness belonging to mutual love, and whose happiness flows from all their delight and beauty, because the Lord’s life is inspired into them

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