The following points are a series of principles / reflections drawn from the ACV7:S08 reading…

• The sensory powers of the mind (represented by the cupbearer and the baker) cannot discern Divine things or those things of an interior nature in the Word. By interior things are meant things belonging to the psychological structures and operations of the human mind in relation to the influence of goods and truths from the Word.

• Such things are discerned only by the rational mind, when enlightened by heaven’s sun. By rational is not meant the kind of thinking found in academic circles but that which acknowledges the Lord through the application of goods and truths from the Word – thus rational behaviour in the light of eternal ends.

• Sensory powers to be in order much be subject to the rational powers of the mind, these latter powers being sourced in genuine truths and doctrinal principles made a matter of life.

• The interior part of the natural mind (the new natural represented by Pharaoh) is sensitive to the quality of the mode of life that arises from the senses, and where this doesn’t align with more interior things is able to bind contrary things of a sensuous origin for further evaluation and instruction where this is possible.

• Things of an interior nature belonging to the interior sense of the Word presents to sensory powers as obscure – they appear dream-like.

• The celestial of the spiritual (represented by Joseph) discerns what is Divine in the letter of the Word, which the sensory powers are in obscurity about, these interior things being a foretelling of what must unfold.

• Foresight is revelation and all revelation is of the Word – the Word is Divine revelation so foretells all that must come to pass or unfold.

• The Word in its letter (sensory corporeal level) is specifically formed to appeal to and be available for the sensory level of the mind. Within the letter is what is “foretold” which is obscure (dreamlike) to sensory powers – that which is “foretold” has to do with interior things, i.e. mental process and structures and the Word’s operation in regenerating the human mind.

• Spiritually foretelling is not future telling related to future events in the natural world but has to do with the unveiling of every conceivable state of the human mind in its response to the influence of the Word. This is what the internal sense of the Word concerns itself with.

• To be caught up in the sensory powers of the mind (believing appearances to be real) is what it means to turn away from heaven’s sun – the letter of the Word is accommodated to the natural mind particularly its sensory powers – when the sensory dominates over the rational this is dead – a dead/natural sun – the rational powers as previously defined constitute the spiritual sun (spiritual sense of the Word) this being the source of heavenly heat and light.

• Joseph is described in this reading as the “celestial of the natural” or the celestial of the spiritual from the rational in the natural. Essentially Joseph is the love (celestial) of unfolding the things of the Word (spiritual from the rational) with a view to application (in the natural). Joseph as a psychological reality is the desire from the Lord to apply truths to life – this is how the Lord’s love for the salvation of the human race is experienced.