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And the flax and the barley were smitten; for the barley was a ripening ear, and the flax was a stalk. And the wheat and the spelt were not smitten, because they were hidden. And Moses went out of the city from before Pharaoh, and spread out his palms unto Jehovah; and the voices and hail ceased and the rain was not poured out upon the earth. And Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the voices had ceased, and he sinned yet more, and made heavy his heart, he and his servants. And the heart of Pharaoh was made firm, and he did not let the sons of Israel go; as Jehovah had spoken by the hand of Moses.
Exodus 9: 31-35
Arcana Coelestia 7601(2) The subject treated of in this and in the following verse is the truths and goods which were destroyed and vastated, and the goods and truths which were not destroyed and vastated; thus the truths and goods which were stored up and reserved for use, and those which were not stored up and reserved. For when the evil are being vastated, that is, when they are being separated from truths and goods, and are left to their own evils and falsities, they are then vastated in respect to those truths and goods which are in the exterior natural, and which are adjoined there to falsities and evils. That these truths and goods look downward, and therefore cannot be reserved, will be seen below (n. 7604, 7607); but the truths and goods of the interior natural are not vastated, but are brought further inward, and are there reserved for use; and then the communication between the interior natural and the exterior is so far closed that nothing of good and truth can inflow from the interior natural into the exterior natural, except only something general, to enable them to reason, and to string together arguments to confirm falsities and evils. Those goods and truths which are reserved, are signified in the Word by “remains”.
Bird of paradise to stone idol
AC 7622. When this had passed, the spirits who were about me who had gazed intently upon the bird and its successive changes, began to converse together about it, and this for a long time. They perceived that such a sight must signify something heavenly. They knew that a flame signifies celestial love and its affections; that a hand, to which the flame adhered, signifies life and its power; that changes of color signify varieties of life in respect to wisdom and intelligence; that a bird signifies the same, but with this difference, that a flame signifies celestial love and what is of this love, whereas a bird signifies spiritual love and what is of this love; celestial love is love to the Lord, and spiritual love is mutual love and charity toward the neighbor; and the changes of color and likewise of life in the bird until it became stone, signify successive varieties of spiritual life in respect to intelligence. They also knew that the spirits who ascend from beneath through the region of the loins to that of the breast, are in a strong persuasion that they are in the Lord, and thence believe that all that they do, even though evil and wicked, is done according to the Lord’s will. Nevertheless they could not from this know who were meant by this sight. At last they were instructed from heaven that the inhabitants of Mars were meant; that their celestial love, in which many of them still are, was signified by the flame which adhered to the hand; and their wisdom and intelligence by the successive variations of color; and that the bird in the beginning, when it was in the beauty of its colors and the vigor of its life, signified their spiritual love; but that the bird becoming as of stone and void of life, and then of a dark color, signified the inhabitants who had removed themselves from the good of love, and are in evil, and yet believe that they are in the Lord.
Transcript
So just coming to the reading, I try to find something just to summarise the whole thing. So the statement for this particular reading was a question really about What is removed and what is preserved? And I think that feeds through in a lot of what people have shared.
The reading in general terms also points out that there are two levels to the natural: an interior and an exterior. The interior, from a process perspective, has to do with being able to think from the Word and operate out of the Word. And from the exterior, it’s about the sensual. So it’s those two things in tension and how what is serviceable to the spiritual life has to be taken in and protected, and it is released when it’s needed. And there’s a need to trust in the Lord in that. That things that are taken deep can appear to be inaccessible, but they are always working because those things that are taken in, what are term remains, are the Lord in us. So they are constantly at work in countering the proprial tendency to take hold of appearances and make them real – so spinning the lie. And the most pernicious belief that comes out of proprial life is the idea that I am God, that I can control things. All of those elements that are there, that I have life in myself, that everyone needs to bow down to me… the communication with that has to be broken. It drags everything down. Like when we’re pulled into externals, we feel disconnected and separated.
And I think interior things teach how things really are as opposed to how things appear to be. This whole series of plagues is about weakening that tendency to believe the appearances to be real. And to ground us in the Word, that being, that the Lord alone is what is real. And we can really trust that.
I think that aspect is highlighted in the need for the flax and the barley to be laid low. And what that’s talking about in terms of the external is what is of the Word that is being used by the propium to conceal its activities under a facade of external good or doing what’s right or what’s best. Whichever way the self is using the things of the Word… that has to be attended to. And that’s what this particular reading is about. It’s about laying that aspect of the external low, so that it can no longer drag down the things of the Lord for the use of propium or self. It’s just being aware that the propium, which is our sense of self built out of the love of self and love of the world, has taken hold of the Word and gathered to itself what it can use in order to promote itself and make itself look better than obviously what it is, or make it look other than what it is. And this is a stage in the process where that can no longer stand.
And so it’s not an ‘either or’ situation in the sense of it’s not like, Oh, I shouldn’t be this or I am this, this is just how it is and it needs processing. So in Arcana Coelestia 7601(2), just the sentence there…
For when the evil are being vastated, that is, when they are being separated from truths and goods, and are left to their own evils and falsities, they are then vastated in respect to those truths and goods which are in the exterior natural, and which are adjoined there to falsities and evils.
So we have this idea that those attachments have to be broken. But again, just wanting to reemphasize that the evil that are being vastated are those spirits that make up the sense of self that’s the infernal propium. Rather than thinking of people, think more in terms of our own inner process… that the evil are organized forms of evil and falsity that we’ve bought into so far as our sense of identity is concerned. This is what’s being vastated and sloughed off or pushed to the exterior.
So the principles in terms of working with any material of the Word is to remember that everything represents psychospiritual structures and processes. So at least then that sort of breaks with the literalness of the Text. So the letter of the Word is the Lord’s flesh and bones. It’s how He’s present with us and it’s the infinite and eternal Word. But the sense of the letter is another thing. So you know, this is about levels and distinctions that have to be drawn. It’s like, events in the world took place for the sake of the Word, but the Word is not the events in the world. The Word’s purpose is to look up or to have a point from which we can look up. But if we look to events in the world and make those the thing, the descriptions in the letter the thing, then we look down– we look out to the world. So we have that illustrated in this reading that we’ve been working with. So the letter of the Word is the vessel by which what is interior can be made manifest. And so it becomes translucent in that sense when we see what’s shining forth through or it becomes the bird of paradise, you know, the colours and all of that. But as our attention is more drawn into what is of the world, like person, place space and time, then it becomes more ossified. And if we make that everything, then we have an idol, a stone idol essentially.
And so, you know, it’s very interesting that a lot of what’s being processed here is quite descriptive of the Heaven and Hell awakening series, of the state of external and the state of internal concerns in particular. This is that process in Heaven and Hell. It’s just framed in a different way, and you’ll find that series in the passages of HH 491-520. There are sections in there that you’ll see that the idea of vastation is really about bringing the externals into alignment with internals. That’s what the process involves.
Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to maintain focus on understanding the Text’s application to the inner life while reinforcing key LP principles highlighted in the exchanges.