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And Moses answered, and said, And behold they will not believe me, and will not hear my voice; for they will say, Jehovah hath not been seen of thee. And Jehovah said unto him, What is that in thy hand? And he said, A rod. And He said, Cast it to the earth. And he cast it to the earth, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from before it. And Jehovah said unto Moses, Put forth thy hand, and take hold of its tail; and he put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand. (Exodus 4:1-4)
Arcana Coelestia 6953. And he put forth his hand, and took hold of it. That this signifies an uplifting toward the interiors, is evident from the signification of “putting forth the hand and taking hold,” when said of what lies beneath, as being to be uplifted toward higher things, or what is the same, toward the interiors (see above, n. 6952); from the signification of “hand,” as being interior power (see also n. 6952); and from the signification of a “serpent,” which is what he took hold of, as being the sensuous and reasoning thence (of which above, n. 6949); that when the sensuous is uplifted toward the interiors, power is communicated from the Divine,
AC 6954… From himself man looks downward only, that is, into the world, and to the earth, because from himself he is in evil and falsity; and when he looks thither, then the sensuous has dominion, and interior things makes no opposition, because they follow the force of the stream, and yield to it. Nevertheless not from himself but from the Lord, man looks upward, that is, to heaven and to the Lord, which is effected by means of an uplifting and when the interiors are uplifted, the sensuous also is uplifted, but its light is then obscured, because the light of heaven has dominion. When this takes place, good and truth from the Lord flow in, and are also received; and this is meant by power communicated from the Divine. Yet no others can be uplifted in this way than those who have lived in the good of faith and of charity. That the upliftings are toward the interiors, has been given me to know from living experience, for they have been observed a thousand times.
AC 6948(5) ….when man is in the sensuous and in its light, he is in thick darkness in respect to the things of the spiritual world, that is, in respect to those which are in light from the Divine; and that the sensuous light is turned into mere thick darkness when the light from heaven falls into it. The reason is, that the truths which are of the Divine light cannot be together with fallacies and the falsities thence derived; but [the falsities] extinguish [the truths] and thereby induce thick darkness.
Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.
