Arcana Coelestia

5929. And he kissed all his brethren. That this signifies adjunction from grace, is evident from the signification of “to kiss,” as being conjunction from affection (see n. 3573, 3574, 4353), here adjunction from grace, because the truths of the church in the natural, which are represented by the sons of Jacob, are more remote from internal good, which is Joseph; and things more remote are indeed conjoined through the intermediate with internal good, but yet long retain such things as do not correspond with internal good; and therefore by “kissing his brethren” is signified adjunction from grace.

It is said from grace, not from mercy, because things more remote and not fully correspondent are not in such humiliation that they can implore mercy; from the heart they cannot even mention mercy, but instead thereof grace; and this because the non-correspondent things which adhere are from the love of self, and he who loves himself cannot possibly humble himself from the heart; for he sets himself up, because he regards himself in everything, and makes small account of what is outside of himself.

5946 …The will, in order to see or know anything, must do it through the understanding: there is its sight or eye.

5949 …if essential and not instrumental things are cared for, they shall have instrumental things in abundance. For example: if truths are cared for, they shall have memory-knowledges in abundance, which are the “good of the land of Egypt.” In like manner if good is cared for, they shall have truths in abundance. Memory-knowledges, and also truths, must be cared for, but men must regard good as the end. If the eye is upon good as in the end, the man is then in full view of the consequent things, or in the perception of such as are derived from it, which perception is never possible unless good is the end, that is, unless it reigns universally in each and all things.

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.

Heaven and Hell

115. I have been taught from heaven that the most ancient peoples on our earth, who were celestial men, thought from correspondences themselves, the natural things of the world before their eyes serving them as the means of thinking in this way. Being of such character, they were in fellowship with angels and spoke with them. Thus, through them heaven was conjoined to the world. For this reason, that period was called the Golden Age, of which it is said by ancient writers that the inhabitants of heaven dwelt with men and associated with them as friends with friends.

But, after their times, there succeeded those who thought not from correspondences themselves but from a knowledge of correspondences, and there was then also a conjunction of heaven with man, but not so intimate. Their period is what is called the Silver Age.

After this, there followed men who had some knowledge of correspondences but did not think from that knowledge, on account of their being in natural good and not, like those before them, in spiritual good. This period was called the Copper Age.

After those times, men gradually became external, and finally corporeal, and then the knowledge of correspondences was completely lost, and with it a true idea of heaven and of the many things pertaining to heaven. It was also from correspondence that these ages were named from gold, silver and copper, because from correspondence  “gold” signifies the celestial good in which were the most ancient people; “silver” signifies the spiritual good in which were the ancient people after them; and “copper” signifies the natural good in which were the next posterity; while “iron” from which the last age was named signifies hard truth apart from good.

112. How the conjunction of heaven with the world is effected by means of correspondences, will also be told in a few words. The Lord’s kingdom is a kingdom of ends which are uses, or what is the same thing, a kingdom of uses which are ends. On this account, the universe has been so created and formed by the Divine that uses may be everywhere clothed in such a way as to be presented in act or in effect, first in heaven and afterwards in the world, thus by degrees and successively down to the ultimates of nature. Hence it is evident that the correspondence of natural things with spiritual things, or of the world with heaven, is through uses and that uses conjoin. And the forms in which uses are clothed are correspondences and means of conjunction just to the extent that they are forms of uses. In nature, in its threefold kingdom, all things that come into existence in accordance with order are forms of uses, or effects formed from use for use, and this is why the things in nature are correspondences.

With man, however, so far as he lives in accordance with Divine order, thus, so far as he is in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbour, to that extent, his actions are uses in form and are correspondences by means of which he is conjoined with heaven. To love the Lord and the neighbour means in general to perform uses.  

Further, it ought to be known that man is the means by which the natural world is conjoined with the spiritual world, that is, man is the medium of conjunction; for in him there is a natural world and also a spiritual world (see above 

114. Something will now be said about the knowledge of correspondences and its use. It was said above that the spiritual world, which is heaven, is conjoined to the natural world by means of correspondences. Therefore, by means of correspondences, communication with heaven is granted to man.

For the angels of heaven do not think from natural things, as man does. Consequently, when man is in the knowledge of correspondences, he is able, in regard to the thoughts of his mind, to be together with the angels, and thus, as to his spiritual or internal man, to be conjoined with them. In order that there may be conjunction of heaven with man, the Word has been written by means of pure correspondences, for all things in it in general and particular are correspondences.  

If man, therefore, were in the knowledge of correspondences, he would understand the Word as to its spiritual sense and would thereby be enabled to know arcana of which he sees nothing in the sense of the letter. For in the Word there is a literal sense and there is a spiritual sense. The literal sense consists of such things as are in the world, but the spiritual sense of such things as are in heaven, and since the conjunction of heaven with the world is by means of correspondences, therefore such a Word was given in which the details down to the least jot (iota) are in correspondence. 

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.

Genesis 45

Verses 16-20. And the voice was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren have come; and it was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, come ye into the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come unto me; and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. And now commanded, this do ye: take you out of the land of Egypt carts for your babes, and for your women, and bring your father, and come. And let not your eye be sparing upon your stuff; because the good of the whole land of Egypt, this is for you.

5948. Also let not your eye be sparing upon your stuff. That this signifies that things instrumental are not to be cared for, is evident from the signification of “stuff” or “vessels,” as being things instrumental. That these are not to be cared for is signified by “let not your eye be sparing.” There are things essential, and things instrumental. For an essential to work an effect anywhere, it must have an instrumental whereby to act; for just as an instrumental has been formed, so it acts. For example, the body is the instrumental of its spirit; the external man is the instrumental of the internal; memory-knowledge is the instrumental of truth; and truth is the instrumental of good (n. 3068, 3079); and so on.

[2] In the Word things instrumental are called “vessels;” in the present case “stuff,” because they are said of the migration, thus of the things in the houses. But essential things are called in the Word “things,” and are those which act by means of instrumental things. Thus as interior things act through exterior things, they are relatively essential. By instrumental things not being to be cared for, is meant that these must not be regarded as the end, but essential things; for insofar as instrumental things are regarded as the end, so far essential things withdraw themselves and vanish. Thus if memory-knowledge is regarded as the end, and truths are not cared for, truths at last so vanish away that it cannot be perceived whether there are any truths. Also if truths are regarded as the end, and good is not cared for, good at last so vanishes as not to be. Furthermore, with those who have earthly, or bodily, or worldly things as the end, so that these are their only care, and not heavenly things, heavenly things so vanish away that at last scarcely anything heavenly is acknowledged. These and similar things are what are signified by “let not your eye be sparing upon your stuff.”

[3] But be it known that “essential” and “instrumental” are relative terms; that is, that an essential is so called because it acts by means of another thing as by its instrument or organ. But when another thing acts by means of that which was essential, then this becomes instrumental; and so on. Moreover in the created universe there is not anything essential in itself; this exists solely in the Highest, that is, in the Lord, who, because He is Esse or the Essential in itself, is called “Jehovah” from esse (being). All other things are only instrumental. From all this then it follows that because as before said essential things must be regarded as the end, and not instrumental things, the Lord alone must be so regarded.

5928. As regards the conjunction of good with truths, and the reciprocal conjunction of truths with good, be it known that when good flows into truths and conjoins them with itself, it pours into them good from its own, and by means of its own attaches them to itself, whence comes the conjunction. And as truths thus receive life, it afterward appears as if they act from themselves, when they act reciprocally or react. Nevertheless truths do not act from themselves, but from the good which flows into the good attached by itself to the truths.

The case herein is like the blood vessels in a living body. Truths are as it were the vessels without the blood; but good is as it were the blood; when this pours itself into the vessels which before were empty, it sets them in motion, and also in reciprocal motion, for they have received from the blood a capacity of moving, and as it were life. From all this it is evident how the case is with the conjunction of good with truths, and with the reciprocal conjunction of truths with good.

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.

Heaven and Hell

72. The one love which is the origin of the good of all in heaven is love to the Lord from the Lord. It is from this that the entire heaven in general, any one society less generally, and each angel in particular is a likeness of the Lord.

Arcana Coelestia

3049…in itself truth is good, because from good; and truth is the form of good, that is to say, when good is formed so as to be perceived intellectually, it is then called truth… In themselves general memory-knowledges are not goods, nor are they alive; it is the affection of them that causes them to be goods, and to be alive; for when there is this affection they are for the sake of use; since no one is affected by any memory-knowledge or truth except for some use; use makes it a good; and such as the use is, such is the good.

5199… That spiritual beauty is the affection of interior truth, is because truth is the form of good. Good itself which is from the Divine in heaven is that from which angels have life; but the form of their life is given by means of the truths which are from this good. And yet beauty is not produced by the truth of faith, but by the affection itself within the truths of faith, which is from good. Beauty that is from the truth of faith alone is like that of a painted or sculptured face; but beauty from the affection of truth, which is from good, is like that of a living face animated by heavenly love; for such as is the love or affection that beams from the form of the face, such is the beauty. From this it is that the angels appear in ineffable beauty; from their faces beams forth the good of love through the truth of faith, which not only appear before the sight, but are also perceived from the spheres coming from them.

5912… For when good is in the first place, and has dominion, it continually produces truths. It multiplies them around itself and also around each truth, and makes each truth like a little star, in the center of which there is a bright light. Nor does good only multiply truths around itself, but it also produces truths from truths by derivations in succession, which are the “sons’ sons,” or grandsons; and so on.

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.

Heaven and Hell 

73. Therefore each angel is a complete human form .In the two preceding sections it has been shown that heaven in its whole complex resembles one man, as does any one society in heaven. From the sequence of reasons there set forth, it follows that this is equally true of each angel. As heaven is man in the greatest form, and a society of heaven in a less form, so is an angel in the least form. For, in the most perfect form such as that of heaven is, there is a likeness of the whole in the part and of the part in the whole. This is the case for the reason that heaven is a communion, for it communicates all it has with each one, and each one receives all he has from that communion. An angel is a receptacle, and by virtue of this, a heaven in least form, as was also shown above in the appropriate section. A man, too, so far as he receives heaven, is also a receptacle, a heaven and an angel (see above 57). This is described in the Revelation as follows,

He measured the wall of the holy Jerusalem, a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is of an angel. Revelation 21:17.

“Jerusalem”  there is the Lord’s Church, and, in a higher sense, heaven; the “wall”  is the truth that is a defence against the assault of falsities and evils; the “hundred and forty-four” are all truths and goods in the complex;  the “measure”  is the quality; a “man” is one in whom are all goods and truths in general and particular, that is, in whom is heaven, and as it is from these that an angel also is a man, it is said, the “measure of a man” which is that of an angel. This is the spiritual sense of the words. Without that sense, who could understand that the wall of the Holy Jerusalem is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel? 

76. It ought to be known, however, that angels cannot be seen by a man through the eyes of his body but through the eyes of the spirit within him,  because this is in the spiritual world, while all things of the body are in the natural world. Like sees like from being alike. Besides, as everyone knows, the bodily organ of sight which is the eye is so gross as to be unable even to see, except through magnifying glasses, the smaller things of nature; still less then can it see the things that are above the sphere of nature such as are all things in the spiritual world. But these things may be seen by a man when he is withdrawn from the sight of the body, and the sight of his spirit is opened. This takes place instantly whenever it pleases the Lord that these things should be seen. In that case, the man does not know but that he is seeing them with his bodily eyes.

495. As the life of spirits recently from the world is not unlike their life in the natural world, and as they know nothing about their state of life after death and nothing about heaven and hell except what they have learned from the sense of the letter of the Word and preaching from it, they are at first surprised to find themselves in a body and in every sense that they had in the world, and seeing like things; and they become eager to know what heaven is, what hell is, and where they are. Therefore they are instructed by their friends about the conditions of eternal life, and are also taken about by them to various places and into various companies, and sometimes into cities, and into gardens and parks, being shown chiefly such magnificent things as delight the externals in which they are. They are then brought in turn into those notions about the state of their soul after death, and about heaven and hell, that they had entertained in the life of the body, even until they feel indignant at their total ignorance of such things, and at the ignorance of the Church also.

Nearly all are anxious to know whether they will come into heaven. Most of them believe that they will, because of their having lived in the world a moral and civil life, never considering that the bad and the good live a like life in externals, alike doing good to others, attending public worship, hearing sermons, and praying; and wholly ignorant that external deeds and external acts of worship are of no avail, but only the internals from which the externals proceed. There is hardly one out of thousands who knows what internals are, and that it is in them that a man has heaven and the Church. Still less is it known that outward acts are such as the intentions and thoughts are, and the love and faith in these from which they spring. And even when taught, they fail to comprehend that thinking and willing are of any avail, but only speaking and acting. Such for the most part are those who, at this day, come from the Christian world into the other life.

See also Logopraxis : Awakening to Spiritual Life : Part 1: Heaven and Hell 491-520

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.

True Christian Religion 735

[5] The angel afterwards called together his companions, and as they went along, he gave them the following instruction concerning heaven. “There are in heaven, as well as in the world, food and drink, feasts and repasts. For leading personages the tables furnished with richest food, delicate and splendid, by which their minds are exhilarated and refreshed. There are sports and stage shows, instrumental music and song, and all in the highest perfection. Such things are pleasures to those for whom they are provided, but not happiness; which indeed will be found in pleasures, and which springs from them. When it is present in them it causes them to be real pleasures, enriching and elevating them, and preventing them from degenerating and becoming distasteful but happiness comes to every one from the use he performs in his own vocation.

[6] “There is in the affection of the will of every angel a latent tendency which induces the mind to do something; and this tranquilizes and satisfies it. Satisfaction and tranquillity create a state of mind receptive of the love of use from the Lord; and it is from the reception of this love that heavenly happiness results, which is the very life of those pleasures already referred to.

Heavenly food in its essence is the harmonious union of love, wisdom and use; that is, use from love through the exercise of wisdom.

For this reason food for the body is given to every one in heaven according to the use which he performs, sumptuous to those who perform uses of an outstanding character, moderately fine but of choice flavor to those whose uses are of moderate importance, and plain to those who perform humble uses of lesser importance; but none to the indolent.”

Heaven and Hell 85

But, that God is Man can scarcely be comprehended by those who judge all things from the sense-experiences of the external man. For the sensual man can think of the Divine only from the world and the things that are therein, thus of a Divine and Spiritual Man in the same way as of a corporeal and natural man. From this he concludes that, if God were a man He would be as large as the universe, and if He ruled heaven and earth it would be done through many, after the manner of kings in the world.

If told that in heaven there is no extension of space as in the world, he would not in the least comprehend. For he who thinks from nature and its light only, never thinks otherwise than from an extension such as there is before his eyes. But they are completely deceived when they think in this way about heaven.

The extension there is not like extension in the world. In the world, extension is determinate and thus measurable, but in heaven it is not determinate and therefore not measurable. What, however, extension in heaven is, will be seen in the pages to follow in connection with space and time in the spiritual world. Besides, everyone knows how far the sight of the eye extends, namely, to the sun and stars which are so remote. Whoever thinks more deeply knows that the internal sight, which is that of thought, has a still wider extension and therefore that a still more interior sight must extend even more widely. What, then, must not the Divine sight be which is the inmost and highest of all? Because thoughts are capable of such extension, all things of heaven are communicated with everyone there, so too are all things of the Divine which makes heaven and fills it-as has been shown in the preceding sections.

Conjugial Love 183(3-5)

The angels replied: “Without use, love and wisdom are merely abstract ideas of thought, and after some tarrying in the mind, these pass away like the wind; but in use, the two are brought together and become a one which is called real. Love, being the activity of life, cannot rest unless it is doing something; nor can wisdom exist and subsist except when doing something from love and with it; and doing is use. Therefore we define use as the doing of good from love by means of wisdom. Use is good itself.

Since these three, love, wisdom, and use, flow into the souls of men, it can be evident whence comes the saying that all good is from God; for every deed done from love by means of wisdom is called good, and use is also a deed. What is love without wisdom but something fatuous? and, without use, what is love together with wisdom but a state of the mind? But with use, love and wisdom not only make the man, they are the man. Indeed, and this perhaps will astonish you, they propagate man; for in man’s seed is his soul in perfect human form, covered over with substances from the purest things of nature, from which, in the mother’s womb, is formed a body. This use is the supreme and ultimate use of Divine Love by means of Divine Wisdom.”

Finally the angels said: “The conclusion then must be that in its origin all fructification, all propagation, and all prolification is from the influx of love, wisdom, and use from the Lord—from immediate influx from the Lord into the souls of men, from mediate influx into the souls of animals, and from influx yet more mediate into the inmost parts of plants; and all are effected in ultimates from firsts. That fructifications, propagations, and prolifications are continuations of creation is evident; for creation can come from no other source than Divine Love by means of Divine wisdom in Divine Use. Therefore, all things in the universe are procreated and formed from use, in use, and for use.”

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.

Arcana Coelestia

5922 [10] That Divine truth, from which are all wisdom and intelligence, as well as the appearance of a variegated cloud before the external sight, is “glory,” is evident also from these passages:

Jehovah said, Living am I, and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah (Numbers 14:21);

this was said by Jehovah when the Israelitish people were disowned, and it was said that only their little ones should come into the land of Canaan. Under these circumstances, by “the whole earth being filled with the glory of Jehovah” was signified that in the representatives of the church with them, and in the Word, which for the most part treated of them, there should be the glory of Jehovah, with which the whole heaven should be filled, and thence the holy things of the church.

[11] In Isaiah: 

The seraphim cried, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah Zebaoth; the fullness of all the earth is His glory (Isaiah 6:3).

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.

Arcana Coelestia

56. Again, heaven is where the Lord is acknowledged, believed in and loved. Variety in worship of the Lord resulting from the variety of good in one society and another is not harmful but beneficial, for the perfection of heaven is therefrom. It can scarcely be made clear to the comprehension that the perfection of heaven is the result of variety, without employing terms in common use in the learned world and by them showing how unity, to be perfect, is formed from various parts. Every unity has its existence from diversity, for a unity that is not the result of diversity is not anything; it has no form and therefore no quality. When, on the other hand, a unity comes into existence from various parts, and these various parts are in a perfect form in which each attaches itself in series, like a congenial friend to another, then the quality is perfect. So heaven is a unity resulting from the arrangements of various parts in the most perfect form, for the heavenly form is the most perfect of all forms. That this is the origin of all perfection is evident from all the beauty, pleasantness and delight that affect the senses as well as the mind (animus). For these exist and flow from no other source than the concert and harmony of many concordant and harmonious parts, either co-existing in order or following in order, and not from a unity apart from plurality. From this comes the saying that variety gives delight, and it is known that it is the nature of the variety which determines the delight. From all this it can be seen, as in a mirror, how perfection comes from variety even in heaven. For the things that are in the spiritual world can be seen as in a mirror  from those that come into existence in the natural world.

See also A Community of Practise: Where Individual and Group Process Meet to Make the Lord Visible in Our Midst (2022)

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.