“And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphenath Paneah...” Gen 41:45

“In the original language 'Zaphenath Paneah' means 'a revealer of things that are hidden and a disclosure of things to come'” AC 5331.

We know that Joseph represents what is termed “the celestial of the spiritual”, so I just want to demystify this term a little so that we can have some understanding of what might be being spoken about in relation to Logopraxis, or the practice of the Word. And of course we need to acknowledge that whatever our understanding of this term might be it is always going to be a working understanding and not the thing in itself.

Whenever we see the terms 'celestial' and 'spiritual' in the Word we are dealing with descriptors of mental phenomena. So in the case of the term 'celestial' we are dealing with those things that have to do with the affectional side of life, or the will — and in the case of the term 'spiritual' we are dealing with those things that have to do with the intellectual side of life or the understanding. When we will the truth then the action that follows on from that can be described as good or more specifically the good of truth. Now because good is celestial and truth is spiritual the phrase good of truth can also be understood as “the celestial of the spiritual”.

Now clearly there are different scales to understanding spiritual concepts and this is true of the phrase 'the celestial of the spiritual'. As it relates to the Lord or the life of good and truth that inflows into the deepest recesses of the human mind, for this is what the Lord is, the celestial of the spiritual is imperceptible to even the highest angels. Yet on lower scales of existence ’the celestial of the spiritual’ manifests in different forms but always in keeping with the quality or the form of mind into which it is received. The lower the scale the more obscure the manifestation and the less likely it is to be recognised.

Logopraxis supports a way of seeing, grounded in the application of truths from the Word to the life of the mind. The key idea is to see from experience what is first encountered intellectually in the Text. Granted that this is not always possible but no effort is ever wasted that is born from a genuine desire to live from the truths of the Word. From the ground of our own practice we can see something of what the activity of ’the celestial of the spiritual’, or Joseph, might be experienced by us.

There is nothing in us, as we are in ourselves, that desires anything of a genuine spiritual nature. All the motivation to seek out truths, use them to examine the life of our mind and to shun any evils that are disclosed, is solely from the Lord, this being the activity of goods and truths within the human mind. Where we read about every good needing to be wedded to its truth, and every truth to its good, we are given insight into how the processes of regeneration are enacted. For it is the presence of good flowing into the human mind that motivates the search for truths and where these are acquired spiritual work involving self examination and repentance becomes a possibility. Truths seeking their goods is experienced as a motivation to examine oneself with a view to discovering what evils are present and need to be shunned. For truths instruct the mind as to what good is and from that instruction what is opposed to good can be seen.In this case truths form the spiritual and the willingness to implement them in an effort directed toward self examination and repentance is ’the celestial of the spiritual’ understood in the context of Logopraxis work where we take a spiritual principle, develop a work focus or task and seek to implement it, that we might see how it is true from direct experience of the Word working in our life. Nothing of self examination and repentance is from our self, it is all the Lord or the activity of the Word as ’the celestial of the spiritual in the natural’.