221. 5. The exteriors of the Temple in Jerusalem, as well, represented the types of good and truth that exist in the Word's literal meaning. The Temple represented heaven and the church just as the tabernacle did, although the Temple meant the heaven where the spiritual angels are, while the tabernacle meant the heaven where the heavenly angels are. Spiritual angels have wisdom because of the Word. Heavenly angels have love because of the Word.

The Lord himself teaches in John that in its highest meaning the Temple at Jerusalem stood for the Lord's divine-human manifestation:

"Break this temple in pieces and I will raise it in three days. " He was speaking of the temple of his body. (John 2:19, 21)

When something means the Lord it also means the Word, because he is the Word.

Since the interiors of the Temple represented the inner parts of heaven and the church, and the inner parts of the Word as well, its exteriors in turn represented and meant the outer parts of heaven and the church, and the outer parts of the Word as well, which belong to its literal meaning. We read of the exteriors of the Temple that they were built of whole, uncut stone, with cedar on the inside face; all the walls were carved on the inside with angel guardians, palm trees, and open flowers; and the floor was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:7, 29-30). All these details stand for the outer parts of the Word, which are holy aspects of its literal meaning.

351. [b] Truths of faith come together to form structures that are like fascicles of nerves. People are still not aware of this. They do not know about it, because the spiritual truths that form the whole fabric of the Word have been invisible as a consequence of the mystical and enigmatic faith that takes up every square inch of modern-day theology. The result is that spiritual truths have sunk into the ground like old barns.

So that you will know what I mean by "structures" that are like "fascicles of nerves," I offer this explanation. The first chapter of this book, which is on God the Creator, has parts that form its structure. The first part of that chapter is on the oneness of God, the second on the underlying divine reality or Jehovah, the third on the infinity of God, the fourth on the essence of God, which is divine love and wisdom, the fifth on God's omnipotence, and the sixth on creation. Each of these parts is further subdivided into points that form its structure. These points wrap up the teachings they contain and form something like sheaves. These structures, on both the larger and the smaller scale, both jointly and separately, contain truths that elevate and improve our faith depending on the quantity of truths we have and on the bonds that exist between these truths.

[2] The human mind is structured. It is a spiritual organism that terminates in a physical organism in which and according to which the mind thinks or produces its ideas. People who do not know this cannot help thinking that perceptions, thoughts, and ideas are just rays and variations of light flowing into their heads and creating forms that they see and recognize as the thought process. This is ridiculous. As everyone knows, our heads are full of brains, our brains are structured, our minds live in them, and our ideas become fixed and permanent there as we receive and reinforce these ideas.

The next question is, how is the mind organized? The answer is that all its parts are arranged to form structures that are like fascicles of nerves. The truths that constitute faith are also arranged this way in the human mind.

The truth of this can be illustrated by the following observations.

[3] The cerebrum consists of two substances. One of them is glandular; it is called the cortex or gray-matter. The other is made of fibrils and is called the medullary substance. The first of these two, the glandular substance, is arranged in clusters like grapes on a vine. These clusters, then, constitute the structure of the glandular substance. The other substance, the medullary one, consists of common bundles of fascicles of individual nerve fibrils that come from the glands of the first substance. These common bundles of nerve fascicles, then, constitute the structure of the medullary substance.

All the nerves that come from the brain and go down into the body to perform various functions there are nothing but sheaves and fascicles of fibers. So are all muscles, and all the internal organs and other organs of the body. All these parts have this form because they correspond to the structures of the organism of the mind.

[4] Furthermore, absolutely everything in the whole of nature has a structure that consists of common bundles of fascicles of fibers. Every tree, shrub, bush, and vegetable - in fact, every type of grass and herb - has this characteristic in whole and in part. The overall cause of this is that divine truths are shaped this way. We read that all things were created by the Word, that is, by divine truth; and also that the world was made by the Word (John 1:1 and following). From all this you can see that if the human mind lacked a comparable organization of its substances, we would lack the analytical reasoning power that we all have. This reasoning power depends on how organized our minds are; that is, it depends on our having a quantity of truths that are bound together like strands in a cable. The level of organization in our minds in turn depends on our use of reason in freedom.