The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms # 157
157. Internal Meaning of Ezekiel, Chapter 34
1-4 Respecting teachers who regard their own good only, and not the good of the church. (2)
5-6 In consequence those who are of the church come into an evil life. (2)
7-10 Being such, everything of the church is taken from them. (3)
11-16 When the Lord comes into the world He will gather the church together, and will teach it Divine truths. (11, 11)
16-17 The evil among them He will separate. (3, 11)
18-20 Evil shepherds destroy everything of the church, (3)
21 and destroy the simple. (3, 6)
22-25 When the Lord comes He will teach and save these. (1, 11)
26-31 He will both teach them and protect them from falsities, and they will acknowledge Him. (11)
Arcana Coelestia # 6614
6614. I have been shown by actual experience how angelic ideas flow into the ideas of the spirits who are beneath them, therefore into ideas that are grosser. An abundance of ideas from the angelic heaven presented themselves visually as a shining white cloud that could be distinguished into separate little tufts; and each little tuft, which consisted of countless strands, presented a spirit with one simple idea. After that I was shown that such an idea contained thousands and thousands of strands, which were also represented by means of a cloud composed of the spirits' speech. After this I spoke to the spirits on these matters, saying that the objects of sight can be used by way of illustration. When an object which looks like a simple whole is examined with an optical device thousands of unseen details present themselves to view, as when tiny grubs which look like one dark blob are examined with a microscope; not only the multiplicity of them is seen but also the shape of each one. If even greater magnification is used to examine them, their organs, members, viscera, and vessels and fibres too can be seen. So also with the ideas constituting thought. Each one has thousands and thousands of strands to it; yet a number of ideas together from which a thought is formed are seen merely as a simple whole. Even so, the ideas that constitute one thought can contain more than the ideas constituting another. How much it contains is determined by its spread into communities round about.
