16. Lacking a spiritual understanding, no one would know why the prophet Jeremiah was commanded to buy a belt and put it around his waist, not to put it in water, and to hide it in a crevice in the rocks near the Euphrates (Jeremiah 13:1-7). No one would know why the prophet Isaiah was commanded to take the sackcloth off his waist and the sandals off his feet and to go naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:2-3). No one would know why the prophet Ezekiel was commanded to take a razor to his head and his beard and then to divide the hair, burning a third of it in the middle of the city, striking a third with a sword, and scattering a third to the wind; also, to bind a few hairs in his hems, and eventually to throw a few into the midst of a fire (Ezekiel 5:1-4). The same prophet was commanded to lie on his left side for three hundred ninety days and on his right side for forty days and to make himself a cake out of wheat, barley, millet, and spelt and bake it over cow dung and eat it; and at another time to make a siege wall and a mound against [an image of] Jerusalem and besiege it (Ezekiel 4:1-15). No one would know why the prophet Hosea was twice commanded to take a whore as his wife (Hosea 1:2-9; 3:2-3), and other things of the same sort.

Beyond that, without a spiritual understanding who would know the meaning of all the objects in the tabernacle - the ark, for example, the mercy seat, the angel guardians, the lampstand, the altar of incense, the showbread on the table, its veils and curtains? Without a spiritual understanding, who would know the meaning of Aaron’s sacred garments - his tunic, robe, ephod, the Urim and Thummim, his turban, and so on? Without a spiritual understanding, who would know the meaning of all the commandments about burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings, and drink offerings, about Sabbaths and festivals? The truth is that every bit of what was commanded meant something about the Lord, heaven, and the church.

You can see clearly in these few examples that there is a spiritual meaning throughout the Word and in its details.

377. I am about to discuss the correspondence of the heart and the lungs with volition and discernment. Upon this rests the correspondence of everything in the body, called the members of the body as a whole, the sensory organs, and the body's viscera. Further, the correspondence of physical things with spiritual ones has not been recognized even though it was fully demonstrated in two works, one of which is Heaven and Hell and the other of which is on the spiritual meaning of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, titled Secrets of Heaven. For all these reasons, I should like now to point out the sections of these two works where I have written explanations of correspondence.

In Heaven and Hell, there is material on the correspondence of everything in heaven with everything in us, 87-102; and on the correspondence of everything in heaven with everything on earth, 103-115.

In the work on the spiritual meaning of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, titled Secrets of Heaven, there is material on the correspondence of the face and its expressions with the feelings of the mind: 1568, 2988, 2989, 3631, 4796, 4797, 4880 [4800], 5195 [5165], 5168, 5695, 9306;

on the correspondence of the body in its motions and actions with matters of discernment and volition: 2988, 3632, 4215;

on the correspondence of the senses in general: 4318-4330;

on the correspondence of the eyes and their sight: 4403-4420;

on the correspondence of the nostrils and smell: 4624-4634;

on the correspondence of the ears and hearing: 4652-4634 [4652-4659];

on the correspondence of the tongue and taste: 4791-4805;

on the correspondence of the hands, arms, legs, and feet: 4931-4953;

on the correspondence of the groin and the reproductive organs: 5050-5062;

on the correspondence of the inner viscera of the body, particularly the stomach, thymus, the cisterna, the chyle and its ducts and the mesentery: 5171-5180, 5189 [5181];

on the correspondence of the spleen: 9698;

on the correspondence of the peritoneum, kidneys, and bladder: 5377-5396 [5377-5391];

on the correspondence of the liver and the ducts of the liver, of the bladder, and of the pancreas: 5183-5185;

on the correspondence of the intestines: 5392-5395, 5379;

on the correspondence of the bones: 5560-5564;

on the correspondence of the skin: 5552-5573;

on the correspondence of heaven with a person: 911, 1900, 1982 [2162], 2996, 2998, 3624-3649, 3741-3745, 3884, 4091 [4041], 4279 [4280], 4423 [4323], 4524, 4525, 6013, 6057, 9279, 9632;

on the fact that everything in the physical world and its three kingdoms corresponds to something you can see in the spiritual world: 1632, 1881, 2758, 2890-2893 [2990-2993], 2897-3043 [2987-3003], 3213-3227, 3483, 3624-3649, 4044, 4053, 4156, 4366 [4936], 4939, 5116, 5377, 5428, 4477 [5477], 8211, 9280; that everything you see in heaven is a correspondence: 1521, 1532, 1619-1625, 1807, 1808, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 2299, 2601, 3213-3226, 3348, 3350, 3457 [3475], 3485, 3748 [3747], 9481, 9570, 9576, 9577. The correspondence of the literal meaning of the Word with its spiritual meaning is dealt with throughout, and is also treated in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 5-26, 27-69.