5128. 'When you were his cupbearer' means as is the normal position for sensory impressions of this kind. This is clear from the meaning of 'cupbearer' as the powers of the senses, that is, those of them that are subject to the understanding part of the mind, dealt with in 5077, 5082 - the normal position being meant by the expression 'when you were'. The need for sensory impressions to be subject and subordinate to rational ideas has been referred to already in what has gone before; but since the subjection and subordination of them is the subject here in the internal sense, something more must be said about the nature of this.

[2] The person with whom the senses have been made subject is called a rational person, but a person with whom they have not is called one ruled by his senses. But whether a person is rational or whether he is one ruled by his senses is scarcely discernible by others; only the individual himself can know, if he examines himself inwardly, that is, if he examines what he wills and what he thinks. Others cannot know from a person's speech whether he is one ruled by his senses or whether he is a rational person, nor can they know it from his actions, because the life of his thought held within his speech and the life of his will held within his actions cannot be perceived by any of the physical senses. These hear merely the sound he utters, or they see the movement made by his body together with the affection that impels him to make it. One cannot tell whether this affection is artificial or genuine. In the next life however those who are governed by good perceive clearly both what is held within a person's speech and what is held within his actions, and so perceive the nature of the life within them and where that life has its origin. Yet even in the world several indications exist which enable one to deduce to some extent whether the senses are subject to the rational, or the rational to the senses; or what amounts to the same, whether a person is rational or ruled solely by his senses. Those indications are as follows: If one notices that a person who makes false assumptions is not ready to become more enlightened but casts truths altogether aside, dispenses with reason, and obstinately defends falsities, this is an indication that he is ruled by his senses and is not a rational person. His rational is closed, so that it does not let in the light of heaven.

[3] Ruled even more by their senses are those who are quite convinced by what is false, for such a conviction closes the rational altogether. It is one thing to make false assumptions, another to be convinced by what is false. Those convinced by what is false do have some light shining within their natural, but this is like the light in winter. When it shines among them in the next life that light is as bright as snow; but as soon as the light of heaven falls on it, it becomes a dull light, the degree and nature of their conviction making it dark as night. The same is also evident in these people while they are living in the world, for during that time they are unable to see the faintest glimmer of truth. Indeed because of the dullness and benightedness due to the falsity of which they are convinced, they see no value at all in truths and laugh at them. To the simple those people sometimes give the impression that they are rational, for by means of that snowy-white wintry light they are able to employ clever reasonings to substantiate falsities and make them look like truths. This kind of conviction exists in many of the learned, more than in every other kind of person, for they have used syllogistic and philosophical reasonings, and finally much factual knowledge to become firmly convinced by falsities. Among the ancients such people were called serpents belonging to the tree of knowledge, 195-197, but today they may be called those who are ruled inwardly by their senses and are devoid of true rationality.

[4] The main indication that shows whether someone is ruled wholly by his senses or whether he is a rational person exists in the life he leads. By this one does not mean the kind of life that is evident in his words and deeds but the kind that is held inwardly in these. For the source of the life within his words is his thought, and the source of the life within his deeds is his will, both having their origin in his intentions or end in view. The nature therefore of the intentions or end in view present within his words and deeds determines the nature of the life they hold within them, for without the life within them words are mere sounds, while deeds are mere motions. This kind of life is also what is meant when one speaks of life continuing after death. If a person is rational his words flow from right thinking and his deeds from right willing; that is, his words are a product of faith and his deeds a product of charity. But if a person is not rational he can, it is true, make a pretence of acting as one who is rational, and likewise of speaking as one who is such; but no life at all is coming from his rational. For a life of evil closes entirely the path to or communication with the rational, which causes him to be a merely natural person or one ruled by his senses.

[5] There are two things which not only close that path of communication but also rob a person of the ability ever to become rational - deceit and profanation. Deceit is like a subtle poison which affects the inward parts, while profanation is that which mixes up falsities with truths and evils with forms of good. The two completely destroy the rational. Present with everyone there are forms of good and truth which have been stored away by the Lord since earliest childhood. In the Word these forms of good and truth are called remnants, regarding which see 468, 530, 560, 561, 661, 1050, 1738, 1906, 2284; and it is these remnants that deceit poisons and that profanation mixes up with falsities and evils. For what profanation is, see 593, 1008, 1010, 1059, 1327, 1328, 2051, 2426, 3398, 3402, 3489, 3898, 4289, 4601. All these indications show to some extent who a rational person is and who one ruled by his senses is.

[6] When the senses have become subject to the rational, the sensory powers that serve to form a person's first mental images receive light which comes through heaven from the Lord; they are at the same time brought into a state of order that enables them to receive that light and agree with the rational. Once they exist in this condition sensory impressions are no longer a barrier that prevents truths from being either acknowledged or seen, for those that are not in keeping with truths are instantly set aside, while those which are in keeping are accepted. Those that are in keeping are now so to speak at the centre and those that are not are on the fringes. Those at the centre are so to speak raised up towards heaven, while those on the fringes are hanging downwards. Those at the centre receive light from the rational, and when they are manifested visually in the next life they look like small glittering stars which radiate light, gradually decreasing, out to the fringes. This is the kind of form that natural or sensory images are being brought into when the rational has dominion and the senses exist subject to it. This is what happens to a person while he is being regenerated, bringing him as a consequence into a state in which truths can be seen and acknowledged by him in abundance. But when the rational is subject to the senses the opposite happens, for in this case falsities are in the middle or at the centre and truths are on the fringes. The falsities at the centre dwell in a certain kind of light, which however is an inferior and deceptive one, like that emitted by a coal fire. Into this there is flowing light on every side from hell. This inferior light is that which is called darkness, for as soon as any light from heaven flows into it, it is converted into darkness.

424. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth. (9:3) This symbolically means that from them issued falsities of the lowest sort, such as are found in the case of people who have become sensual and who view and judge everything in accordance with the senses and their fallacies.

Falsities that we term falsities of the lowest sort are those which occur on the lowest level of a person's life, called sensual, which we will speak of below. These falsities are symbolized in the Word by locusts. It should be known, however, that the locusts here did not look like the locusts found in fields, which hop about and devastate pastures and crops. Instead they looked like pygmies or midgets, as is apparent also from their description, as for instance, that they had crowns on their heads, faces like the faces of men, hair like women's hair, teeth like lions' teeth, breastplates of iron, and the angel of the bottomless pit as king over them.

Ancient peoples, too, called midgets locusts, as we can conclude from these verses:

(Those who spied out the land of Canaan said:) ."..we saw the Nephilim, the descendants of the Anakim..., and we were like locusts... in their sight." (Numbers 13:33)

(Jehovah) who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants like locusts... (Isaiah 40:22)

[2] However, because falsities of the lowest sort, such as existed in the people here, are in the Word symbolized by locusts, therefore in Nahum the people are called locusts, as well as being termed crowned and commanders:

...the fire will devour you..., it will eat you up like a locust's larva. Make yourself many like the locust's larva! Make yourself many like locusts! ...Your crowned ones are like locusts, and your commanders like great locusts... (Nahum 3:15-17)

Because falsities of the lowest sort devour the growing truths and goods of the church in a person, they are symbolized by locusts which devour the grasses in fields and the vegetation on farms, as is clear from the following passages:

You shall carry much seed out to the field, but... the locust shall consume it. (Deuteronomy 28:38)

What the caterpillar left, the locust will eat; what the locust left, the beetle grub will eat; and what the beetle grub left, the locust's larva will eat. (Joel 1:4)

I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the beetle grub, the locust's larva, and the caterpillar... (Joel 2:25)

[3] The locusts in Egypt have the same symbolic meaning, of which we read the following in Exodus:

Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and... the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt...; previously there had been no such locusts...; and they ate every herb... of the field... (Exodus 10:12ff.)

And afterward Moses stretched out his rod, and the locusts were cast into the Red Sea.

Further, in the book of Psalms:

He gave their produce to the locust's larva, and their labor to the locust. (Psalms 78:46, cf. 105:34-35)

The miracles in Egypt describe the devastation of the church, and this particular miracle, its devastation by falsities of the lowest sort. And when the inner levels of a person's life are closed, on which the lowest levels depend, the lowest levels become hellish. Therefore the locusts were cast into the Red Sea, which symbolizes hell.

[4] Since few people today know what we mean by the sensual level, or what the character of a sensual person is, and since this is what locusts symbolize, therefore we will introduce from our Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven) the following extracts regarding it:

The sensual level is the lowest of a person's mental life, attaching to and uniting with his five physical senses (nos. 5077 5767, 9212, 9216, 9331, 9730).

That person is called sensual who judges of everything in accordance with his physical senses, and who believes in nothing but what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands, saying that if he can, it is real, and rejecting everything else (nos. 5094 7693).

The inner levels of that person's mind, which see in the light of heaven, are closed, so that he sees no truth on those levels which has to do with heaven and the church (nos. 6564, 6844, 6845).

A person like that thinks on the lowest levels, and not interiorly in any spiritual light (nos. 5089 5094, 6564, 7693).

In a word, people like that have a crude natural sight (nos. 6201 6310, 6564, 6844, 6845, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624).

Inwardly they are therefore hostile to matters having to do with heaven and the church, though it is possible for them to speak in favor of them outwardly, even ardently, according to the power they have by virtue of them (nos. 6201, 6316, 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949).

The educated and learned who have deeply confirmed themselves in falsities, and still more those who are hostile to the Word's truths, are more sensual than others (no. 6316).

Sensual people reason keenly and skillfully, because their thinking is so near to speech as to almost reside in it, and to be, so to speak, on the lips, and because they place all intelligence in speech from the memory alone; moreover, some of them can cleverly defend falsities, and after they have done so, believe they are true (nos. 195 196, 5700, 10236).

They reason from fallacies of the senses and defend them, which they use to captivate and persuade the populace (nos. 5084 6948, 6949, 7693).

Sensual people are craftier and more malicious than others (nos. 7693, 10236).

Greedy people, adulterers, hedonists, and the deceitful are especially sensual, even though to the world they do not appear so (no. 6310).

The interiors of their minds are foul and filthy (no. 6201).

Through them they are in communication with the hells (no. 6311).

People residing in the hells are sensual, and the more so the deeper the hell (nos. 4623 6311).

The atmosphere of spirits in hell mixes with a person's sensual level from behind (no. 6312).

People who have based their reasoning on the evidence of the senses only, and so are hostile to the genuine truths of the church, were called by ancient peoples serpents of the tree of knowledge (nos. 195, 196, 197, 6398, 6399, 10313).

In addition, a person's sensual level and the sensual person are described (no. 10236), together with the extent of the sensual things in a person (no. 9731).

Sensual things ought to be held in last place, and not in first place, and in a wise and intelligent person they are held in last place, subject to more interior ones, while in a foolish person they are in first place and dominant; the latter are those properly called sensual (nos. 5077 5125, 5128, 7645).

If sensual things are in last place, they are the means by which a path is opened to understanding, and truths are refined by a process of abstraction (no. 5580).

These sensual things are the closest to the world, and they admit things that flow in from the world and, so to speak, sift them (no. 9726).

By these sensual things a person is in communication with the world, and by rational things with heaven (no. 4009).

Sensual things supply materials that are of service to the interior levels of the mind (nos. 5077 5081).

Some sensual things are of service to the intellectual faculty, and some are of service to the volitional faculty (no. 5077).

If a person does not raise his thought from sensual things, he is hardly wise (no. 5089).

A wise person thinks above the level of sensual things (nos. 5089, 5094).

When a person raises his thinking above the level of sensual things, he comes into a clearer sight, and finally into the light of heaven (nos. 6183 6313, 6315, 9407, 9730, 9922).

An elevation above the level of sensual things and withdrawal from them was something known to ancient peoples (no. 6313).

A person can be conscious in his spirit of things that occur in the spiritual world, if he can be withdrawn from sensual things by the Lord and elevated into the light of heaven (no. 4622). That is because it is not the body that thinks, but a person's spirit in the body, and to the extent that it dwells in the body, it thinks dimly and in a state of darkness; however, to the extent that it does not dwell in the body, it thinks clearly and in a state of light - but only as regards spiritual matters (nos. 4622, 6614, 6622).

The lowest level of the intellect is sensual knowledge, and the lowest level of the will is sensual delight (no. 9996).

The difference between sensual characteristics possessed in common with animals, and those not possessed in common with them (no. 10236).

Some sensual people are not evil, because their interior levels have not been closed: their state in the other life (no. 6311).