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.

2733. There were certain spirits who, from a practice followed by them during their lifetime, were molesting me with particular skill. They did so by means of a rather gentle wave-like influx, resembling the ordinary influx from upright spirits. But I perceived that within that influx trickery and the like were present, to entice and to deceive. At length I spoke to one of them who, I was told, had during his lifetime been the commander of an army. And because I perceived that licentiousness was present in the ideas comprising his thought, I talked to him about marriage in the language used by spirits, which is illustrated with representatives and which expresses one's sentiments completely and many things in an instant.

[2] He said that during his lifetime he had thought nothing of adulterous behaviour. But I was given to tell him that all adultery is quite unspeakable, even though to those who are guilty of it it does not seem - because of the delight they take in it and the persuasive beliefs that result from it - to be unspeakable, but even allowable. I said that he might also know this from the fact that marriages are the seminaries of the human race and therefore the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom as well, and for that reason must not on any account be violated but be held sacred. He might also know, I continued, that adultery is unspeakable from the fact, which he ought to know because he was now in the next life and in a state of perception, that conjugial love comes down from the Lord by way of heaven, and that from that love, as from a parent, mutual love is derived, which is the foundation on which heaven rests. And he might know it also from the fact that when they merely move towards heavenly communities adulterers become aware of their own stench and cast themselves away from there down towards hell. He might at least have known that violence done to marriages was contrary to Divine laws, and contrary to the civil laws of all people, as well as contrary to the genuine light of reason, since it is contrary to order, both Divine and human, not to mention many considerations besides these.

[3] But he replied that he had never known such things during his lifetime, nor had he thought about them. He wished to reason whether what he had heard was so, but he was told that in the next life truth leaves no room for reasonings, for reasonings lend support to a person's delights, and so to his evils and falsities. I went on to tell him that he ought first to think about the things he had been told, because they were true; or at least he ought to think from the principle very widely known in the world that nobody ought to do to another what he does not wish that other to do to him. If some other man, I asked, had in a similar way seduced the wife whom he loved - as men love their wives at the beginning of every marriage - would he not also, when feeling irate about what had occurred, have expressed, if he spoke from that feeling, a loathing for all adultery? Also, being a man with mental ability, would he not have confirmed himself more than others against all adultery, even condemning it to hell? Thus he might have judged himself from what he possessed within himself.