10409. 'Who caused you to come up out of the land of Egypt' means which led them. This is clear from the meaning of 'causing to come up out of the land of Egypt', when those whose interest lies in external things and not in what is internal are the subject, as being self-led; for 'the land of Egypt', when they are the subject, means slavery, while 'causing to come up' means leading themselves out of it. For here the same words serve to mean the opposite of what they do when they are used in reference to those whose interest in external things is accompanied at the same time by an interest in what is internal. In reference to the latter those words mean being led by the Lord, thus being raised from the natural man to the spiritual man, or from the world to heaven, consequently passing from slavery into freedom. But when those words refer to people whose interest lies in external things and not in internal ones they mean being self-led, which does not constitute being raised to heaven but casting themselves down to hell, consequently passing from freedom into slavery. For the fact that being self-led is slavery, while being led by the Lord is freedom, see 2892, 9096, 9586, 9589-9591.

[2] But since these people suppose that nothing Divine is at work in a person and that a person is self-led, and also that this constitutes freedom, a brief statement on this subject must be made here. All who love themselves and the world above everything make this supposition and persuade themselves that it is right; for what they love above all things they worship as their god. Those like this in the Christian world at the present day are very many. But what they are really like I have been allowed to know primarily from such people in the next life; for when a person becomes a spirit after a life in the world he is - so far as the affections composing his love, and his thoughts and firm beliefs are concerned - exactly the same as what he was when he lived in the body. Those people have told me that they had substantiated that belief for themselves by the evidence that a person attains eminent positions and acquires wealth not as a result of any Divine help and Providence but as a result of his own intelligence and carefulness, and sometimes as a result of good fortune, though even then this is due to causes which are seen by them to have a human origin. They say that ordinary experience bears witness to this; for bad, deceitful, and wicked people rather than the good are frequently raised to eminent positions and become rich, which would not happen if the Divine were in control of things.

[3] But I have been allowed to tell them that the substantiation of their belief by the use of such ideas is no more than reasoning which relies on their own intelligence and their own love, and such reasoning is based on mere illusions and takes place in complete darkness so far as awareness of causes is concerned. For they suppose that being raised to eminent positions and obtaining greater wealth than others is the real good that the Divine confers on a person, and so they suppose that a Divine blessing, as they also call those gains, lies in such things alone. But those gains are more of a curse to those who love self and the world above all things; for to the extent that people rise to important positions and obtain wealth by their own application and skill, they rise into self-love and love of the world, till at length they set their whole heart on those things and regard them as the only possible forms of good, thus the only possible forms of happiness and bliss for a human being. But those things come to an end with a person's life in the world, whereas the forms of good, happiness, and bliss which the Divine gives a person and provides him with are eternal and do not come to an end, so that these are the true blessings. What is temporary bears no comparison with what is eternal, just as a limited amount of time bears none with an unlimited amount of it. What lasts to eternity has being, in comparison with which what comes to an end does not have being. The Divine provides that which has being, but not that which does not have being, except insofar as it is of use to the former. For Jehovah, who is the Deity Himself, has Being; and what is derived from Him also has being. From this it is evident what anything that the Divine gives a person and provides him with is like and what anything that a person does for himself is like.

[4] Furthermore the Divine leads each individual person by means of his power of understanding; if this were not so, no person at all could be saved. That is why the Divine leaves a person's understanding in freedom and does not restrict it. And this explains why the evil are successful with their ploys and tricks, which are a product of their understanding. But the happiness they get out of all this comes to an end with their life in the world and turns to unhappiness, whereas the things which the Divine provides the good with do not come to an end; and they become sources of eternal happiness and bliss.

[5] When I have talked about these matters to those who were such in the world they have said in response that they had not thought anything at all then about what was eternally good, happy, and blissful, and that whenever the loves that were truly theirs took charge of them they had totally denied the reality of a person's life after death. They said that inasmuch as they had attained important positions and acquired wealth they had thought that no other forms of good existed, indeed that neither heaven nor the Divine existed; consequently they had not known what being led by the Divine might be.

[6] Those in the world who have become entrenched in these ways of thinking in doctrine and in life remain like that in the next life. Their interiors are closed, and so they do not have any contact with heaven. Only their exteriors lie open, by means of which they are then in contact solely with the hells. Those of them who have attained important positions or acquired riches by means of ploys, skillful devices, and tricks become sorcerers there. They are seen below the buttocks, seated at a table and wearing a hat pulled down to the eyebrows. Seated thus, seemingly deep in thought, they assemble ideas of use to a sorcerer's skill, while assuming that they have the ability to lead themselves by means of them. Their speech as it passes between their teeth makes a sort of whistling noise. Afterwards, when they undergo vastation, they are cast into a wide-bottomed pit, where there is total darkness. There the light of their understanding decreases till it becomes dull-wittedness. I have seen among those cast down there people who in the world had been considered the cleverest.