5119. 'And I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup means a reciprocal influx into good deeds that have a spiritual origin. This is clear from the meaning of 'grapes' as the good deeds of charity, dealt with just above in 5117, and so as good deeds that have a spiritual origin, since every good deed of genuine charity originates there; and from the meaning of 'pressing into Pharaoh's cup' as a reciprocal influx. The expression 'reciprocal influx' does not mean that the exterior natural flows into the interior natural, for that is not possible. Exterior things cannot by any means flow into interior ones, or what amounts to the same, lower or posterior things into higher or prior ones. The reciprocal influx takes place when the rational calls forth things present in the interior natural, and also, by means of the interior natural, those present in the exterior natural. Not that it calls forth what actually exists there but what is deduced or so to speak extracted from what is there. This is what the reciprocal influx is.

[2] It does seem as though things in the world pass by way of the senses into what is present within; but that is an illusion of the senses. The reality is that what exists within flows into what is outward, and that this influx is what enables discernment to take place. I have discussed these matters with spirits on several occasions and have been shown through actual experiences that the interior man sees and discerns within the exterior man what is taking place outside the exterior man, and that the life of the senses has no other origin; that is, neither the ability to perceive with the senses nor actual sensory perception has any other origin. But the nature and power of this illusion are such that it cannot by any means be banished from the natural man, nor even from the rational, unless the rational man can be made to stand aside from sensory impressions. All this has been mentioned to show what reciprocal influx is.

217. That in the Word 'vine' means spiritual good and 'fig' natural good is totally unknown nowadays because the internal sense of the Word has been lost. Nevertheless this is what vine and fig mean or embody whenever they occur, as with the Lord's statements in His parables involving a vineyard and also a fig tree, and in the incident recorded in Matthew,

Jesus seeing a fig tree by the wayside went to it but found nothing on it but leaves only; therefore He said to it, Let no fruit from now on ever be born from you! Therefore the fig tree withered at once. Matthew 21:19.

This meant that no good, not even natural good, was found on earth. 'Vine' and 'fig' have the same meaning in Jeremiah,

Were they ashamed that they committed abomination? No indeed, they were not at all filled with shame and they did not know how to blush. Therefore I will surely gather them, says Jehovah; there will be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; and its leaf has fallen. Jeremiah 8:12-13.

This means that all good, both spiritual and natural, had perished, for people were such that they were not even capable of being filled with shame, just as nowadays people governed by evil are so brazen that they even boast about that evil. In Hosea,

Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel; like the first fruit on the fig tree, in the beginning, I saw your fathers. Hosea 9:10.

And in Joel,

Fear not, you beasts of my fields, for the tree will bear its fruit, the fig tree and the vine will give their full yield. Joel 2:22.

'Vine' stands for spiritual good, 'fig' for natural good.