Arcana Coelestia # 4936
4936. On several occasions spirits have appeared holding rods, who, I was told, were magicians. They are in front, a long way off on the right, deeply within caverns. Magicians who have been more malevolent ones are hidden more deeply than the rest within them. They seem to themselves to have rods, and by means of delusions they also produce many more kinds of rods, believing that they can use these to perform miracles. For they imagine that these rods have power within them, and they imagine this because the right hand and the arm, which by correspondence are embodiments of strength and power, support themselves on those rods. This has made it evident to me why people of old assigned rods to magicians, for the gentiles of old received this idea from the representative Ancient Church, in which rods, like the hand, meant power, see 4876. And because these meant power Moses was commanded, when miracles were performed, to stretch out his rod or his hand, Exodus 4:17, 20; 8:5-20; 9:23; 10:3-21; 14:21, 26-27; 17:5-6, 11-12; Numbers 20:7-10.
Ezekiel 11:16-21
16
Therefore say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Whereas I have removed them far off among the nations, and whereas I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them a sanctuary for a little while in the countries where they are come.
17
Therefore say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.
18
They shall come there, and they shall take away all the detestable things of it and all its abominations from there.
19
I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh;
20
that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
21
But as for them whose heart walks after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their way on their own heads, says the Lord Yahweh.
